When Resilience Becomes Exhaustion
- Dr. Shari Nicole
- Nov 19, 2025
- 9 min read
How to Stop Resenting Your Own Strength
There’s a distinct exhaustion that comes from being strong for too long. Not the kind that sleep can fix, but the kind that settles into your bones when the world keeps expecting you to show up, adapt, and overcome no matter what it throws at you.
I know this exhaustion intimately.
I’m 40-something. Black. Louisiana-born. And I’ve spent my entire life being the kind of woman who gets it done. No questions asked. Respectfully.
Follow the plan. Check the boxes. Build the stability. Be successful.
And I was. I am.
But here’s where the story gets complicated: I walked myself into a love story with someone from another continent. Someone whose language I’m learning word by stumbling word. Someone who’s showing me there’s a completely different way to be in this world.
And suddenly, every single thing I thought I’d stabilized? I’m choosing to rebuild it.
I dove headfirst into planning a wedding on the other side of the world. Pivoting my career into a territory I can’t even fully see yet. Learning Kiswahili. Splitting my mornings, my evenings, my meals, my jokes, my life between two continents. Trying to hold onto who I am while becoming someone new.
Some days, I move through this like water.
Other days, I’m staring into my Kiswahili textbook at words that look like beautiful hieroglyphics, feeling the full weight of “this is my actual life now,” wondering what I’ve gotten myself into.
And I’m done pretending those moments don’t exist because I’m learning that pretending to be “endlessly strong” turns resilience into a trap instead of a virtue.
The Hidden Cost of Always Being Strong
We talk about resilience like it’s an infinite resource, something we should always be able to summon up, especially for those of us who’ve had to be resilient just to survive.
The world taught us that resilience is currency. That being strong is how we earn our place. If we just keep pushing through, eventually we’ll get to rest. But what they didn’t tell us? That “eventually” never comes. There’s always another crisis. Another expectation. Another reason why now isn’t the time to be tired.
And so we keep going. Until resilience curdles into resentment. Until it starts feeling like a performance you can’t get off stage from. Until we’re not strong anymore, we’re just exhausted.
Until the voice in our head sounds less like encouragement and more like an indictment: Girl, you’ve been through worse. Why can’t you handle this? What’s wrong with you?
Well, let me tell you what’s wrong with me…
A pause for the cause…The free tier gives you the spark. The full Blueprint gives you the fire. Stories, tools, and community that make change real.
Absolutely nothing. Nothing to see here. I’m just tired of being resilient!
What Your Resilience Fatigue Is Really Trying to Tell You
That judgmental voice that says you’re somehow failing because you’re tired, is often louder than the fatigue itself. I know this because I hear it loud and clear. It’s like a record on repeat saying,
You chose this life. You wanted this relationship. Why are you struggling?
You’ve navigated hard things before. Why does learning Kiswahili feel impossible some days?
You’ve been in love before. Why does becoming a wife seem so foreign?
Other people manage international relationships just fine. Why can’t you?
In moments when I’ve been able to quiet the judgment long enough, here’s what I’m learning, messily and in real-time: Resilience fatigue isn’t a character flaw. It’s a message. Asking me to listen. And I’d been too busy performing strength to listen to it.
So how do we start to combat that judgment? How do we honor our fatigue without losing ourselves to it?
Out of stumbling through answering these questions, I created something pretty dope. Not because I have it all figured out (I absolutely don’t), but because I needed a map for this because I certainly wasn’t prepared.
I call it the WISE Method. And it’s saved me on more bathroom floors and through more overwhelming
From Resentful Resilience Fatigue to WISE Living
W – What’s Actually Happening Here? (Stop Performing, Start Witnessing)
Before we can combat judgment, we have to see it clearly.
Resilience fatigue doesn’t announce itself. It disguises itself as irritability, numbness, procrastination, or that feeling of going through the motions. It shows up when you snap at your partner over something small, or when you stare at your to-do list and feel nothing, or when the thought of one more decision makes you want to crawl under the covers.
Here’s your first assignment:
Stop moving. Stop judging. Just for a minute. Check in with yourself, what are you really feeling under all the “supposed-to”?
Not what a strong woman would feel. Not what a grateful person should feel. What you actually feel.
Wondering what about my answer to this question? Well…
Beneath the exhaustion of visa applications and wedding planning across eight time zones and staring at Kiswahili verbs I can’t quite wrap my tongue around, there’s grief.
Grief for the version of my life I’m leaving behind. The certainty I worked so hard to build. The expectations of my family and friends who thought they knew who I was and what I’d do. There’s fear that I’m disappointing people. Anger that choosing my own path somehow means starting over when I’ve already climbed so many mountains.
Here are the questions that mattered for me to uncover what I wanted: Where am I feeling depleted or resentful? When did you last feel rested—not just your body, but your soul? What stories am I telling myself about what this says about my strength or worth?
Judgment thrives in silence and shame. Awareness brings light — it lets you see that fatigue isn’t failure; it’s feedback. Pause before labeling yourself as “not resilient.” Instead ask, “What might this fatigue be teaching me about what needs care, not control?”
I – Identify Intentions: What Do You Actually Want? (Not What You Should Want)
This is where we challenge the autopilot. This is the hardest question you’ll ask yourself. Because most of us have been on autopilot so long, we’ve forgotten the difference between what we want and what we’ve been programmed to want.
I followed the rules. Built the life. Did the things. And it worked. Until it didn’t. Until I wanted something I never planned for. Something that made my carefully constructed life feel too small. And even with that, everyone else will have opinions about it. Especially when your choice doesn’t fit their narrative of who you’re supposed to be.
You’re considering leaving America? But your whole family is here.
You’re learning a whole new language at your age?
Why would you uproot everything when you’re already successful?
Resilience fatigue often comes from living according to other people’s expectations or the expectations we internalized so long ago we forgot they weren’t originally ours.
Here’s your second assignment:
Write down what you want. Not what makes sense. Not what’s practical. What you want.
And here’s the permission you didn’t know you needed: You can want contradictory things.
I want to build a bicultural family and keep my Louisiana roots deep. I want to create a home across the ocean and maintain the life I built here. I want to honor my fiancé’s culture and never lose myself in the process. I’m being a daughter, a friend, a fiancée, a professional and some days these identities feel like they’re pulling me in different directions. I’m telling you from experience, you don’t have to choose one identity over another. You get to design what integration looks like.
The real questions I had to get real about:
If nobody else’s opinion mattered, not your mama’s, not your friends’, not even your own inner critic’s, what would you want your life to look like?
What parts of your old plan still serve you? What parts are you clinging to out of fear or obligation?
What does success mean to you now, not five years ago, not to anyone else but right now, in this moment of your life?
By answering these questions, I’m learning to give myself grace and redirect my lens from critique to connection. Now I set intentions like: “I anchor my worth in being human, not superhuman.”
S – Shape The Shift: Make One Move (Not Ten, Just One)
Awareness is beautiful. Clarity is powerful. But without action, they’re just expensive therapy sessions.
Here’s the problem: When you’re already running on empty, the idea of “making changes” sounds ridiculous.
Change my whole life? I can barely muster the energy to feed myself every single morning. Afternoon. Night. *sigh* So we don’t start big. We start so small it almost feels ridiculous.
Here’s your third assignment:
Pick one thing. One shift that moves you closer to what you actually want. Then break it down until it stops feeling impossible.
Learning Swahili felt like climbing Kilimanjaro when I thought about fluency. But ten minutes a day with Duolingo or two sessions a week with my Preply Tutor (check out my code for 75% off!) That I can do.
Planning a wedding in East Africa felt paralyzing until I gave myself permission to do it differently. Smaller. More intimate. More us.
The shift isn’t about doing more. You’re already doing too much. It’s about doing differently.
Here are some small moves that create big shifts:
Redefine rest. It’s not just sleep. It’s time without expectation. Without productivity. Without needing to prove you’re worthy of taking up space.
Release the timeline. You don’t need to have it figured out by next month. Or next year. Some things take time to unfold, and that doesn’t mean you’re behind.
Redistribute the weight. You’ve been carrying too much for too long. Ask for help. Accept support. Let people love you by showing up for you the way you show up for everyone else.
These questions moved me, so maybe they’ll do the same for you: What’s one boundary you need to set to stop the fatigue? What’s one thing you think you should do that nobody needs you to do?
E – Empower The Outcome: Measure What Actually Matters (Hint: It’s Not What You Think)
Our parents’ resilience asks: Did you overcome it? Did you make it through? Are you still standing?
Don’t misread me -- this type of resilience is important. But, is it sustainable?
The WISE Method asks something different: Are you living like yourself? Not the version of yourself everyone expects. Not the version that never stumbles. The real one. Messy, complicated, fully human you.
Here’s your final assignment:
Stop measuring progress by checkboxes and start measuring it by alignment. Some days, living in alignment looks like courage. Booking the plane ticket. Saying yes to a life you never imagined. Practicing Swahili even when your tongue trips over itself.
Other days, it looks like letting yourself climb into bed at 7pm and fall asleep watching Wicked. Because this is hard. And you’re allowed to feel that.
Both are growth. Both matter.
I’m not measuring success by how quickly I learn the language or how smoothly the visa process goes or whether everyone approves of my choices.
I’m measuring it by whether I’m showing up as myself. Fully. Messily. Authentically.
By whether the life I’m building feels like mine, not one that just looks good from the outside.
These questions have sustained me. My hope is that do the same for you: Am I living according to my truth, or have I slipped back into performing for an invisible audience? What evidence do I have that I’m growing, even when it doesn’t look like the growth I expected?
And The Point Of It All
You don’t have to be resilient all the time. Read that again. Let it land.
You are allowed to be tired. To grieve what you’re leaving behind even as you reach for something new. To feel the weight of having been strong for so damn long. You are allowed to break. To rest. To rebuild differently.
The judgment you’re carrying, the voice that says real strength means never struggling, that growth should be linear, that choosing yourself should somehow hurt less, is a lie. A full lie we’ve been sold by a world that benefits from our exhaustion. A world that doesn’t mind keeping us fatigued.
Real resilience isn’t about never breaking. It’s about giving yourself permission to be human. To stop performing strength and start living truth.
This journey isn’t just mine. I’m documenting it. Sharing it. Living it out loud.
Because somewhere, someone needs to know: You’re not failing because you’re fatigued. You’re not weak because you’re questioning. You’re not lost because you don’t have all the answers yet.
You’re human. You’re evolving. You’re standing at the edge of something new, even if you’re standing there on shaky legs.
And that? That takes more courage than pushing through ever did.
You Don’t Have to Do This Alone. If you’re navigating exhaustion and resentment from being unsustainably resilient and you’d like support in choosing the life that allows space for all of you AND rest:
PS: If you came here from Instagram, from a retreat, from the WISE Journal, or from someone who shared this with you, I’m so glad you’re here. There is room for you in this circle.
I’m building a life between North America and East Africa. Learning a new language. Planning a wedding across continents. Rebuilding everything I thought I’d stabilized. Some days with grace. Some days with tears. All days with intention. This is that story messy, honest, and yours if you need it.
This article is part of an ongoing series about navigating major life transitions with intention, honoring both the grace and the bathroom floor tears. Because the journey of designing the life you actually want, not the one you’re supposed to want, deserves to be witnessed, shared, and celebrated.
If you’ve found this helpful as you navigate becoming, consider subscribing, sharing with a friend, or leaving a note for me. I’ll be reading!
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