The Busy-Burnout Cycle Single Mums Don’t Talk About but should

Wondering when life is going to feel fun again? There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from being constantly busy — not productive, not fulfilled — just doing all the things to get by. Head just about water just enough for things to be OK… more or less. Life can feel like a hamster wheel that never stops spinning, and while sometimes you just want to stop and get away, there might be a part of you that feels like she just can’t.

When you’re a single mum carrying the financial load, the emotional weight of your children’s needs, and trying to build a future at the same time, overwhelm can feel like your permanent address.

You cope.
You push through.
Again and again and again.
Then you crash.

And then you do it all again.

It can feel like Groundhog Day — stress, survival, exhaustion, repeat.

I remember a season where I was juggling financial strain, school challenges with my son, my daughter’s mental health struggles, and the emotional complexity of a new relationship. On paper, I was functioning. But internally, I was drowning.

What I didn’t realise at the time was this:

I wasn’t failing.

I was in survival mode.

When Survival Mode Becomes Your Normal

Chronic stress changes how you think, decide and act. Or perhaps react, as is likely the case.

When your nervous system is constantly scanning for threat — financial instability, family stress, relationship uncertainty — you become reactive rather than strategic.

You make decisions from urgency instead of clarity.
You operate from desperation instead of confidence.
You focus on putting out fires instead of building stability.

And because survival mode narrows your perception, it can feel like there is no way out.

But there is.

The turning point for me wasn’t a mindset shift.
It was creating safety, which in my world was stability, in some small way that I could grow.

The Power of Building a Stable Foundation

Before I could think about growing my business or “thriving,” I needed stability.

That meant:

• Reaching out for financial support.
• Addressing my children’s needs directly and asking for help frequently
• Securing full-time work to relieve immediate pressure.

It wasn’t glamorous.
It wasn’t part of the original plan in any way shape or form.

But it created something my nervous system desperately needed:

Safety.

It needed a solid ground that didn’t keep moving and opening up under my feet with no sense of certainty at all.

Once that foundation was in place, everything started to change. My capacity expanded. I could approach decisions with calm confidence rather than breathless and frantic. And from that grounded place, new possibilities opened and started to emerge.

Sometimes the most empowered move is not pushing harder — it’s pausing, breathing and finding stability first.

No mean feat when life feels like a moving feast of out-of-control!

Creating Islands of Safety* During the Day

Alongside practical stability, I began regulating my nervous system in small ways.

I would pause during the day — even for a few minutes — and just feel my feet on the ground, the breath moving in and out of my body and the beating of my heart in my chest.
Bringing a hand to my chest was comforting.

 Then at the end of each day or when things felt too much I’d pause, take a breath and ask:
What feels overwhelming right now?
What is stressing me out?

I wrote each thing down.
Seeing it on paper stopped it from circling endlessly in my mind.

Then I asked:
What is one small next step I can take right now in this area.?

Not ten.
Not the entire solution.
Just one.

This practice improved my sleep.
It softened my reactivity.
It gave my body evidence that things were manageable.

I also began building what I call “islands of safety”:

• Placing a hand on my chest when emotions rose.
• Taking a slow breath in and a slower one out again.
• Noticing and acknowledging those feelings and sensations inside me

Gentle exploration and curiosity became calm and compassion.

Compassion became regulation.

And regulation became momentum.
And a slow process of building capacity from the inside out and from my body to my mind.

Understanding Overwhelm as a Nervous System Signal

Overwhelm is not a personal flaw.
It’s a biological response to prolonged stress.

A signal from deep within your system that uses emotions as signposts to where needed my curiosity and loving attention.

When stress becomes chronic, your nervous system’s ‘Window of Tolerance’ narrows. Small challenges feel enormous. Decision-making feels paralysing. Rest feels impossible.

The work is not to shame yourself into productivity.
Instead, it is to gently expand your capacity through curiosity and compassion, and allowing whatever is there to be there without judgement.

It is to learn to be with what is coming up inside you without flipping out into overwhelm.

You do that through gentle, compassionate and curious exploration of all that is deep within you.

When you learn to embrace the discomfort or everything feeling like too much, little by little, over time, your system learns that you are not trapped.
You are responding in a very valid way to something that needs to change.

And that shift can change everything.

A Gentle Reminder

If you feel constantly busy but never truly moving forward, it may not be a time-management problem.

It may be a safety problem.

Start by acknowledging where you are.
Stabilise what you can using what feels right for you.
Ask for help where you need it.
Create small daily pauses for compassion deep ‘listening’ to yourself, your heart, your body.

So you can start to hear that language of sensation your body speaks to you in all the time, whether you are listening or not.

From there, regulation and clarity returns.
Energy returns.
Choice returns.

And when you feel choice again, you are no longer in survival.

*Islands of safety – this is a concept that closely related to the concept of “glimmers” (small moments that make us feel safe, joy or peace) from Deb Dana’s 2018 book The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy. The phrase “Islands of Safety” comes from the work of Metis Family Therapist, Cathy Richardson and developer of response-based therapy, Allan Wade.