Is Your Kindness Killing You?

Learn to support others without sacrificing your sanity

It was 2am and I was standing in my kitchen, wine glass in hand, stress-eating leftover Chinese food straight from the container.

Earlier that day, I'd spent three hours on the phone with my friend about her relationship drama, mediated a fight between neighbours and promised an overwhelmed colleague I'd help with her work project, all while my own stressors piled up, unadressed.

I'd done what I always did when everyone else's shit was hitting the fan: I swooped right in to fix it.

And then, when the weight of being a hero finally became too much, I did what I always did to cope: I checked out.

Sound familiar?

The Pattern I Couldn't See

For years, I thought this was just who I was. The helper. The fixer. The one people came to when life got messy. I wore it like a badge of honour; until I realised it was slowly breaking me.

Here's what I couldn't see:

Every time someone else had a crisis, I made it my emergency.
Every time they couldn't handle their emotions, I absorbed them.
Every time they needed rescuing, I abandoned myself.

And when the weight of carrying everyone else's problems bore down, that's when I'd turn to my trusty soothers.

The wine. The emotional eating. The overspending. The irritable bickering at people I loved. The complete shutdown when it all became too much.

I was caught in a cycle I didn't even know existed.

An Impossible Choice

What I always thought was kindness was actually rescuing. My compulsion, rooted in the belief that I had to choose between two terrible options:

Either be helpful at my own expense, or… honour my limits but feel like a selfish, heartless person who abandons people in need.

So I chose door number one, over and over, until I was running on empty and reaching for anything that would numb the resentment I didn’t know what to do with and felt ashamed to admit.

Finally, a coach I’d hired pointed out that managing everyone else's chaos wasn't making me a good person. It was making me an exhausted one.

What I Learned the Hard Way

Your worth isn't measured by how many fires you can put out or how much of other people's problems you can solve.

True kindness, the kind that actually helps, requires boundaries. For them AND for you.

You can support the people you love without sacrificing your sanity. In fact, it's the only way to show up sustainably for anyone.

The Third Option

There's a third door most of us never consider: You can care deeply AND protect your peace. You can be present without being consumed.

You can help without completely emptying your own well.

But first, you need to see the patterns that keep you trapped. You need to understand what's driving you to sacrifice your wellbeing for everyone else's chaos.

Most importantly, you need to recognise that your sanity matters just as much as everyone else's.

That’s why I created this FREE GUIDE to help you discover the 5 signs you might be choosing chaos over your own peace.

Sometimes the biggest revelation is simply seeing clearly.

Because once you see the cycle, you can finally break free from it.

Your transformation doesn't start with fixing everyone else. It starts with refusing to abandon yourself.

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Ready to stop being your own worst enemy? The Serenity Project helps women transform self destructive coping by learning how to care deeply AND protect their peace by making one simple shift