01/12/2026
On Saturday, I was invited to speak
to a room of women building meaningful, successful businesses.
As I spoke, I saw myself in them.
Responsible.
Passionate
Goal-oriented.
Used to producing outcomes.
Living by metrics.
Women carrying so much,
so often silently,
carrying it alone.
I spoke about Tending the Fire Without Burning Out,
and something lingered after.
It is not the work itself
that wears us down.
It is the quiet loneliness
of carrying it all inside ourselves,
without a place to simply lay it down,
even for a moment.
The fire we carry—care, devotion, responsibility—
does not need to be explained, justified, or shaped into something useful.
And yet, there are so few places
where it can simply exist,
where it can simply breathe,
where it can simply burn,
held in the presence of others,
witnessed, acknowledged,
without demand.
In that room, I felt it:
the stillness.
the tears.
the small nods.
the quiet acknowledgment
that passes between women
when something true is named—
a recognition that what is lived
is also shared,
even without words.
Burnout often has the shape of isolation.
Not the absence of people,
but the absence of companionship
for what is burning,
for what is luminous,
for what we carry deep inside.
I am drawn toward creating spaces like this.
In my work.
And in my life.
Cozy corners.
Quiet nooks.
Small rooms.
Rooms where fire can live.
Rooms where fire can breathe.
Rooms where fire can stretch.
Spaces that move slowly.
Spaces that hold us.
Spaces where nothing has to be proven.
Spaces where nothing has to be earned.
Spaces where presence matters more than performance.
Spaces where fire can be tended together.
Where fire can be tended gently.
Where fire can be tended again and again.
Tending is not doing more.
Tending is not fixing.
Tending is not forcing.
Tending is staying present.
Tending is offering care without expectation.
Tending is letting the fire
live,
warm,
stretch,
expand as it will.
And sometimes, in these spaces—
both built and imagined,
in rooms with women,
in quiet corners of a home,
in small nooks of time and attention—
we find company for the fire we carry.
We find reflection for what burns inside.
We find a place
where we are not alone.
Where we are not alone.
Where we are not alone.
