Getting through the day feels heavier than usual—and it’s more than just the afternoon crash. It’s the mental load of everything happening in the world right now.
According to a recent InHerSight survey, 60 percent of women say the current state of the world is affecting their stress levels and making it hard to focus at work. The weight we carry quietly and constantly shows up in how we work, cope, and feel throughout the day.
I’ve heard this sentiment echoed in many conversations with colleagues lately—a cloudiness at work fueled by uncertainty and a nagging thought of whether what we’re doing on a day-to-day basis actually matters in the larger scheme of things.
That’s why I was excited to receive insight from two women who dedicate their careers to creating workplace wellness and encouraging personal healing. Their work shows us that we can maintain our strength during hard times, and reminds us to take time to refill our energy so we can keep moving forward.
Le’ Jai’ La Troi is a wellness expert, writer, corporate wellness strategist, executive coach, and founder of Akashic Remedies. She helps entrepreneurs, executives, and corporate teams master stress management, optimize performance without burnout, and develop tools to stay balanced in life and at work.
Laura Calmore is a Mindful Leadership Facilitator and Compassionated Regenerator Officer of REVERA. She helps companies and individuals reimagine how they work and lead with compassion and a commitment to collective wellbeing.
Here’s what they shared on how to move forward with clarity and protect your emotional wellbeing, especially when the world feels like too much.
Honor your emotions
We’re no strangers to bearing the weight of many things.
Global events, personal struggles, and societal shifts are all part of our shared reality, and they all take a toll.
Just as we began to feel a post-pandemic sense of normalcy, new worries have crept in: more global health scares, ongoing financial stress, climate anxiety, and the ever-present tension that comes with economic uncertainty.
And yet, through it all, we endure. Resilience might just be the most defining trait of our lives.
COVID was terrifying, but we adapted. We figured out remote work. We turned our homes into daycares and classrooms. We kept showing up not because it was easy, but because it mattered.
As we face the world’s current challenges, however, ‘pushing through’ shouldn’t be the only strategy. We also have to protect our mental wellbeing. That means learning how to keep going and making space to recharge.
“We can, first of all, start by honoring our emotions instead of suppressing them,” says Calmore. “We have been brought up into models where feelings are seen as ‘weak’ or ‘bad’. All feelings are good, they are important messengers for us.”
Those emotional signals, she says, can be a prompt to pause before we spiral into anxiety or overwhelm. They help us recognize when we need to slow down before we reach the point where we can no longer show up the way we want to.
Honoring our emotions isn’t about indulging every feeling, it’s about allowing ourselves to make observations about those feelings without judgement. “That small moment of awareness can be powerful and enough to create space for emotions to flow and not get consumed by them,” Calmore adds.
Troi expands on this idea, reinforcing the importance of working with, not against, our natural rhythms.
“Women are cyclical beings by design, and honoring our natural rhythms is key to sustainable productivity. The true goal is integration rather than separation. We don’t have to choose between showing up for work and honoring our emotions—we can do both by creating intentional space for processing.”
Some days, she reminds us, showing up at 70 percent is our 100 percent—and that’s okay.
Compartmentalize without shutting down
Giving ourselves that grace, especially in the middle of a busy workday, can feel easier said than done. It might feel more natural to shut down or push emotions aside altogether.
That instinct to suppress, however, can do more harm than good.
“Healthy compartmentalization isn’t about shutting emotions off—it’s about choosing when and how you engage with them,” says Troi.
The choice starts with awareness. One strategy Troi recommends is to first acknowledge the emotion, then decide when you’ll come back to it.
“Think of it as creating a temporary container for your feelings rather than letting them spill over into every part of your day,” she says. That could look like noticing your frustration in the moment and committing to unpack it later, maybe after a shower and a cup of tea.
Troi calls these ‘mindful transitions’: moments through-out the day when you can check in with yourself. “It’s important to not let your emotions become stored in the body, which can result in health issues down the line. Give emotions their rightful space without letting them dictate your entire day.”
Calmore reiterates the importance of staying connected to yourself, and to your needs. “Boundaries are about clarity, not walls,” she says. “When we suppress emotions, we disconnect from ourselves. When we overextend and cross our own boundaries, we disconnect from our needs.”
To avoid that disconnect, she recommends asking internal questions like: What do I value? What boundary is being crossed? Where do I need to speak up and restore? What am I available for right now?
“[These check-ins] help ensure boundaries come from self-awareness rather than reactivity,” Calmore explains.
She also encourages using tools like nonviolent communication (NVC) to express your needs in a way that fosters connection instead of isolation. One prompt she recommends is: “I value deep focus, so I need to hold off on responding right now.” It’s a way to stay grounded in what matters to you, while also being clear with the people around you.
At its core, healthy compartmentalization is about creating intentional space for emotions before they can overflow in ways that feel out of control or rooted in our triggers.
“The key is to regularly release stored tension through movement, creative expression, or deep conversation,” Calmore says.
Practice simple rituals to stay grounded
Creating emotional containers through the day is just one part of the equation for perseverance at work. The other is intentionally refilling your cup, which is where self-care and grounding practices come in.
“I recommend exploring daily self-care rituals to help create emotional sustainability, like creating a morning routine,” says Troi. “Whether that’s meditation, reading a book, or a morning facial. Starting the day off with some love for yourself will set the tone for the day.”
Calmore suggests creating micro-moments to check in with yourself, “whether through journaling, deep breathing, or a brief walk.” These simple actions can help maintain emotional balance when things start to feel chaotic.
Of course, there will be some days when the idea of writing in a journal for five minutes sounds like just another checkbox on your to-do list. That’s when it helps to take a step back and redefine what grounding can look like.
“Grounding doesn’t have to be a big action,” Calmore notes. “It can be as simple as exhaling fully before opening an email.” Somatic reset movements like rolling your shoulders, stretching, taking a moment to feel your feet on the ground, or simply closing your eyes for a few seconds between tasks can all help reset your nervous system.
Troi’s favorite rituals are focused on restoring balance and managing stress in ways that also help to give a boost of energy. One of her go-to practices is starting the morning with a gratitude list of 10 things she appreciates.
Another wellness practice is swapping coffee for ceremonial grade cacao. “Instead of coffee and a caffeine crash, you’ll be energized with theobromine which helps you stay awake and alert. Cacao also helps release serotonin and endorphins boosting your mood, helping you stay emotionally balanced.”
When she feels herself slipping out of alignment during the day, Troi turns to her reset strategy of choice: box breathing. It’s a simple technique of inhaling for four seconds, holding for four seconds, exhaling for four sections, and repeating for a few rounds.
When you need a little extra calm, she says, “You can add essential oils to breathe deeper and quickly shift your state of mind before a meeting.”
Protect your energy
One of the hardest parts about pushing through the emotional weight of the world while still trying to show up for everything else is how easily it can lead to burnout.
It’s important to remember that honoring your pause is often more powerful than pushing through.
“The first mental shift is recognizing that rest is a priority,” Troi advises. “Too often women feel like they must earn their rest, when in reality, sustainable success requires replenishment.” She encourages reframing the idea of rest as an investment that fuels long-term productivity and allows you to continue supporting your workplace, your community, and yourself.
Another key shift, according to Calmore, is understanding that burnout is the result of systems that were never built with wellbeing in mind. Along with rest, she urges women to “reclaim their energy by practicing radical self-permission to say no and to redefine success on their own terms.” Delegating, setting boundaries, and embracing imperfection are all part of the process.
This is especially important because, in most workplaces, wellbeing isn’t prioritized by design. The focus is often solely on output. But, we’re not machines who can run on autopilot forever.
“Companies today do not take into consideration the inner wellbeing of their ecosystems to make it sustainable,” Calmore says. “Sustainability comes from recognizing that emotional wellbeing is not a separate entity from work, but an integral part of it. In order to keep going, we need a regenerative model for ourselves.”
Troi echoes this, calling out the gap between what’s needed and what’s often offered. She stresses the importance of consistently showing up for yourself, especially when companies fall short in performative wellness: “offering surface-level perks like meditation apps without addressing systemic issues like burnout culture, unrealistic workloads, or lack of representation in leadership.”
While meaningful action in the workplace requires top-down change and a culture where employees feel safe to advocate for their needs, Troi empowers us to not wait for permission. Women must prioritize themselves independent of what their companies are willing to ‘give’.
“Structure your day with intentional pauses based on when you feel the most drained during the day to help prevent depletion,” she advises.
One place to start: Build recovery into your workflow. “Work in sprints, perhaps using the Pomodoro Technique with mindful transitions.” This approach focuses on taking short breaks between working intervals, and longer beaks after a few cycles of work.
Beyond time management, Troi recommends Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) tapping—a method that involves tapping meridian points to relieve stress and reset the nervous system.
She also shares the Permission Slip Practice, which is simply writing down ‘Today, I give myself permission to [fill in the blank]’. Whether it’s to rest, to say no, or simply to feel what you’re feeling, this practice helps restore a sense of stability.
And perhaps the most impactful of all is taking a moment to step back and shift perspective. “When the world feels overwhelming, list ‘what is in my control’,” says Troi. “It shifts the focus from overwhelm to empowerment by identifying actionable steps within your influence.”
Just breathe
Troi and Calmore both give credit to the power of breath work as a foundation for regaining balance.
“The breath is where it all begins,” Calmore says. For thousands of years, she notes, shamans from all over the world have practiced deep relaxation not by escaping their problems, but by aligning with the breath. “To get in the flow, you don’t need to do anything extraordinary—you just need to breathe.”
It’s a powerful reminder that while we can’t control most of what’s happening around us, we can return to ourselves.
“We always have control of our breath,” Troi says. “When we consciously breathe using our diaphragms, we can activate the parasynthetic nervous system or the rest and digest state.”
For moments of anxiety or overwhelm, both women recommend the 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Technique: name five things you see, four you feel, three you hear, two you smell, and one you taste. It’s a quick way to bring yourself back to the present, anchored by your senses and your breath.
“You don’t need a special setting or tools to practice this,” Calmore says. “You just need a moment. Right here, right now.”
With that in mind, she offers a simple breathing visualization to try:
“Stop and take a breath. Breathe in slowly, filling your lungs completely. At the top of the inhale, pause for just a second. In that stillness, everything stops. Time itself seems to pause. Then, gently exhale, letting the breath go. As you breathe out, feel the weight of resistance lift from your body.”
As you breathe, say quietly to yourself: All I am is my breath.
“You are not your schedule. You are not your worries. You are not the thousand things you think you need to fix,” Calmore says.
At this moment, you are here—and that is enough.
