Ask Jay: How Do You Take Care of Yourself Through Life’s Hardest Seasons?

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So much of our lives are built around the feeling of control, but when physical or mental health challenges show up, that control can vanish overnight. It can feel terrifying, isolating, and utterly exhausting to navigate a body or a mind that feels like it is working against you. I'm ready to dive into these messages with you today. Let's get into it. Hi, Jay. I just had my third baby. I am in the thick of the postpartum period. I have postpartum anxiety pretty bad with him, like I did with my first baby. I was diagnosed with preeclampsia. And I had to be readmitted. That threw my anxiety into a whirlwind. I'm also a mom-baby nurse, so I know too much, but postpartum preeclampsia is just not talked about enough. Being in this situation, going through one of these scariest things that a postpartum mom can go through. How do we move past trauma when we're currently living what we most feared would happen? Congratulations on your third baby. As exciting as that is. I'm also so sorry you're dealing with postpartum anxiety for a second time. I obviously have no idea what that must be like, and I commend you for working through it. You mentioned that postpartum preeclampsia isn't talked about enough, and I agree. So let me explain it for anyone listening who might not be familiar with it. Not for you, because you're a mom-baby nurse and you know this better than I do. So you can correct me if I get it wrong, but postpartum preeclampsia is a condition involving dangerously high blood pressure. And it's really hard to predict. Left untreated, it can cause seizures and strokes. And what makes it super dangerous is that in general, the blood pressure peaks tend to happen somewhere between day three and day six after delivery. That's important because most patients are discharged from the hospital around 48 hours after delivery. Which means that the highest risk period lands after you've gone home, you're on your own with a newborn. And that's when you realize that postpartum preeclampsia really isn't something that you should worry about. And I'll bet that when people find out you're a nurse, they say something like, "Well, at least you know what's happening." But you don't just know what's happening, you know every way it can go. You have seen the bad outcomes, not as statistics, but with real people. So to your actual question, how do we move past trauma when we're currently living the thing we were most afraid of, moving past something is work you do after that thing is over. And it does not sound like it is over for you yet. Maybe part of what's exhausting you is trying to recover from something you're not done experiencing yet, which is a bit like trying to review a movie you're currently watching right now. But there is real work you can do right now. But to be clear, I would never pretend to know how you should manage your postpartum anxiety or preeclampsia. But I want to do my best to answer your question about navigating trauma in the midst of living a major fear. There's a well-known piece of research by psychologist Chris Bruin and his colleagues studying what predicts whether someone develops lasting trauma. What they found is that some of the strongest factors were the circumstances surrounding the event, including whether the person had support around them. Now that's a correlation rather than a guarantee, and I'm not telling you that if you have enough people around you, nothing can hurt you, but if leaning on a support system is an option for you right now, this is the moment to use it. I think one of the most difficult things about going through a traumatic experience is that you feel extremely alone and you feel misunderstood. We feel alone because when we're going through a difficult moment, it can feel like we're the only ones going through it. And that's a legitimate feeling. I want to validate that. But in reality, there are other people going through it in their own way. And there may be times when you want to stay away from other people, but there are times when actually knowing that you're going through the same thing as someone else, hearing their story, them hearing yours, is the greatest source of comfort. I encourage you to find other mothers who've been through this before or are going through it right now, not for advice, not for a quick fix or a solution, because we know that is impossible, but just to be able to share your heart with, for them to share theirs with you, and for you to create that bond and that connection of being surrounded by people who truly understand your pain. And so that you don't feel alone. The other part about being understood actually comes from us being able to explain what we're going through. I think one of the biggest problems about going through a difficult time is that we're scared that other people are going to think we've changed. We're scared about who we're becoming. We're scared about our identity, our perception. We're worried that we're not as fun as we used to be. We're worried that we're not as bright as we used to be. You might be emotionally heavier than usual. You might be carrying more than you're used to, and you could tell the other people around, you notice it as well. When I'm going through a difficult time, I believe it's so important to communicate and articulate and explain what you're experiencing and how it's something you don't want and how you're not sure when you're going to be out of it or what it takes. But being able to share that with the people around you, the people you spend the most time with, allows not only them to understand you better, but for you to feel understood, for you to feel seen when you're going through moments of great change and great transition, the biggest pain you experience is people not seeing you. Help the people who love you and who are around you see you and share with them the experience that you're currently going through so that they can also meet you with empathy, context, and compassion. If you had ended your message at, "I've just had my third baby," I would have told you that was plenty to be dealing with. You're taking care of a lot of people right now in your house and at your job. Just make sure one of them is you. Again, congratulations on your third baby. You've been through this before. You have the skills. You have the tools more than anyone does. And I know while that scares you, that is also your greatest strength. I really hope that this can be as smooth and as painless as possible. And I'm wishing you all the best. This episode of On Purpose is presented to you by Mazda. Peace of mind doesn't happen by chance. It's created through the habits we build. We create them before we ever need them. That's the philosophy behind every Mazda. With proactive safety features that help keep you more aware, more connected, and more engaged, Mazda helps you feel ready for whatever the road brings. It's why Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' Safest New Car Brand. And as of July 2026, Mazda has won more 2026 IIHS Top Safety Pick Plus awards than any other car brand. Visit www.iihs.com. A lot can happen when an accident doesn't. Visit mazdausa.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. Hi Jay, I'm a wife, mom of two boys, and until recently I was the CFO and co-owner of our family business. Like so many entrepreneurs, I spent years believing that working harder was always the answer. Later this year, I decided to get an elective ProNova scan. I almost didn't do it because I felt healthy enough. The scan found a brain tumor that I never knew I had. Overnight, everything I thought mattered changed. During recovery, I wasn't thinking about revenue, meetings, or growth paths. I was thinking about whether I'd get to watch my boys grow up, be able to run again, hug my husband, or simply have another normal day. Thankfully, my surgery was successful. But I've come back with a completely different perspective. I've stepped away from the day-to-day grind that I realized success means very little You sacrifice your health, your relationships, and your peace to achieve it. My question is, how do you know when it's time to stop chasing more and trust that you've already built enough so you can fully embrace a life you've worked so hard to create? First of all, that is an enormous thing to have happened to you. And I imagine it was terrifying. A scan you almost skipped finds a brain tumor you had no idea was there. Thank you for telling us about it, and I'm so glad that the surgery went well and that you're okay. I want to start to answer your question about how to know when you've built enough by talking about one of my favorite speeches ever given. In 2005, Steve Jobs gave a commencement speech about a year after his own cancer diagnosis and surgery. In it, he doesn't say that facing death gave him new information, but rather that it allowed him to see things that he, already knew more clearly. It sounded like that's what happened to you in recovery. You weren't thinking about revenue meetings. You were thinking about your boys, your husband, and having a normal day. The things that you already knew were the most important rose to the surface, which is a cruel arrangement if you think about it. Some of the most valuable things we ever work out about our lives arrive attached to the worst weeks we ever have. Health scares do this to people constantly, and it shouldn't take that. It very often does. So here's how I'd answer your question about knowing when it's time to stop or when you've built enough. I don't think enough is a milestone you eventually reach. If it were, someone would have hit it by now and given the rest of us the exact number. Look at what happened with your health. You felt healthy enough that you almost skipped the brain scan entirely, which shows how deceptive that baseline can be. Whether we're talking about your body, or your workload, enough is a moving target. It is time to drop it as the bar. It's not measurable. So I don't actually think your question is, how do I know? I think you know. I think the harder question is, how do you execute it? And that probably sounds simple, but as someone who has worked in the corporate world like you, it's a whole lot easier said than done to step away from the grind. You always have time to answer one last email or take a quick call on your day off. Start with actually taking your vacation days this year, or figuring out what full or partial retirement might look like financially. Create a no-meetings day for yourself. Work remotely on Fridays. Slowly but surely, make more room in your life for your life. And isn't this the whole point? We work so that we can live. That's the arrangement. And somewhere along the way, most of us get it backwards and end up with work taking over our lives. It sounds like you've just flipped it back the right way around, and I think that's brilliant. So go easy on yourself while you make the switch. It's a big one. You spent years building one way of living, and you're only months into a different one. And that takes a while to settle. But it's an exciting thing to be in the middle of. I want to point something else out again. Because you worked hard for so many years, you were able to afford this scan, and I'm assuming you have a bit more flexibility, with what the world looks like moving forward, with what your life looks like moving forward. I think it's really easy to make certain parts of our life look worthless when we already have achieved them, and then realize that we should have focused on more worthwhile things. But the reality is that if you were financially insecure, if you were not safe, you would still feel that pressure in your life as much as wanting to spend time with your family. I think as humans, we're very good at demonizing something and saying, I don't need that anymore, I've done that, now I'm going to focus on this. And the reality is that a life lived in harmony and alignment is more important than this binary switch that the mind usually likes to take. We like to say to ourselves, I've worked so hard, I need to stop working, I just need to be with family. Or, I'm spending too much time with family, I'm not making enough money, I just need to go and make some money. And the truth is, those are binary trades that end up making us feel unsafe in one way or the other. You could spend lots of time with your family and feel financially insecure and unsafe, or you could make lots of money and feel like you don't have depth and quality of time with the people you love. Now, we usually turn to the word balance. And when we think of balance, we think of the same amount of time. And that never happens. We all work longer than we spend socially or in leisure or spending time with our friends and family, just with the nature of work. So balance is a poor idea in our mind. But alignment, and harmony, are much healthier. Who do you want to be present with? Who do you want to spend a Friday night with? What's your ideal Sunday morning? What's your ideal vacation? What's the best way you want to be with your family on a Saturday? Making memories and making moments is less about the amount of time you have and more about the amount of presence you have. And working hard is making sure that you're not working so hard that you're hurting your body and mind. You can work hard and be successful and achieve a lot of things without causing damage to your mind and body. Again, it goes back to alignment and harmony and less about balance. Now that you've become aware of how much health is a priority and how much your family is a priority, but also how your business has allowed you this foundation to be able to have choices and options, you actually have the opportunity to live in alignment and harmony. Don't ignore your health. For family or work. Don't over-prioritize work that you don't make memories with your family. And don't get so lost just in spending family that you lose a sense of meaning and purpose and personal achievement, which are all parts of living a full, rich life. I don't believe balance exists because I believe life is more about seasons. If you think about the way nature operates, it informs a lot about how we can live. You don't experience rain, snow, sunshine, and wind all in the same day. Generally, we experience the seasons as they are. There are seasons for growth, seasons for pleasure, seasons for warmth and coziness, and seasons for letting go. Figure out what season you're in in life right now. And when you align with that season of life, you get to move from one to the next without making one feel wrong and one feel right. Your last season served you. You became aware of something at the right time. You made the necessary changes and now move into the next. Thanks again for your message. I'm wishing you so well in your career, family life, and your health. Aloha, Jay. I was the caregiver for my 93-year-old mother with dementia for 18 months. My husband and I got all the support we possibly could. And even then, I suffered from various ailments. I think the hardest part was working so hard in your life to set boundaries and be authentic and be careful of your energy. When you have caregiving responsibilities for a person with dementia, all of that goes out the window. All the experts tell you you need to enter their world. You need to learn improv. You need. You need to learn to lie. And all of that was very hard for me to do, keeping her calm and not falling apart. I would love it if you had time to share what caregivers can do to help them get through this time. Thank you for this and thank you for all you've done for your mother. Not everyone has someone like you in their support system. And while I know dementia is a devastating disease, I've been lucky to have you. And I'm really sorry that your unwavering support also came with a cost. Since dementia damages the brain's ability to take in new information, correcting someone about what they think is true can be super distressing. But research suggests that meeting a patient where they're at can help ease that. But sometimes where they're at is not in reality. And I can totally hear how doing this with your mother, probably one of the first people who told you not to lie, who helped shape the worldview that made you the caring person you are, can feel really, really tough. There's research out of the City University of New York that echoes your sentiment. Family caregivers deal with an emotional cost to overriding an innate reflex like not wanting to lie to your parents. So back to your question, which is how caregivers can keep from losing themselves. What I want for you is somewhere you can stop being the caregiver. It's not just you. Many caregivers find that they begin losing touch with themselves when their roles become all-consuming. You spent 18 months improvising, monitoring, staying calm, choosing your words, not falling apart. And every one of those is a performance. Not a fake one, a real and loving gesture, but a performance because you were regulating yourself continuously for someone else's benefit. Do that with no interval and it sounds pretty natural you would start to lose track of yourself. Add on the role reversal of having to be the one caring for your parent. So I hope you can find somewhere you're not in the role. An hour a week where you're not managing another human being and at least one person you can be the struggling daughter with. I'll leave you with this. There's a paper from 2009 by Henry Brodetti and Marika Duncan where they describe family caregivers as the invisible second patients. And I don't know whether you'll relate to that but from what I can hear it sounds like you deserve some care too. You're not just a caregiver, you're more than that. I hope you and all the other amazing caregivers out there can get it and I hope it makes you feel more like yourself. I think this is the essence of what I want to share with you. If you don't care for yourself, the person you're caring for doesn't get the best of you. They're getting what's left of you. But if you care for yourself and put yourself first, even for an hour a week, even for 30 minutes a day, you now can bring your best energy and care to the other person. For those of us who want to give ourselves to others, who love others, who want to serve others, we often self-abandon or self-sacrifice believing that that's the higher principle. Not realizing that we're giving less of our energy, less of our attention, less of our presence to someone else when we wear ourselves down. If you're exhausted, you're giving someone your love with exhaustion. If you're depleted, you're giving someone your care that's depleted. Taking time every day and every week to refuel and re-energize and renew will only make you a better caregiver. Rest. Is not the opposite of caring for someone. It is actually the fuel that's required so you can care for someone more deeply. We often think if I'm resting, if I'm taking a break, then that means I don't care. It can actually mean that you want to care more because you want to bring a higher degree of care to the person you love. Taking care of yourself is not in conflict with taking care of someone else. It's actually a part of the same thing. This episode is brought to you by Mazda. Some of life's best moments happen because nothing went wrong. The drive home, the conversation that continues, the plans that stay exactly as planned. That's the feeling of safety. Every Mazda is designed with proactive safety features that help keep you more aware, more connected, and more engaged with your drive so you can feel confident on the road. That's why Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' Safest New Car Brand. And as of July, Dave won more 2026 IIHS Top Safety Pick Plus Awards than any other car brand. Visit www.iihs.org to learn more. Some people start with nothing and build everything. I started with everything and had to rebuild everything. I built my life from nothing. I grew up in a privileged family. My father served as principal secretary to President Julius Nyerere, and I thought life would always stay the same. Then one day, my mother disappeared without a trace. She was never found. There was no goodbye, no explanation. Years later, I found myself in Denmark, unable to speak the language. Starting again from the very bottom, I cleaned hotel rooms while studying and raising my children, carrying a loss that never had an effect. For years, I thought my story was about surviving. Today, I know it was preparing me for my purpose. I now dedicate my life to sharing authentic stories that help people stay strong during life's most difficult seasons. So my question for you is this. How do you transform a wound that never truly healed into a life that helps other people heal? What a story. From your mother, disappearing to finding yourself in Denmark, I want to take a second to acknowledge the sheer weight of what you've endured. Rebuilding from nothing in a foreign country, learning a language you don't speak, cleaning hotel rooms while raising children and studying, even with support, being in a place where you don't know the cultural codes or the language is exhausting. You're working twice as hard just to arrive at the starting line. And you were doing all of that while carrying the grief of your mother's disappearance. With no clear answers or closure. That kind of prolonged high-stakes stress takes a massive toll on the body and mind. Because your health isn't just about physical fitness, it's about the load your nervous system is forced to carry. So look, before anything else, what you did took extraordinary resilience. You're displaying a different kind of health. The mental and emotional endurance it takes to carry an active wound and keep building a life anyway. I'm so impressed with how carefully you're talking about using what you've been through to help others and how everything it took to survive brought you closer to your purpose. It reminds me of something Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher, used to teach. He basically said life hands us circumstances that we don't control, but we always keep full ownership over our response. What science shows us today is that having that kind of agency is basically a shield. When you realize you still control your response, it keeps your mind and your body from taking the full damaging hit of chronic stress. And that's exactly what you're doing. You're owning your response to the hand you were dealt and asking how to put what you've been through at the service of others while the pain is still active. The question isn't how do you erase the pain? And I'm glad that's not what you're asking. You're asking how to share your journey while you're still in it. And honestly, you're already doing it. I don't think full healing needs to be a prerequisite before you start helping others. You aren't offering people a polished, neat story with a perfect ending. You're offering them real proof that a person can rebuild from nothing, carry an open loss, and keep going anyway. When people are in the middle of their hardest season, they don't need a story about arriving. They need a story about enduring. Healing your mind and body isn't a linear process with a clean finish line. So I think it's wise not to wait around until you feel completely unscathed. Every time you share your story, you're taking something that was meant to crush you and turning it into something useful. I hope that telling it isn't just powerful for the people listening, but a vital part of your ongoing health and healing too. A lot of us wait to get to the other side to share our story. There's two mistakes with that. The first is you never really get to the other side. And the second is it only helps when you share your story when you're in the middle. When you're in the middle of growth, when you're in the middle of healing and you share that story with others, people can relate to it. They can resonate with it. They can feel understood and seen because they can share in your pain. If you wait till you're at the other side, which is a fictional destination, not only does it feel like you're speaking from a place that people don't know about, but you're speaking from a place that people feel they could never get to or relate to, it feels so far away that they need someone a bit closer. It's better to have someone guiding you that's three steps ahead rather than three decades ahead, because it feels like you could reach that next step right here, right now. I believe sharing your story is less about the timeline, less about healing as a destination, and more about the genuine transformation you've had to go through. The questions you've had to answer, the moments you've had to live through, the conversations that have been difficult. Share what you're learning, not what you've conquered. Share what you're gaining, not what you've figured out, because that's what's really truly going to help people. And as I listen to you, I believe that's what you really want to do. Thank you for trusting me with these deeply personal stories today. Taking care of your mind and body is a continuous process, and I'm so grateful that I get to walk alongside you. Keep sending in your voice notes, and I'll keep listening.