Erin McCarthy, PhD: Mindfulness. Balance. Resilience

Health, wealth, and mindfulness aren't three separate things you're juggling...

They're the same skill, wearing three different outfits.

A week ago I gave a presentation called Grounded and Growing, for IG Wealth Management's first Women's Health and Wealth Retreat. And I've been sitting with how intimately these things are connected.

The thing nobody expects me to say: the women who make the clearest financial decisions aren't the ones with the best spreadsheets.

They're the ones who can sit still long enough to hear themselves think.

That's mindfulness. The actual skill of directing your attention, knowing who you are, and not making decisions from a place of fear.

Swipe through for the four ways it shows up in your health and your wealth →

If this sounds like something that might support you at this stage of your life, comment HEALTH and I'll send you the foundational practice that builds all four.

Sending calm and compassion. 🤍

One thing I get asked a lot: will self-compassion make me lose my edge?

And honestly, I used to wonder the same thing.

When you've gotten where you are by pushing yourself hard, the idea of being kind to yourself can feel like a trap.

Like if you ease up even a little, you'll end up collapsed on the couch, unable to start again.

But the evidence tells a different story...

Motivating yourself with kindness is MORE effective than self-criticism, not less. It's also sustainable in a way that self-criticism simply isn't.

Self-criticism is a sprint strategy. And you cannot run a life at that pace.

Kindness isn't the opposite of ambition. It's the only thing that makes long-term ambition possible.

There are drudgery days as a parent to young children.

The diaper. The bath. The same little game. Again.

And here's the thing: you're not going to get out of it. You're still going to change the diaper. You're still going to run the bath.

But what if instead of white-knuckling through it, you used those moments as practice?

It's called See, Hear, Feel.

You tune into your senses, exactly as they are right now.

👁️ See → what do you see?
👂 Hear → what do you hear?
🤲 Feel → what do you feel?

That's it. Seriously, that's the whole thing.

What it does, is it drops you into the present moment as it actually is, instead of the version you're wishing you were in instead.

You stop fighting it. And when you stop fighting it, life gets a little easier.

Not because the diaper changed... but because YOU did.

(And as a bonus, it builds equanimity, which is a very fancy word for not getting emotionally yanked around by your day. Useful for newborns. Useful for toddlers. Very useful for teenagers. Let me tell you.)

Save this for the next drudgery moment. It'll be there soon enough. 😄

The invisible load isn't on your calendar...

It's the emotional weather you read in every room you walk into.

The dentist appointment. The permission slip. Your partner's hard day.

All of it living in your nervous system before you've even had your coffee.

You're the default project manager for your own life, and every life adjacent to yours.

And you can't productivity-hack your way out of something that was never a time problem.

The exhaustion so many high-achieving women carry ~ the bone-tired, unnamed kind ~ comes from holding a load nobody else can see.

Naming it is the beginning. Sharing it is the work.

And sometimes, setting it all the way down is the most radical thing you'll ever do.

If you're ready to come back to yourself, I made 2 short meditations for exactly that: a Check-In and a Self-Compassion Break. Comment CALM and I'll send them over to you.

May you be kind to yourself.

May you feel supported.

May you be patient with yourself.