Hi. I haven’t written to you since the beginning of June, and there’s a reason why.
Not because I ran out of things to say. I needed space to not do more than what my calendar already asked of me, to have a different kind of summer.
It’s been one of the more uncomfortable, lovely things I’ve let myself do. Uncomfortable, because it came with guilt, and with a nagging awareness of my own potential, and the choice not to chase it this season.
Maybe part of it was a hard year of hustling, and my physical health. One I haven’t spoken about publicly, until now.
I’ve always known how to show up. I push through exhaustion. I keep the commitment even when I don’t feel like it. I show up for people, for work, for myself, no matter what it costs me. That’s been my move for years.
The Cost Nobody Could See
For years, like many of you, I’ve been working so hard. Undergrad straight into grad school. Clinicals. Boards. A job that didn’t serve me. Leaving that job to bet on myself. Starting a business. From the outside, it looked like momentum, growth, success. In a lot of ways, it was! What you couldn’t see was what it was costing my body.
No one would have caught it.
I exercise regularly, I eat well, I am social. I live in the wellness world, I embody it. That’s what made it so easy to hide, even from myself.
People would comment, “you’re so healthy,” “you have it all together,” and some part of me would think, but am I? I loved those habits. They were real. But there was a part of it that didn’t feel completely true.
I remember staring at my computer screen so tired it felt like looking at a black wall. My legs would feel like they weighed a hundred pounds just walking home through the city. Even exercise, the thing that used to make me feel better, started making me more tired instead. My blood sugar would crash and my hands would start shaking. I was constantly bloated. My eyes were puffy most mornings, my eyelids swollen, probably my cortisol completely out of whack. I’d wake up already reaching for the coffee, then the phone, before my eyes were even fully open. Heavy, all day, every day.
It wasn’t normal.
It was so hard to even admit that, because everyone talks about the grind like it’s the whole point: the grind, the grind, the grind.
But the grind was killing me.
What My Body Forced Me to Put Down
This became something I couldn’t carry anymore.
It was emotional, because for the first time in my life, after always trying to control everything, I couldn’t control this.
That’s not something you get tired of carrying. That’s something your body forces you to put down.
I needed to open up, so I did, first to a few close friends, other ambitious women, who I knew could actually relate, who felt like a safe space. If you’re reading this, you already know who you are, and I am so grateful to you.
The number of times I heard “oh my gosh, me too, I feel that” was honestly staggering.
The loneliness disappeared almost instantly. But something else took its place: a real ache, realizing how many women in my life have been masking how they feel just to keep showing up.
For ambition.
For success.
For money.
For a certain body they feel they have to earn through rigid eating habits and overexercising.
For a relationship that looks as put-together as everything else.
For being the mom who has it all figured out too.
For never being the one who’s difficult, who needs too much, who asks for help.
You’re either the girl who has it all together or the girl who’s falling apart.
Nobody talks about being both.
Not when you’re building a career, a business, a life, especially in a city like New York.
I’d finish six or seven client sessions in a row, look at my phone, and see how many people needed something from me. When is there ever time to take care of me? It sure as hell never felt like there was.
I’m Not the Only One
I’m nowhere near alone in this.
For a lot of the women I talk to, it shows up as cycles that get irregular or disappear. PCOS. Hormonal acne. Eating disorders. Gut issues. A fatigue that sleep doesn’t help. Period cramps you push through instead of resting. Googling your symptoms at 1 am, pasting your bloodwork into Claude or ChatGPT to analyze yourself and validate your own symptoms.
For a lot of men, it shows up differently. I think of the men in my own life who will ice a shoulder, hit it with a massage gun, or foam roll it for six months before they’ll book an appointment, who call the tightness in their chest “just stress,” the same way I used to call my own exhaustion “just busy.”
Different bodies, different symptoms, same root.
So much of what we call ambition is actually a refusal to slow down long enough to listen to what our bodies need. That instinct isn’t gendered.
That instinct is the actual problem.
What I Keep Coming Back To
It’s more common than any of us talk about, and that makes me sad. Common shouldn’t mean normal.
We compare notes on our salaries, our personal trainers, who we’re dating, our Oura and Whoop scores.
We should be comparing notes on this too, whatever it looks like in your body, without judging yourself or others. We shouldn’t be ashamed to talk about how we’re feeling, or keep hiding it behind more discipline. We should talk about the sacrifices that come with being ambitious too.
I don’t say any of this from a place of having it fixed. I’m still learning how to hold ambition and my own body at the same time.
Some days that just means checking in the second I wake up and actually asking what I need. Eating lunch instead of grabbing food and stuffing it in my face between meetings and calls like I’m an animal. Choosing barre or Pilates because they ground me, instead of a run or a HIIT class or heavy lifting that just leaves me more depleted.
If any part of this is landing for you, if you’ve felt that quiet disconnect between how hard you’re pushing and how your body is actually doing, I don’t think that’s something to fix quietly on your own. Talk to someone. A friend, a doctor, a therapist, and if it helps, I’m one of those people too.
It feels good to be back, and to share this with you. It also feels a little scary, being this open after some silence. If any part of this landed, if you want to hear more, send me an email back. Even just two words: me too.
Let’s Keep Growing: What’s Next For You
Thank you for being here. Really. Every time you open one of these emails, it means something and I don’t take that lightly.
If this sparked something for you, I’d love to hear it. Just hit reply or email me at ellin@mentallyfitwithellin.com. And if you enjoyed this read, the best compliment you could give is to share it with one person or restack it.
If you’re new here or my thoughts from this week really resonated with you, I’d love to talk more. Community is everything to me, and my 10-minute community chats throughout the week are something I always look forward to. Here’s the link to set one up!
Mentally Fit With Ellin is a community of thousands like-minded people committed to growth, resilience, and mental performance. As a licensed therapist and performance coach, Ellin Gurvitch, started this to give everyone access to the tools needed to develop sustainable habits and enhance mental well-being. For more Mentally Fit With Ellin, make sure you’re subscribed so that each week you’ll receive practical mindset tools and performance strategies delivered to your inbox.
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Let’s keep growing together. – Ellin