Episode 33: Mental Load: Feel More Joy & Drop The Invisible Weight Ladies, it's time to ditch the Superwoman cape! Who says you have to be the holiday magic-maker while juggling life like a circus act? In this episode, Hilary Silver pulls back the curtain on the mental load—the invisible, never-ending to-do list that's got you running the household 24/7. And let's be real, the holidays just crank up the chaos. Hilary reveals the truth about why we end up stuck in this exhausting role and how to step back without the guilt trip. With her no-nonsense advice and a wink of tough love, she's here to help you share the load, kick perfectionism to the curb, and finally enjoy that spiked eggnog this season. Episode Highlights: Hilary dishes on how the planning, remembering, and constant "Wait, did I forget something?" is stealing your peace. Enough is enough! It’s time to stop being the default manager of everything. Hilary will guide you on how to resign as household CEO without the drama or side-eye. Hilary’s four-step freedom plan: from rallying the troops at a family meeting to letting others take over (even if it's not done your way), she's making shared responsibilities a reality. Perfect is so last season! Hilary reveals why embracing "good enough" is the secret to a joyful, stress-free holiday season. Prioritize your own joy and accept that done is better than perfect. Episode Breakdown: [00:00] Holiday Stress [00:52] Meet Hilary Silver [02:03] What is Mental Load? [05:05] Step 1: Decision to Change [06:08] Step 2: Internal Boundary [07:02] Step 3: Communicating Change [08:04] Step 4: Listing and Delegating Tasks [12:29] Embracing Good Enough [14:24] Prioritizing Your Own Joy Ready to reclaim your holidays and actually enjoy them? It's time to spread the responsibilities—and the cheer. Just because you've been the go-to gal doesn't mean you have to keep carrying it all. Snag Hilary’s free video training, This Changes Everything, at hilarysilver.com/subscribe and make this holiday season truly about YOU.
Chapter 1: Why are the holidays stressful for women?
Everyone says the holidays are the most wonderful time of the year, but for many people, especially women, it's the most stressful time of the year. And it can be more stressful than joyful. It's like you're carrying all the responsibility of making sure the magic happens on your shoulders.
All the decor looking just right, every gift for all of your people, every meal, every moment of cheer, all on you. There's a term for this. No, it's not hostess with the mostest like we said back in the 50s. It's actually called the mental load. And if you're the one carrying it, it can really be a party pooper.
Chapter 2: What is the mental load?
So today we're talking about what mental load actually is, and more importantly, how to lighten the load this holiday season and beyond so you can actually enjoy yourself too. Hi, it's Hillary. Welcome to the Hillary Silver Podcast. Thanks for tuning into the conversation today.
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Just in the last few years, we're hearing conversations about mental load. And I don't know who came up with that phrase, but thank you, whoever you are. Because language is powerful and just having words to label something that has really been going on for decades is a game changer. It validates our experiences and allows us to have more productive conversations about it.
Chapter 3: How can we lighten the mental load this holiday season?
Chapter 4: What is the first step to changing your role?
So mental load is the invisible burden of remembering all the things that that need to happen in order to keep a family or household flowing and functioning. It goes beyond doing all the work of getting things done, which is a major issue on its own, but it's remembering and keeping a mental catalog and a checklist and a timeline, keeping track of everything that needs to be done.
Chapter 5: What does setting internal boundaries mean?
It's the planning, the organizing, the preparing, the remembering, the anticipating. Who needs to be where and when? What's for dinner? Did the dog get vaccinated?
Chapter 6: How to communicate changes in household responsibilities?
And holiday time just compounds the list because all of the gift giving and the parties and the dinners and the decor and all the outfits, all the shoulds that are going on when it's supposed to be fun can leave us exhausted and spent, maybe even creating a love-hate relationship with the holiday season. Are you nodding your head right now?
While the mental load can be shared, let's face it, most of the time, women carry the majority of it. I definitely needed this language years ago because I too was feeling crushed under the weight of my mental load. And despite my best efforts to explain it to my husband, it didn't really shift enough. I literally used to tell him,
I'm doing all the unfun parts of parenting and running this household. And I would rattle off a list to him, knowing that much of it were things that he never even considered at all. Even just small things like going through the kids' dressers and pulling out the things they outgrew, then giving it all away, and then buying the new things, right? Like,
We just don't think about these things, but they do need to get done. These things don't just magically take care of themselves. Someone is doing it. So we laugh about it now. And we have this inner joke saying things like the trash isn't going to take itself out. The floor isn't going to sweep itself. We laugh about it now.
But I carried that load for many years, all while also running my private practice and managing that business. It really just was a lot and very overwhelming. Like most loving but perhaps clueless partners who do mean well, he would just say, just tell me what I need to do and I'll do it. I'm happy to help. And I just kept saying, I don't want to have to tell you.
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Chapter 7: What is the importance of embracing 'good enough'?
I just want you to know I don't want to have to ask for help. Asking for help can sometimes feel like just one more thing on the to-do list, something that we have to deal with. I just want you to know what needs to be done and to do it. and to do it without cause for celebration. Honey, I remembered the trash day. Yay you! Right?
It feels really lonely to be the one carrying the load, let alone overwhelming and exhausting. So the mental load is finally becoming part of the conversation, but we're still not doing enough to actually change it and preventing it from starting in the first place. And that is what I hope to help with today in four steps. So here's the bitter pill.
Chapter 8: How can you prioritize your own joy during the holidays?
One of the biggest reasons women carry the mental load is that we let ourselves be the default person in charge. Yes, ladies, that is the truth. Somewhere along the way, we decided to take this on, this role. There are lots of reasons for it deep in our psychology, but we're not going to get into that today. I'm going to keep things simple.
The simple why is because we think things will fall off and not get done. And maybe some of that is true, but we have decided that we're going to be the safety net and catch everything. We've decided to do that. We stepped in and took it all on because we're good at it. I would tell my husband this exact thing.
I feel like I'm the caricature of the elephant in a tutu standing on one toe on the round ball juggling all the pins. I can do it because I'm talented and I can. But just because we are good at it and we can do it does not mean that we have to do it or that we should. You're good at a lot of things that you decide not to pursue, right? So this wouldn't be so if we didn't allow it to be so.
And the good news is since we decided to do it, we can also decide not to do it anymore. Decide you're going to stop being the default manager of the household. It literally starts with a decision. It's a mental flip of the switch, a line that you won't cross. I call it an internal boundary, and it's an agreement that you make with yourself.
And if you don't keep your own promise to yourself, then no one else ever will. So your word to yourself has to be golden. It needs to be impeccable. Take this in for just a minute. Decide, which is one of my favorite words, by the way, decide you are no longer fulfilling this role. You are mentally resigning from this role.
It starts with you making this determination and declaration for yourself. Divorce yourself from the role of carrying the responsibility of all things. And very importantly, you need to do this without anger or resentment because no one did this to you. You did this to you. And that is a big mistake that people often make when they're learning to have boundaries.
or are changing their own patterns and behaviors, being outwardly angsty towards others who have maybe benefited from your poor boundaries when it was you who really set it all up to be this way in the first place. I really can't wait to do an episode soon on boundaries. I have an entire online program about it.
So I have a lot to say about it, and I'm going to share some major nuggets with you about all of the boundary stuff soon. But in the meantime, I just want you to take these things away today. When you are doing this exercise, you are changing your identity. You have to see yourself differently first. Then what comes next is the actual behavior.
Everyone has shopping on their brains, myself included. So my team and I decided to put together a Black Friday holiday gift guide inspired by my YouTube listeners who are always asking me about my earrings or my glasses. I put all of my current favorite everyday luxuries, as I call them, into this gift guide so you can put them on your list for you, of course. Well...
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