What if you didn’t end the year with a big goal — but with clarity?

In this quiet bonus episode closing out Season 5 of Medium Lady Talks, Erin shares a personal year-in-review reflection inspired by Laura Tremaine’s 10 Questions for the End of the Year. Rather than offering resolutions or strategies, this episode explores what happens when we stop waiting for permission, external validation, or the “right time” to move forward.

Erin reflects on her word for 2026 and what it means to live from inner authority instead of urgency. She unpacks three gentle but powerful realizations from the past year: why rescuing isn’t leadership, why depth matters more than speed, and why self-trust can be more radical than having a plan.

This episode is for anyone ending the year without a bold intention — and feeling oddly okay about it.

If you’re craving permission to slow down, listen inward, and trust yourself before chasing the next strategy, this conversation is for you.

• What Erin chose as her word for 2026 — and what it actually means for her year ahead.

• The hidden cost of being the rescuer at work, in family life, and in relationships

• Choosing depth and rest without abandoning ambition

• Letting go of urgency, perfectionism, and incomplete projects without self-judgment

• Why self-trust can be more grounding than goal-setting

• A compassionate reframe for listeners who feel unsure about what’s next

“I realized I’ve been waiting for something that doesn’t exist — permission, legitimacy, or other people catching up.”

“Rescuing isn’t leadership. Rising up without abandoning myself is.”

“I didn’t end this year with a strategy. I ended it with self-trust — and that feels more radical.”

“You’re not behind. You might just be listening to yourself on a new level.”

• Burnt-out women and millennial mothers navigating ambition and rest

• Listeners who feel pressure to set goals but crave something quieter

• Anyone tired of hustle culture and performative self-improvement

• Leaders, caregivers, and creatives who are ready to stop waiting for permission

• Laura Tremaine’s 10 Questions for the End of the Year reflection practice

• The Summer of Real Rest theme and its lasting impact

• The idea of “negotiating the timeline, not the result”

If something resonated:

• Sit with a word that stood out to you

• Notice where you’re done rushing or rescuing

• Ask yourself where you might trust yourself a little sooner

There’s no homework here — just space.

Follow along on Instagram for more reflections, bookish content, and gentle encouragement: @medium.lady

If this episode spoke to you, screenshot it and share it — and tag Erin so you can continue the conversation.

What happens when being “strong” stops working?

In this deeply affirming and practical conversation, Erin is joined by Dr. Nikia Smith — practicing anesthesiologist, wellness coach, and founder of She Is Fire Forged — to explore how the Superwoman myth quietly fuels burnout, especially for high-achieving women and women in healthcare.

Together, they unpack how resilience, people-pleasing, and productivity can become liabilities rather than strengths — and why rest is not something to earn, but something to prioritize before everything else.

This episode is for anyone who:

• feels exhausted despite “doing everything right”

• has built a good life but still feels depleted or disconnected

• has been praised for being strong, capable, and reliable — at great personal cost

Dr. Smith explains how being “the strong one” often masks chronic exhaustion, emotional suppression, and self-abandonment — particularly for women of color and women in caregiving professions.

You can love your job, love your life, and still be burned out. Burnout often builds slowly — like a simmer — long before it reaches a breaking point.

Many women struggle to set boundaries because they’re already depleted. Dr. Smith shares why beginning with rest builds the capacity and courage needed to sustain boundaries over time.

Instead of waiting for total collapse, this episode offers language for identifying irritability, restlessness, resentment, and exhaustion before burnout boils over.

Sleep matters — but it’s not the whole picture. Emotional rest, creative rest, social rest, and physical rest all play distinct roles in recovery and sustainability.

Burnout often forces the question: Who am I beyond my roles and titles? This episode explores how dismantling inherited expectations opens space for self-trust and agency.

This conversation challenges the idea that:

• rest must be earned

• productivity defines worth

• success looks the same for everyone

Instead, Erin and Dr. Smith explore how true sustainability often means:

• adding friction at work

• removing friction at home

• offloading invisible labor

• questioning “shoulds” that drain energy without adding meaning

You’ll also hear honest reflections on:

• outsourcing household labor

• redefining success based on values (not aesthetics)

• letting go of guilt around support, rest, and ease

• Burnout is not a personal failure — it’s often the result of social conditioning and moral injury

• You don’t need confidence to make changes; courage is enough

• Rest creates the capacity needed to move from survival to intention

• You are allowed to want a life that feels good, not just one that looks successful

• Strength doesn’t mean doing everything alone

Dr. Nikia Smith is a practicing anesthesiologist, wellness coach, and founder of She Is Fire Forged, a platform supporting high-achieving women of color through burnout recovery, rest, and self-trust.

Through her coaching and content, she helps women:

• identify hidden burnout

• unlearn the need to earn rest

• build sustainable lives rooted in clarity and softness

Connect with Dr. Smith:

• Instagram & TikTok: @sheisfireforged

• Email: @medium.lady Explore more episodes of Medium Lady Talks for grounded conversations about rest, burnout recovery, identity, and sustainable living.

  And remember: Rest is not weakness. It’s a right.

On the winter solstice — the darkest day of the year — Erin closes the Phone Free Fall series with a quiet, honest reflection on presence, capacity, and what it means to actually live inside the life you worked so hard to build.

This episode isn’t about advice, challenges, or optimizing your habits. It’s about noticing. About naming the ways we slip out of our own lives — into scrolling, distraction, and emotional distance — not because our lives are bad, but because they are full.

If you’ve felt restless, overstimulated, or disconnected even while living a life you once dreamed of, this episode offers orientation, not pressure. A reminder that real life isn’t something you get to later — it’s already happening, and you’re allowed to be inside it.

This series was about noticing how often we leave our lives without realizing it — and gently choosing to come back.

Full lives are often heavy to inhabit. Phones offer distance and numbness, but not true restoration.

Even when we rest, our phones can quietly drain the capacity that rest is meant to restore.

Pride, boredom, boredom with scrolling — and then a strange, honest sense of being lost. Not a failure, but a re-entry.

This season invites inwardness, stillness, and tolerance for what feels unfinished or unresolved.

Not discipline. Not restriction. Just noticing when you leave your life — and when you come back.

The solstice doesn’t ask us to improve or shine. It asks us to stay.

Just as the light returns slowly — almost imperceptibly — presence returns minute by minute. With each moment we’re less interrupted. With each moment we choose to be here.

• You’re not escaping your life because it’s bad — you’re escaping because it’s full

• Distance from your phone isn’t the same as restoration, but it can create space for it

• Boredom and quiet are not problems; they’re thresholds

• Your real life isn’t waiting for you to feel better — it’s already happening

• You’re allowed to live inside the life you built, even when it’s imperfect, slow, or overwhelming

• Noticing is the practice

As Erin wraps both Phone Free Fall and Season 5 of Medium Lady Talks, she invites listeners into a winter pause — one that makes room for quiet, reflection, and enoughness.

You don’t need to do this better. You don’t need more discipline. You just need to keep noticing.

• Episode 165: A conversation with physician and coach Dr. Nikia Smith on rest, boundaries, and care that actually sustains us

• Season 6 of Medium Lady Talks returns in February after a January winter hiatus

If this episode resonated, Erin would love to hear from you — especially how Phone Free Fall shifted your awareness, not just your screen time.

Follow along on Instagram: @medium.lady And thank you for choosing to spend your time and attention here — they matter.