This was meant to be a just 3 min announcement, but based on your reaction to the news Dean Street Society is closing, I felt we needed another moment to just hang and process.

Pay The Value Closing Sale: DeanStreetSociety.com/closing

Also read information shared via email, by clicking "Hear More" at the bottom, and you can catch up on all emails sent since December 1st.

You asked for help choosing joy now and in the new year, after a hard year or season.

Can you relate to any of these?

• You're wishing time would go faster to get to something good or past something heavy?

• Feeling a case of the winter blues?

• Walking through disappointment?

• Or feeling energized about making 2024 your best year yet?

Today's 5 Q's with my teaching on each from my own life currently are for you!

Review these after the teaching to come up with your own answers:

1. What do I have that others don't have? // Gratitude

2. Who have I seen rebound that reminds me it's true? // Evidence

3. What dark came before my dawns? // Receipts

4. What have I handled well, grown in, how have I healed? // Confidence

5. What is good right now? // Present

And enjoy my list of happy company this season:

• Knockemout book trilogy

• No Hard Feelings

• Zainab Johnson

• Mike Brubiglia

• Single All The Way

See you over on Instagram @HilaryRushford for more.

The closer we get to a due date, the more I'm overthinking the name we have picked.

Here's my advice on naming, plus what I'm looking for in case you have ideas?

Share this one with anyone working on their baby names.

Or to spark some conversation this holiday if you're done with naming in your family.

Links in this episode:

• Instagram post to give suggestions once you listen! ← Will be linked when post is live

Truly, Internet Aunties (and a few uncles) thank you for your help!

Sadly, much of a surrogacy journey is bracing for disappointment. However the positive side of that, is when things are easy you feel so incredibly lucky.

This week Jeremy, myself, and my mom all flew out to meet our surrogate's family, our doctor, do a hospital tour, and have our 20-week anatomy scan.

All in a whirlwind 6 hours!

It was hilarious (y'all, our doctor is both an angel and a SNL character), a bit awkward, slightly triggering, and super heartwarming.

May it bring you more compassion, all the good feelings, and make you want to watch Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin this weekend! (wink)

Would be so grateful if you'll share this episode with anyone it might bless, tag me @HilaryRushford on Instagram, and take a minute to leave a review.

So grateful you're here!

A breakdown of my last 24 hours and the choices I made when there was too much on my plate.

Things are a lot right now.

Today I'm sharing exactly what I'm preaching, practicing, and sending in voice memos to my girlfriends.

We're talking about:

• How to avoid triggering people and *being* "that person" when someone's struggling

• How to get out of unsolicited advice convos #palmtoface

• The #1 action to keep yourself and those around you more safe in the storms of life

• How to get saved or have something solved when times are tough

I want to help you do better not by trying harder, but by trying more gently.

Links in this episode:

• Last chance to get your burnout score! → HilaryRushford.com/13signs

• Enrollment for Healing Burnout closes Friday Nov 10th! → HilaryRushford.com/burnout

• My honest IG video I reference at the top

• The book from the PS section

Please share this episode to bless someone else and tag me @HilaryRushford if on IG Stories so I can see what spoke to you. And thank you in advance for taking one minute to tap the stars and leave a review – it means so much!

I'm watching friends navigate life from a place of burnout vs healing, and the difference is astounding.

Comparison (their grass is greener) keeps us chasing goals harder than we should.

Yet, the opposite of envy is even more destructive to our burnout, and far less talked about.

Today we're healing the crippling mindset that keeps us chasing a dream until it nearly kills us.

Anxiety and depression are two manifestations of the same burnout root.

Whether today you're sprinting to keep a million balls in the air, or struggling through a sad fog to get much of anything done – it's burnout.

The great news is that you can heal burnout!

You don't have to stay here.

Let's start creating space for hope today…

Links in this episode:

• 13 Signs of Burnout Assessment is live for the LAST time with me on November 1st + 2nd at HilaryRushford.com/13 signs ← Get your score + map for healing

• Enrollment for my Healing Burnout course opens on November 1st as I guide a final cohort through with up to 6 weeks of LIVE coaching! ← HilaryRushford.com/burnout to join us when the doors open

Would love to hear your thoughts after on Instagram @HilaryRushford. If you think this would help someone you know please share and tag me so I can see and chime in!

And thank you in advance (wink) for leaving a review, they mean so much in helping more people!

What if some of the biggest choices in your life actually came from outside your head, not inside your heart?

That's the hard truth I've been grappling with.

I've been coming up for air a bit after a season of grief (with my book story) that (I see now) was followed by a season of hustle and determination to put life back together again.

I'm remembering how it felt in my body to dream many years ago with more hope, less disappointment, and less outside voices.

And now I understand why choosing the wrong dreams led to burnout and never enough

These are the complex choices in life, and this is a safe space to tell the truth to yourself.

Links in this episode:

• 13 Signs of Burnout Assessment is live for the LAST time with me on November 1st + 2nd at HilaryRushford.com/13 signs

• Then doors for my Healing Burnout course open on November 1st as I guide a final cohort through with 6 weeks of LIVE coaching! Save your seat at the link above to get an invite.

Would love to hear your thoughts after on Instagram @HilaryRushford. If you think this would help someone you know please share and tag me so I can see and chime in!

And thank you in advance (wink) for leaving a review, they mean so much in helping more people!

So many are struggling lately, both personal friends and members of our community.

I had a different episode planned for today when a friend called with hard, hard news and I wanted to share part of what we discussed.

Listen in to hear:

• What to text a friend when you want to help, or need it yourself

• Two specific steps to make metaphorical winter seasons in our life harder or easier

• Why these are tools we'll use repeatedly throughout life

• My mid-episode aha on the deeper issue with "and they all lived happily ever after"

• Bonus: How I'm applying this to a better mindset around literal winter here in NYC

It's the message you or someone you love needs when the way is feeling dark, and you're wishing to feel more hope and faith.

With all my heart, you're welcome, in advance.

Links In This Episode:

• The Healing Burnout Course is coming back this fall for the last time LIVE with Hilary for 6 weeks to coach you through. Join the waitlist to hear more + so you don't miss it: HilaryRushford.com/burnout

Would love to hear your thoughts after on Instagram @HilaryRushford. If you think this would help someone you know please share and tag me so I can see and chime in!

And thank you in advance (wink) for leaving a review, they mean so much in helping more people!

What advice would you give? Would you want?

The last two weeks while in Italy, I was swept away in the best romantic story.

A dear friend unexpectedly met someone while traveling internationally far from home and texted, "I might have met my husband."

The wrinkle is that a life with him means a major fork in the road, leaving possibly forever things she's loved, and for various reasons the decision is going to be made quickly.

When you have a major life decision, how can you be confident you won't regret whatever you choose?

Over hours of voice messages back and forth I reflected:

• The advice I'm giving her is so much different than I would have 10 years ago.

• What I learned from my IVF, surrogacy, and book journey that gave me wisdom.

• What we really want to know, and are never going to.

• How to avoid self-shame/blame if it doesn't work out.

• The biggest difference between taking risks in your teens/20's vs your mid-30's and beyond

The questions I guided her through, I found myself asking myself in the very different scenarios I'm walking through personally today.

This is the grown-women's approach to love and life choices that (thank goodness) has less draining drama and more delightful drama that makes life exciting yet empowering.

Curious to hear on Instagram @HilaryRushford what advice you'd give after you listen? If you share it on Stories tag me so I can see!

Join us on the road from Tuscany to the Italian Riviera via Rome on:

• My 3 biggest takeaways from the 1st trimester of our pregnancy and surrogacy journey

• Who we've shared the gender of the baby with and why/why not

• The 2 extra special places we found on our first time in Tuscany (will share links on IG after our trip!)

• The Italian political perspective on surrogacy that I can't help but think about while here

We get lost, have to change audio sources halfway through, and I don't allow for silence so we don't have to make edits once we arrive in Positano so he doesn't have much time to chime in (ha.)

Would love to hear your thoughts after on Instagram @HilaryRushford. If you think this would help someone you know please share and tag me so I can see and chime in!

And thank you in advance (wink) for leaving a review, they mean so much in helping more people!