What Is a Parallelogram and Why Don’t I Know How to Handle Overwhelm?

Raise your hand if you’ve ever wondered why you spent years learning about things like parallelograms, but no one bothered to teach you how to manage your emotions during a midlife crisis.

Oh, just me? Cool.

The reality is, we’ve been set up. We left school armed with knowledge about mitochondria being the powerhouse of the cell but ZERO tools for dealing with things like perimenopause, crippling overwhelm, or how to tell someone you’re not coming to their “Paint and Sip” because you need to rest.
(BTW, it’s “No, thank you. I need to recharge. Hope you have a blast.” You’re welcome.)

Here’s the tea: the system failed us. But we’re grown-ups now (mostly), and it’s time to learn the stuff we missed.

Here’s a quick rundown of what we SHOULD have been taught—and some bite-sized tools to start reclaiming your education:

1. How to Tackle Overwhelm

• What we learned instead: How to cram for exams (hello, cortisol spikes!).

• Bite-sized tool: Start with the “5-minute rule.” Do one small thing on your list for 5 minutes. Often, starting is the hardest part.

2. Perimenopause: What Is It and Why Am I Sweating?

• What we learned instead: The square root of 144.

• Bite-sized tool: Research is power. Start tracking your symptoms (really...right now, download an app and track how often you wake up at night, if there are hot flashes, how your mood fluctuates...all of it) and bring them to your doctor. Also, hydrate like it’s your job.

3. Mindfulness That Isn’t Just Breathing Exercises

• What we learned instead: That Benjamin Franklin liked kites (or something?).

• Bite-sized tool: Try a body scan. Take two minutes to notice how each part of your body feels, starting from your head and moving down to your toes. It’s grounding and requires zero chanting.

If you’re sitting there nodding along, wondering why the heck we didn’t learn any of this in school, you’re my people. And guess what? My upcoming YouTube channel is where we’re going to fix this mess. Follow me here to be the first to watch when it launches in the next few weeks. I promise it’ll be fun, easy to process, and packed with the tools you need to thrive—no parallelograms required.

See you on YouTube,

Rachelle