Empowering Women In ConversationsYou Can’t Save Someone by Losing Yourself: Suicide Loss, Caregiver Burnout & People-Pleasing with Janna Holterman | Part 1
What was your biggest Takeaway from this Episode! I would Love to hear from you! What happens when loving and caring for someone slowly causes you to disappear from your own life? In this deeply personal episode of Empowering Women in Conversations, Anita Sandoval, LPC, sits down with Janna Holterman, RN, BNSc—Cardiac ICU nurse, coach, mentor, trained intuitive, and founder of Janna Holterman Coaching LLC. Janna vulnerably shares the mental-health decline and suicide loss of her husband, the exhaustion of becoming both his wife and caregiver, and the guilt that can remain when love, support, treatment, and doing everything you know to do still cannot control the outcome. This conversation is also for the woman who keeps believing: • If I love them enough, I can save them. • If I stop taking care of everything, it will all fall apart. • If someone I love is struggling, it must be my responsibility to fix it. • Caring for myself means I am abandoning them. • I should still be able to function even when my emotional battery is empty. Janna reminds us that loving someone does not give us complete control over their mental illness, healing, decisions, or capacity—and that caregivers need care too. IN THIS EPISODE: • The changes Janna noticed in her husband’s mental health • The many ways they sought professional and family support • Why warning signs are not always visible or recognizable • Survivor guilt after losing a loved one to suicide • How to support someone grieving a suicide loss • Why women feel responsible for saving everyone • The relationship between people-pleasing and caregiver burnout • Janna’s “dead phone battery” analogy for emotional capacity • Caring for yourself without feeling like you are abandoning someone • Why you cannot rescue or heal another adult by losing yourself CONTENT NOTICE AND SUPPORT This episode includes a non-graphic discussion of mental illness, suicide, grief, and suicide loss. Please care for yourself while listening. If you or someone you know is experiencing thoughts of suicide or a mental-health crisis in the United States, call or text 988 to connect with the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. If someone is in immediate danger, contact emergency services. BUT WAIT—THERE’S MORE Janna’s story does not end with losing herself. Join us next week for Part 2: “Who Are You When You’re No Longer Saving Everyone? Rebuilding Identity and Self-Trust.” In Part 2, we’ll discuss rebuilding your identity beyond the roles of wife, caregiver, nurse, and the person everyone depends on. We’ll also explore emotional processing, nervous-system regulation, reconnecting with your body, intuition, self-kindness, and learning to trust yourself again. ABOUT JANNA HOLTERMAN Janna Holterman, RN, BNSc, is a Cardiac ICU nurse, coach, mentor, trained intuitive, and founder of Janna Holterman Coaching LLC. Janna combines neuroscience, nervous-system regulation, emotional processing, and intuition to help women create sustainable success without sacrificing themselves in the process. Drawing from her professional background and personal experiences with trauma, grief, and healing, she teaches women how to reconnect with themselves and create lives that feel authentic, fulfilling, and genuinely their own. CONNECT WITH JANNA Website and Resources: https://www.jannaholterman.com/link-page Website: https://www.jannaholterman.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jannaholterman/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jannaholterman/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jannaholterman KEEP LISTENING If this episode made you recognize how much you have been carrying in your relationships, continue with these conversations: Why Am I So Tired? The Hidden Burnout of People-Pleasing with Dr. Lorea Martínez Pérez | Part 1 Why Do I Feel Guilty Saying No? Breaking the People-Pleasing Cycle with Dr. Lorea Martínez Pérez | Part 2 Are You Fighting for Your Marriage—or Abandoning Yourself? with Kameran “Kam” Al-Areqi | Part 1 Why You’ve Lost the Spark: Emotional Safety Comes Before Intimacy with Kameran “Kam” Al-Areqi | Part 2 Explore all episodes and choose your preferred listening platform: https://www.anitasandoval.com/podcast-directories ARE YOU TIRED OF CARRYING EVERYTHING? Download the free “Why Am I So Tired?” checklist and begin identifying what may be leaving you exhausted, overwhelmed, and carrying too much: https://www.anitasandoval.com/why-am-i-so-tired-subscribe JOIN THERAPIST TEA Subscribe to Therapist Tea: Things I Notice in Therapy for weekly therapist insights, relationship patterns, boundary support, healing conversations, and honest guidance for women learning to stop people-pleasing and start living authentically: https://www.anitasandoval.com/newsletters/therapist-tea-things-i-notice-in-therapy/subscribe QUESTION FOR YOU Have you ever confused loving someone with being responsible for saving them? Share your biggest takeaway from this episode and send it to a woman who needs the reminder that caring for herself does not mean she has stopped caring about the people she loves. We are brave. We are kind. We are compassionate. We are Women Empowered. 💗
