Meet Danielle, your guide on the journey to self-discovery and growth. With a background in counseling and a passion for empowering others, Danielle brings warmth, insight, and practical wisdom to her work.
Tired of Life? Let’s Talk About What That Really Means If you’ve ever found yourself thinking, I’m just tired of life, you’re not alone. And more importantly—you’re not broken. Feeling tired of life doesn’t always mean something is dramatically wrong. Often, it’s a quiet signal from your nervous system that something feels heavy, stretched, or […]
Tired of Life? Let’s Talk About What That Really Means
If you’ve ever found yourself thinking, I’m just tired of life, you’re not alone.
And more importantly—you’re not broken.
Feeling tired of life doesn’t always mean something is dramatically wrong. Often, it’s a quiet signal from your nervous system that something feels heavy, stretched, or unsustainable. It’s the accumulation of small things that haven’t had space to land yet.
In this solo episode of Don’t Cut Your Own Bangs, I sit down with Brent and Kyle Pease to explore resilience, confidence, and what it actually looks like to keep going when things feel hard—not in theory, but in real life.
And what we uncover is this: the goal isn’t to eliminate the hard.
It’s to expand what’s possible within it.
Feeling tired of life? A therapist shares why it happens and how to build real resilience, confidence, and clarity in the middle of it.
What Does “Tired of Life” Really Mean?
Feeling tired of life is less about exhaustion and more about emotional depletion.
It can sound like:
“I don’t have it in me today”
“Everything feels like too much”
“I should be fine… but I’m not”
From a therapist perspective, this often points to a mismatch between:
What you’re carrying
And the support or recovery you’re receiving
It’s not a failure of resilience.
It’s often a sign you’ve been resilient for too long without support.
Why Confidence Feels So Far Away When You’re Overwhelmed
One of the most powerful takeaways from this conversation is that confidence isn’t built after the hard moment—it’s built inside it.
We tend to believe: “I’ll feel confident once this gets easier.”
But in reality: Confidence grows when you stay with yourself while it’s still hard.
Brent and Kyle talk about endurance racing—not as a metaphor for pushing harder, but as a lived experience of learning how to:
Sit with discomfort
Communicate through tension
Keep going without abandoning yourself
And that’s where real confidence comes from.
Example 1: The First Step Is the Hardest
Not because it’s physically difficult.
But because you know what’s coming.
Whether it’s:
Starting therapy
Having a hard conversation
Making a change you’ve been avoiding
The first step asks you to willingly enter discomfort.
And that’s where most people pause.
Example 2: When You Want to Quit Midway Through
There’s a moment Brent shares where he wanted to quit entirely.
And instead of pushing him harder, Kyle said: “Just go one more mile.”
Not the whole race. Not the full plan.
Just the next step.
This is resilience in practice: Not thinking about forever Not solving everything
Just staying with what’s right in front of you.
What Resilience Actually Looks Like (It’s Not What You Think)
Resilience is not:
Powering through everything
Always being positive
Never struggling
Resilience is:
Feeling overwhelmed and staying present
Being honest about what’s hard
Letting support exist alongside effort
It’s not about removing struggle.
It’s about changing your relationship to it.
What Does “Confidence” Actually Mean?
From a therapuetic lens, confidence isn’t about certainty.
It’s about self-trust.
It sounds like:
“I can handle this, even if it’s uncomfortable”
“I don’t need to rush to fix this feeling”
“I can take the next step, even if I don’t see the whole path”
Confidence is built in moments where: You stay You soften You continue anyway
When You’re Tired of Life, Start Here
Not with a full reset.
Not with a complete overhaul.
Start smaller.
Ask:
What is one thing I can do today that feels slightly lighter?
Where can I let myself be supported instead of pushing harder?
What would it look like to take just the next step?
Final Thoughts
If you’re feeling tired of life right now, I want you to hear this:
You don’t need to be “more resilient.”
You may just need more space, more support, and a different way of relating to what you’re carrying.
You’re allowed to feel stretched.
You’re allowed to not have it all figured out.
And you don’t have to do it alone.
Key Takeaways
Feeling tired of life is often emotional overload—not failure
Confidence is built inside hard moments, not after them
Resilience grows through support, not isolation
The next step matters more than the full plan
If this resonated with you, subscribe to the podcast and share this with someone who might need it too.
Because sometimes the most powerful thing we can offer each other is: “Oh… it’s not just me.”
👉 If this episode resonates, share it with a friend who might also need this reminder. And don’t forget to subscribe so new episodes find you—no chasing required.
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DANIELLE IRELAND, LCSW
I greatly appreciate your support and engagement as part of the Don’t Cut Your Own Bangs community. Feel free to reach out with questions, comments, or anything you’d like to share. You can connect with me at any of the links below.
Danielle Ireland: You just heard a moment from my conversation with Brent and Kyle Pease—and honestly, that moment encapsulates the entire episode. But there’s so much more underneath.
Hello, hello, and welcome back to Don’t Cut Your Own Bangs. I’m Danielle Ireland, and I’m so glad you’re here.
Today’s conversation is about a lot of things. On the surface, it’s about endurance racing—pushing physical limits and doing something most people would look at and say, “That’s impossible.” But underneath all of that, this is a story about relationship. About brotherhood. About trust. About what becomes possible when someone refuses to accept a version of the world that leaves people out.
Brent and Kyle are the co-founders of the Kyle Pease Foundation. Together, they’ve completed some of the most demanding races in the world—and built something that is actively changing what inclusion looks like in sports, workplaces, and everyday life.
One of the things that really stayed with me after this conversation is that while racing gets people’s attention, it’s not the whole point. The point is access. The point is community. The point is finding a way to say yes—even if the path forward doesn’t exist yet.
We talk about what it means to do hard things, how to know which hard things are worth fighting for, and what it looks like to grow—not just as athletes, but as brothers and as people.
So whether you’re in a season where things feel heavy or uncertain, or you’re standing on the edge of something that feels just out of reach, I hope this conversation reminds you that possibility is often closer than we think.
Okay—let’s get into it.
CONVERSATION
Danielle: Kyle and Brent Pease, welcome to Don’t Cut Your Own Bangs. It’s such a pleasure to have you here. I’m really excited to dive into your work, what you stand for, and this conversation as a whole.
Thank you for being here.
Brent & Kyle: Yeah, thank you.
ORIGINS OF RACING
Danielle: Racing is what draws people into your work—through social media, speaking, everything. I’m curious—when did the idea for racing first appear for you? Was it a moment, or something that grew over time?
Brent: Honestly, all of the above.
Growing up, we were always trying to include Kyle in whatever we were doing—that’s really the foundation of everything we do today.
But it really took hold in 2010 when I competed in an endurance event for the first time. Kyle was watching—not just me, but everyone—and seeing people push themselves physically and mentally.
And for Kyle, it was this realization: “That’s what I go through every day.”
Living life in a wheelchair comes with very visible challenges. Watching people struggle in an Ironman—you can see it on their faces—that connection really clicked.
From there, it grew. From racing together… to doing an Ironman… to wanting others to do it with us.
And it’s still evolving.
TRUST & BROTHERHOOD
Danielle: What have you learned about each other through racing? Especially in those intense moments—what level of trust does that require?
Brent: You have to trust someone who carries you down a flight of stairs.
Kyle never had a phase where he could just go down stairs independently—someone always helped him. I started doing that at a young age. That builds something.
But what we’ve really learned? Kyle is incredibly competitive.
And the trust has evolved. Early on, there were moments of tension—we’d create stories about each other like, “He doesn’t understand what I’m going through.”
But over time, we’ve built something different. In our last Ironman, we experienced the greatest level of trust and flow we’ve ever had.
We know our roles now. We know what we each carry—for each other.
HITTING THE WALL
Danielle: How do you know the difference between “this is hard, keep going” and “we need to pivot”?
Brent: Think about a year of your life.
If you mapped 365 days—how many are amazing? How many are okay? How many are hard?
In an Ironman—140.6 miles—you experience all of that.
And the line between awful and good? It’s really thin.
What we’ve learned is: You don’t get through it by only having good moments. You get through it by navigating both.
Kyle has built this massive toolbox because his challenges are more visible and constant.
So in a race, there are moments where I say, “I’m struggling.”
And Kyle can say, “Okay—then I’ve got us right now.”
Because for 140.6 miles: I carry Kyle physically. Kyle carries me emotionally.
That’s the deal.
“THE FIRST STEP IS THE HARDEST”
Danielle: You’ve said the first step is the hardest. Even more than mile 120?
Brent: Yeah—because you know what’s coming.
The race starts with a 2.4-mile swim. And every time, my first thought is: “I don’t want to do this.”
Because I know what’s ahead.
It’s the same with anything hard—therapy, growth, change. You’re choosing to step into something uncomfortable.
That’s why the first step is the hardest.
KONA STORY — TURNING INTO EACH OTHER
Danielle: Can you share the Kona story—the headwind and what happened there?
Brent: We turned onto a 19-mile stretch—massive headwind. I saw the whitecaps and knew what was coming.
I tried to tell Kyle—I was stressed.
Kyle snapped back, basically saying, “Don’t worry about that.”
But we couldn’t hear each other over the wind.
We rode 19 miles like that.
When we turned around and could finally talk, Kyle said: “I get it now.”
Kyle: In that moment, I realized I was in my own emotions.
Sometimes we forget what the other person is going through.
So I came back to him and said: “I love you. Thank you. I’ve got you.”
We had to remove ourselves from our own experience to see each other again.
CONFLICT & CONNECTION
Danielle: That’s such a powerful metaphor for relationships—seeing the “whitecaps,” bracing, and then missing each other.
But you turned toward each other.
Brent: Yeah—and here’s the truth:
Kyle struggled for a moment. I struggled too.
But we paused. We recalibrated.
And then we started saying things like: “I’m so thankful for you.”
That grounded us again.
Because the connection—love—is what keeps us in the struggle.
THE QUIET MOMENTS
Danielle: What are the quiet moments like after the race?
Brent: The finish line isn’t really for us.
The real moment is afterward—when it’s quiet.
We were sitting by the water a couple days later, just still.
And it was like… “This is why we did it.”
Kyle: Every day starts hard for me physically.
But I remind myself: I get to do something I love—with someone I love.
That’s what brings me back.
FINAL TAKEAWAYS
Danielle: What impact do you hope this conversation has?
Kyle: To give people space to breathe.
To see that even if things are hard—you still have gifts.
Brent: There is a lot of good in the world.
And if you’re willing to look for it—you’ll see it.
There’s a quote I love: “All my life I tried to avoid the struggles—until I realized the struggles were my life.”
It’s not about eliminating hardship. It’s about how you meet it.
CLOSING
Danielle: Thank you both so much. This was incredible.
Brent & Kyle: Thank you.
OUTRO
Danielle (Outro): If there’s one thing I keep coming back to, it’s this:
The goal isn’t to eliminate challenges. It’s to expand what we believe is possible within them.
Brent and Kyle didn’t wait for perfect conditions. They built a path anyway.
And we can too.
If this conversation stayed with you, I’d love to hear what resonated.
As always—thank you for being here.
You’re allowed to grow. You’re allowed to take up space. And you don’t have to do it alone.
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