Coffee with Ren: Exhaustion Edition (6/9/2025)

Good morning friends. I’m up early with a fever (again), so I figured I’d write a little earlier than usual and be one with the early birds. This morning’s publication is based on centuries-long exhaustion, but also how we still rise. So let’s grab our coffee (or DayQuil and orange juice in my case, AGAIN) and let’s get into it.

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Morning Affirmations:

1. I wake tired, as if I’ve been carrying centuries, and maybe I have, in spirit.

2. My bones remember battles I never fought, and still I rise, weary but willing.

3. I don’t need to be infinite to be valuable. I am tired, but I am real.

4. I am not lazy. I am stretched thin by a world that never sleeps.

5. My fatigue is not failure. It is proof that I’ve been showing up.

6. I am allowed to move slowly through a world that races past me.

7. Some days, survival is sacred work. Today might be one of them.

8. I honor the ache in my chest. It means I’ve been alive through impossible days.

9. I am exhausted, but not empty. Beneath this weight, a part of me still believes in tomorrow.

10. I rest not because I’ve given up, but because I am still becoming.

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I know I’m exhausted, so I know most of us are as well. I’m tired to my very core. So our one goal today is one we’re all pretty used to if you read Café Polari often: our goal is to breathe. I make this our goal relatively often, because right now it’s extremely necessary. So, today we’re going to do a breathing exercise. I always find mine on YouTube, and I usually search them by however much time I have to spend on it. “15 minute mediation session” or “15 minute breathing exercise” are usually a great searches.

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I see you, I hear you, I love you, and I’m with you. This administration will not win. I’ll see everyone tonight for Tea with Ren 🍵💚