The Weight You're Carrying That Isn't Actually Yours

Lately, I've been having conversations with women who all seem to be describing the same feeling.

They're tired.

Not just "I need an early night" tired, but a deeper kind of exhaustion that doesn't seem to disappear, no matter how much sleep they get. The kind that makes even simple decisions feel harder than they should and leaves them wondering why they're so drained when they haven't done anything particularly extraordinary.

It made me stop and think.

What if we're asking ourselves the wrong question?

Instead of asking, "Why am I so tired?" perhaps we should be asking, "What am I carrying?"

The more I sat with that thought, the more it began to make sense.

The other day I caught myself worrying about something that had absolutely nothing to do with me. It involved someone I care deeply about, and naturally I wanted things to work out for them. As I went about my day, I found myself thinking about it while I was driving, while I was working, and even while I was trying to relax that evening.

The funny thing was, there wasn't actually anything I could do. There was no problem for me to solve, no decision for me to make and no action I could take. Yet somehow, I had taken this situation and quietly placed it onto my own shoulders.

I wonder how often we do that without even realising.

We carry the worries of our children, even when they're adults. We carry concerns about our partners, our friends and our parents. We absorb the stress of work, the uncertainty in the economy, heartbreaking stories on the news and the endless stream of other people's struggles that appear on our phones every day.

None of us wake up in the morning and consciously decide to take all of that on.

We do it because we care. Because we're compassionate. Because somewhere along the way, many of us learned that loving people meant carrying their burdens alongside our own.

The problem is, our hearts don't always know where compassion ends and responsibility begins.

So we carry it all.

And eventually, it becomes heavy.

I've started to believe that many women aren't exhausted because they're doing too much. They're exhausted because they're emotionally carrying far more than they were ever meant to.

There's an important difference between caring about someone and carrying them.

You can love people deeply without making their problems your responsibility.
You can support someone through a difficult season without losing yourself in the process.
You can care about what's happening in the world without absorbing every ounce of its pain.

None of that makes you selfish.

It makes your compassion sustainable.

That simple thought has stayed with me ever since I realised I was carrying someone else's situation around in my own mind. I asked myself one simple question...

"Is this actually mine to carry?"

The answer was no.

I could still care.
I could still listen.
I could still be there if I was needed.

But carrying it wasn't helping them, and it certainly wasn't helping me.

Maybe that's a question worth asking yourself today.

Not because it will instantly make life easier, but because awareness has a funny way of creating space where there once felt like there was none.

If you've been feeling unusually heavy lately, perhaps take a few quiet minutes and notice what's occupying your mind. Which worries genuinely belong to you? Which responsibilities are yours to hold? And which ones have you gently picked up simply because you have a kind heart?

You don't have to solve everything today.
You don't have to put every burden down overnight.

But perhaps you can begin by recognising that not everything weighing you down was ever yours to carry in the first place.

And maybe that's where feeling lighter begins.

Thank you for spending a little time here with me today.

My hope is that whenever you find yourself returning to this page - whether that's next week or years from now - you'll remember that caring deeply doesn't require carrying everything. Sometimes the kindest thing we can do, both for ourselves and for those we love, is to know the difference.

Cheering you on, always,

Sandra 💗