Week 42: The Weight We Carry – Roles, Responsibility, and Reaching Out
If you’re like many of my clients—and if I’m honest, like me too—you may be feeling like you’re doing a lot lately. Holding too many things. Spinning too many plates. Playing too many roles: partner, parent, worker, caretaker, planner, fixer, listener, therapist (but without the degree), chef, scheduler, friend, and maybe, if there’s time, human being. We do so much, and often without pause.
We burn the candle at both ends and then light a match in the middle too, convinced that it’s just what needs to be done. And to be clear, sometimes it is—bills need to be paid, children need to be fed, colleagues need to be responded to. But many times, it’s deeper than that. It’s about identity, expectations, fear of letting others down, fear of being perceived as less-than, and—especially for so many mothers I work with—fear of what will happen if they don’t hold everything up.
The mental load is real. And it’s not just about tasks—it’s about the thinking behind the tasks. The remembering of the birthday party, the planning of the meals, the emotional labor of navigating your partner’s stress while suppressing your own. The noticing. The anticipating. The managing of a thousand invisible threads.
The pandemic only sharpened this truth. COVID laid bare the weight parents—especially mothers—carry. With support systems evaporating overnight, many were forced to choose between careers and caregiving. The Great Resignation wasn’t just about jobs; it was about capacity, exhaustion, and the reckoning of what’s sustainable.
And while mothers are often at the center of this conversation, I’ve heard fathers, too, quietly share the pressure of holding their roles in ways they were never taught to talk about. They carry weight too—sometimes silently, often stoically, and sometimes resenting that silence. Many of us, regardless of gender, are overwhelmed and under-supported.
But here's the complicated part: asking for help is hard.
Leaning on others doesn’t always feel safe. For some of us, it’s been met with dismissal. For others, it’s been used against us. And for many, there’s shame in even needing the help at all.
We’ve been sold the myth that competence looks like self-sufficiency, that resilience means handling it alone, that strength is silence. But that kind of strength? It isolates. It builds resentment. It wears down relationships.
And it comes with a cost.
When we don’t pause, we break.
When we don’t set boundaries, we end up resentful, bitter, or burned out.
When we continue at a pace that exceeds what’s sustainable, something eventually gives—and often, it’s our health, our connection to others, or our sense of self.
I see this all the time:
One partner holding everything and feeling invisible.
A parent running on empty, snapping at the people they love the most.
An employee quietly slipping into burnout while still smiling on Zoom.
So here’s this week’s invitation:
Choose one role to release—just for today. Maybe dinner doesn’t have to be perfect. Maybe someone else can handle the bedtime routine. Maybe you delegate. Maybe you say, “I can’t take that on right now.” Maybe, just maybe, you ask for help.
It will feel hard. And vulnerable. And that’s okay.
Because the truth is, when you release even one thing, you create space for so much more:
More energy.
More presence.
More connection.
More rest.
More room to actually enjoy the people and things you’re working so hard for.
And sometimes, the very relationships we’re trying to preserve by doing everything for others are the ones that improve when we let go—when we trust others to step in, or invite them to share the load.
You are not weak for being tired.
You’re tired because you’ve been strong for too long, for too many, and for too much.
