The Weight We Carry: When Letting Go Sets Us Free

The Breaking Point

Last Tuesday, I watched my neighbor Sarah standing in her driveway at 6 AM, still in her pajamas, staring at her phone with this look of complete exhaustion. She’d been up since 4:30 answering work emails, prepping lunches for three kids, and coordinating carpools for the day ahead. When I waved, she just shook her head and said, “I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t tired.” That image stuck with me—not because it was dramatic, but because it was so ordinary. Most of us walk around carrying invisible loads that nobody sees, pretending we’ve got it all under control. There’s the quiet wisdom from Mae Collins that “Most stress comes from pretending we can carry everything. Relief begins the moment we put something down.” These words capture something we all know but rarely admit: we’re exhausted from the performance of managing it all.

The Illusion of Control

This quote cuts through the stories we tell ourselves about strength and capability. The stress doesn’t actually come from having too much to do—it comes from the act of pretending we can handle it all without help, without rest, without limits. I kept saying yes to things last month even though my body was screaming no. My shoulders stayed tight, I snapped at my family, and I couldn’t sleep, but I still added one more project because I couldn’t stand the thought of someone thinking I couldn’t handle it.

The pretense was killing me, and nobody even asked me to maintain it. That’s the cruel part—we exhaust ourselves performing capability for an audience that isn’t watching, or worse, doesn’t care. The moment of putting something down isn’t about finding better time management tricks. It’s about admitting we’ve been lying to ourselves about what’s sustainable.

When Someone Let Go

During the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Simone Biles withdrew mid-competition. She’d been carrying expectations of an entire sport on her shoulders, plus trauma she’d survived, plus the pressure of being labeled “the greatest of all time.” Then she lost her spatial awareness mid-air—what gymnasts call “the twisties”—and was literally losing control while pretending she could carry it all. The backlash was swift, but Biles prioritized her actual safety over everyone’s expectations.

What struck me most was what she said afterward: she needed to focus on her mental health and recognize she was more than her gymnastics. That moment showed millions of people that even the world’s greatest athletes have limits, and honoring those limits isn’t weakness—it’s wisdom.

What You Can Release

Here’s what nobody tells you about letting go: your body already knows what needs to happen. Sit for just a minute and notice where you’re holding tension. Not to fix it, just to acknowledge it. That tightness in your jaw isn’t random—it’s connected to something specific you’re holding onto that your conscious mind hasn’t admitted yet. Pay attention to which commitments make your stomach clench when you think about them. Those are the ones slowly crushing you, the ones you keep telling yourself you can manage even though every cell in your body disagrees.

The hardest part isn’t identifying what to release. It’s dealing with what happens when you actually do it. You’ll disappoint someone. That’s not a maybe—it’s guaranteed. You’ll say “I need to step back from this” and someone will be frustrated or hurt or inconvenienced. You’ll feel guilty. You might even feel like a failure. But here’s the truth that took me years to accept: you cannot keep yourself on fire to keep other people warm. Their disappointment is not your emergency.

And if you’re waiting to delegate until you find someone who’ll do it exactly like you would, you’ll wait forever. The perfectionism that makes you clutch every task is the same force that’s suffocating you. Let someone else do it their way, even if it’s messier than yours, even if it makes you uncomfortable. Your 100% while burned out is worse than someone else’s imperfect 70% while healthy. Ask for what you need specifically: “Can you take over dinner on Thursdays?” not “I need help” while secretly hoping they’ll read your mind.

Then there are the invisible things—the guilt about not being enough, the mental replay of conversations from last week, the endless rehearsal of arguments that haven’t happened yet. You’re holding onto those like they’re precious when they’re actually just exhausting you. Let them go. Not because you’ve resolved them or found closure or learned some big lesson. Let them go because you’re tired and holding them isn’t helping anyone.

Your One Thing

Right now, think of one thing you’re carrying that isn’t actually yours. Maybe it’s fixing your adult sibling’s problems, or proving something to someone who stopped paying attention years ago, or holding yourself to a standard that’s slowly destroying you. Write it down. Then do something concrete to release it today—send the text, delete the draft email you’ve been perfecting, or just decide you’re done running that argument in your head. Notice what your shoulders do when you let it go.

The Lighter Path

We’ve built entire identities around what we can endure. But endurance isn’t the same as living. The relief doesn’t come from finally becoming someone who can handle more. It comes from being honest about what you can reasonably manage and letting the rest fall. Some days we’ll pick things back up. Other days we’ll discover we never needed them at all. What matters keeps shifting, and we keep choosing what actually deserves our energy instead of what we think we’re supposed to handle.

Begin Right Now

You don’t need permission, but if you’re waiting for it, here it is: let go of something today. One thing. Notice what you’re holding that’s making you tired and ask yourself what would genuinely happen if you simply stopped. That space you create isn’t empty—it’s where you get to breathe again. Start there.