That sh*t gets heavy
Take a walk
If you’ve ever wondered, “Is it too late for me to...” the answer’s NO and The Uplifters is about to show you why. This space is for purpose-driven women who want to do big, brave things in the second half of their lives.
It feels like everyone I’ve talked to recently is hitting a breaking point. Two former corporate clients called to bring me back to their teams with almost identical messages: our people are not okay. A close friend whose mother is declining and whose teenager just got a diagnosis. A client whose workload tripled when three colleagues left and weren’t replaced. A woman in our community simultaneously caring for a newborn, a grieving partner, and her own career reinvention, with a smile on her face in every single photo. And underneath all of it, the constant static of wars, politics, alarming AI predictions, and a news cycle that is specifically engineered to keep us anxious.
We are carrying too much. Researchers call it the Invisible Load, the mental and emotional labor of anticipating needs, organizing routines, worrying about the wellbeing of others, and managing the endless logistics of life. And it falls disproportionately on women.
I’ve been delivering workshops at companies this month that help people understand and manage their loads, so I wanted to share some of it with you here, you know, in case your sh*t is feeling heavy too.
The first thing I teach is that stress is not a mindset problem. It’s a physical response developed back in the good old days of charging lions. When our brains perceive a threat, they release cortisol and adrenaline to prepare our bodies to fight or flee danger. The problem is that our lions today are inbox zero, a sick parent, a country in upheaval, and a calendar that allows no margin. There’s no distance we can run to actually escape those stressors, but our bodies don’t know that. The stress response gets activated and then just stays there, spinning.
Emily and Amelia Nagoski, authors of the wonderful book Burnout, found that the stress cycle needs to be completed, and the most efficient way to do that is through physical movement, anything that gets your body going. Not because exercise is virtuous, but because your body genuinely needs to complete the biological loop it started. The cortisol has to go somewhere.
In Manoush Zomorodi’s new book Body Electric, she looks at what it’s costing us to spend our lives almost entirely online. TL;DR it’s destroying our hearing, our vision, our relationships, our focus, our creativity, basically everything. The best thing we can do to counteract it? Take a short walk.
And for those of us in perimenopause or menopause, since our cortisol levels are already spiking, this is an even bigger and more urgent issue. That’s why you probably (hopefully?) keep hearing experts telling you to reduce stress and walk more.
And yet we keep trying to think our way out of overwhelm. We make lists, we prioritize, we try to be more efficient, we read one more article about productivity. We treat the invisible load like an emotional problem when it’s actually a physical one. Our bodies are trying to outrun a lion and we’re asking them to sit still and think it out.
Movement is the most efficient way to complete the cycle, but it's not the only one. The Nagoskis also found that a genuine belly laugh, a 20-second hug, a good cry, or even a real conversation with someone who loves you can do it. Which, not coincidentally, are exactly the things we tend to skip when we're most overwhelmed. The invisible load doesn't just weigh on our bodies. It crowds out the very things that would actually help.
On the days I get out for even a short walk in the morning, the static quiets enough that I can hear myself think. On the days I pin myself to my desk chair, no amount of rearranging my to-do list helps.
So, yea, if your sh*t feels heavy, maybe go take a walk around your house or phone that friend who actually makes you feel better (not the one who doesn’t, she can wait).
With you in it, Aransas
P.S. I’m currently offering my workshop, “Carrying Invisible Loads,” to organizations and ERGs during Mental Health Awareness Month and beyond. If your team is in that “everyone is at a breaking point” season, this is built for exactly that moment. Reply to this email or visit www.aransassavas.com to learn more.
P.P.S. Paid subscribers, I’ll see you later this week with a series of reflection prompts and an invite to our weekly Uplifters co-working Zoom/unhinged dance party.
Loved this piece! Timely for me. I just wrote about receiving levity from a good belly laugh yesterday. It showed cortisol the door (in that moment anyway, lol). Good stuff. 🙏🏻❤️