There’s an invisible weight that so many women are carrying every single day.

It’s the weight of responsibility, expectations, mental load, and the quiet pressure to keep showing up for everyone else, often at the expense of ourselves. And the tricky part? From the outside, everything can look “fine.”

You know those conversations – “How are you,” and the answer is always “Fine”, even when you aren’t. This conversation is for you if you’re feeling stretched thin, overwhelmed, or quietly carrying more than anyone realizes.

My friend Jillian, honest & real, is helping me dive into the invisible weight women carry by answering some heavy-hitting questions.

What does the phrase “the invisible weight women carry” mean to you in this season of life?

For Jillian, specifically, she’s thinking about her kids’ school projects, making sure she’s not adding more to the teacher’s plate, and when soccer season starts. But it doesn’t stop there, she is also thinking about when soccer starts, did she text her friend, is the trash out? That doesn’t even include what’s actually on her to-do list for the day.

Many women struggle with constantly having a laundry list of items and things they want to do. The things that live in our brains are invisible. No one really sees them, but they are always there. This can cause an overwhelming sense of “I need to do this” that we can’t explain.

The invisible weight we all carry is so different. While we can empathize with one another, we don’t carry the same weight even if we are in the same seasons of life or circumstances.

What do you think keeps women living beyond their capacity even when they know it’s not sustainable?

Capacity is a combination of time and energy. When we are taught about capacity, it’s really just the time we are taught about it. Time and energy are not equitable, but they both impact our capacity.

The truth is, it’s so much less about choosing to do more and so much more about feeling like we don’t have a choice. Thoughts like “who else is going to do that if I don’t”? Thoughts like this are a reason why so many women live beyond their capacity, some without even realizing it.

Just because you have the time to do something does not mean you have the capacity to do it.

How can women begin to recognize when their life no longer fits them, when something needs to change, even if they can’t name it yet?

Jillian said that your body is going to know before your brain does. Your body will always tell you first, and the question is whether you are going to let it tell you. Jillian carried the needed changes in her shoulders. Because it was constant, she never really knew that something was off. Now, when she starts to stress and feels it in her shoulders, she knows that something is off and needs to change. 

Your body will hold those things differently. Pay attention to those things in your body. Although we feel conditioned to keep going, we can’t ignore our body’s signs that something is off. This takes pausing, slowing down, and wisdom for you to be able to identify these things. If you don’t listen to it, it will always come back.

What are some small, realistic shifts women can make right now to start releasing some of the weight they’re carrying?

Jillian got a good idea from her husband. He suggested she go have a quiet minute (for her, that’s in her closet) and right down all the things she was thinking about. She wrote a massive list of all the doubts, insecurities, worries, unknowns, and things she had to do. Then her husband said, What on this list can you control? To her surprise, there were only like 3 things!

She recommends this to everyone because it’s so eye opening. Once you’ve done this, it’s crucial that you give the things permission to live outside of your brain. Even just saying it out loud is enough to help relieve some of that weight. 

If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, overextended, or quietly carrying more than you can hold, I hope this helped you!

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