Healing While Working: The Shit We Carry That Nobody Sees ❤️‍🩹

Nobody really prepares us for healing while life keeps moving. There’s no convenient pause button for grief, disappointment, anxiety, heartbreak, family struggles, or those seasons when you simply don’t feel like yourself. The meeting is still at 9:00. Your team still needs you. The kids need dinner. The mortgage is due. Life basically says, “That sounds rough. Anyway… keep going.” 😂 And somehow, we do.

Over the last few years, I’ve spent a lot of time working on myself. Therapy. Journaling. Breath work. Boundaries. Learning my triggers. Unlearning things I carried for far too long. And somewhere in all of that work, one lesson got really loud: being strong enough to carry something doesn’t mean it was ever yours to carry.

That lesson shows up at work, too. High performers see a gap and fill it. Something falls, we catch it. Nobody owns it, we step in. Something catches fire? 🔥 Fine, hand me the hose. There’s pride in being that person, and sometimes it absolutely is leadership. But I’ve also learned there’s a difference between stepping up and overfunctioning, between being committed and carrying everything, and between leadership and martyrdom.

Strong organizations shouldn’t depend on a handful of talented people quietly holding up the ceiling. Great leadership creates clarity, accountability and trust. It puts good people in the right places, gives them room to be great, and recognizes that being the person who can solve every problem isn’t nearly as powerful as building a team where one person doesn’t have to.

And somewhere in all our conversations about performance, growth and results, we can’t forget that every person walking into work is bringing an entire life with them. Someone can be crushing their number while grieving. Leading a team while rebuilding their confidence. Sitting across from you looking completely composed while carrying something you know absolutely nothing about.

That doesn’t mean lowering the bar. I believe deeply in accountability and high standards. But accountability and humanity can sit at the same table. We can expect excellence and still ask someone how they’re really doing. We can give grace without abandoning accountability. We can be ambitious and still be healing.

And if you’re the one doing some healing right now, remember this: you don’t have to become some perfectly healed version of yourself before you’re allowed to succeed. You can be healing and ambitious, vulnerable and powerful, still figuring some things out and still be damn good at what you do. ❤️

So maybe the question isn’t always, “How much more can I carry?” Maybe it’s “Is all of this actually mine to carry?”

That answer might change a few things. ❤️🦁

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