When you feel exhausted and overburdened by all the things you have to deal with on a daily basis, do you ever dream about simply putting them down and walking away from them?
Of course, we may not be able to do this with things like jobs, mortgages, and health issues, but a lot of the seemingly small things we carry end up weighing us down just as much.
Here are a number of “small” things that may be weighing down your entire life without you even realizing it, that you can give yourself full permission to walk away from at any time.
1. A pursuit that was once important to you, but you no longer enjoy.
When you started this particular project, you might have had a ton of vision, energy, and great ideas about where you were going to go with it. But life circumstances changed (as did your perspective), and now it’s become a millstone around your neck.
Instead of experiencing joy when you spend time doing it, it now feels like a burden or obligation. It’s not fun, your heart isn’t in it, and you might even resent the fact that you’re wasting precious time on it when you’d rather be doing just about anything else.
Just because a previous version of you took on this project, that doesn’t mean the current “you” needs to finish it. You can quit the course, sell or donate the craft materials, and so on.
Similarly, you don’t have to finish that media that you’ve lost interest in: you can absolutely choose not to finish a book that you started.
If others judge you for “giving up” on things that no longer interest you, that’s their problem — not yours.
2. The unfair and false judgements of the past.
When you were younger, those close to you might have made sweeping generalizations about you based on something that happened once or twice. These might have held a grain of truth, but were far from being the whole picture.
For example, a friend of mine fell and hurt himself at a sports race when we were 8 years old, and his parents never let him pursue any athletic interests again. Any time he expressed a desire to do so, they reminded him of his humiliating past defeat, and told him he’d never be capable of doing anything sports-related.
Fast forward twenty years, and after hitting the gym and running regularly, he became one of the strongest, fastest guys I’ve ever known.
You can drop other people’s judgments and limiting beliefs about you (though, of course, it takes some work) and choose to leave them in the past. Their judgments are their issue. And your life is yours to lead as you see fit, rather than being weighed down by what other people say.
3. The idea of what and who you should be, based on how other people are living.
You’ve probably noticed that there are a lot of markers that people cling to about how they should lead their lives.
For example, some people have a “thing” that sets them apart from others and gives them a sense of identity. Most groups will have variations on the funny one, the organizer, the creative one, the advice-giver, and so on. And if you don’t have a “thing” that you use as your identifier, you may feel like something’s missing in your life.
This notion can become a crushing source of anxiety, with “What should I do? Who should I be? What am I?” rolling over and over in your mind.
In reality, we don’t need to cling to a defining feature, and should instead focus more on simply doing things that bring us joy.
Ironically, it’s the small, authentic things that are the most valid, important, and real, rather than the clawing fear of whatever role you think you “should” be playing in order to make yourself whole.
4. Small fears that seem huge.
Some things may seem like huge, potentially crushing nightmares looming out at you from the dark, but when you get up close and personal with them, it’s apparent that they aren’t really as big a deal as we feared after all.
Often, the fear about something is far worse than the reality will ever be, and once you face it head-on, you’ll find that it’s not that scary, and that you were more than capable of dealing with it.
A trip to a good dentist is a good example of this. Your teeth will feel significantly better after a cleaning and check-up, and the discomfort you anticipated is often not as bad as you’d imagined.
The big things in life usually come out of nowhere and catch us totally off guard. There’s no way to prepare ourselves for them. So the best thing we can do is to do our very best to not let our fears control our minds, nor our actions, but deal with whatever unfolds as it happens.
5. Health overvigilance.
With so many experts telling us what we should and shouldn’t do, and warning us of the dire risks if we don’t adhere, it’s no wonder many people feel weighed down by the pursuit of health and wellness.
Case in point: One of my partner’s friends is so obsessed with being healthy that she has reminder timers set for dozens of times a day to do all the things she thinks her body needs.
She’s so often interrupted with dings to take her electrolyte drinks, moisturize her elbows, do her self-love affirmations, and so on, that she can never immerse herself in anything.
This poor woman is in a constant state of hypervigilance, utterly stressed out because she thinks her health will go to hell unless she’s constantly stuffing it full of supplements.
Of course, it’s important to eat well, exercise regularly, etc., but becoming obsessive about it all will inevitably lessen your quality of life, which rather defeats the point.
6. Apps that make you feel obligated to pay attention to them.
Maybe you’re being bullied by the Duolingo owl, or your social media apps demand your attention dozens of times a day.
Every time your phone interrupts your life, your concentration is derailed, and you feel waves of irritation or anxiety because of how many things it wants you to do.
Here’s the thing: you don’t have to do any of these things.
There’s no obligation to download or participate in any of them, and the feeling of duty and obligation that you feel towards them are undoubtedly adding even more weight to your already overladen shoulders.
There are already so many demands on you throughout the day, so give yourself full permission to stop participating in your own torment.
Uninstall whatever isn’t completely necessary, and take back your time, energy, and as much sanity as possible. Hell, even get a flip phone at this point if that would help.
7. Unnecessary clutter.
It’s likely that at some point in your life, you’ll look around and realize you’re hemmed in on all sides by possessions you don’t actually need (or want).
Everything around you is cluttered with things like your Granny’s knickknacks, your mother’s dishes, books you’ll never read again, and mementos from places you’ve already forgotten about.
The old, questionable-smelling futon a friend of a friend “donated” to you is sagging beneath the weight of a hundred clothes you’ve laundered but haven’t put away yet, and you don’t remember what your bathroom counter looks like.
If this stuff is weighing on you heavily, pare it all down as soon as you have energy to do so.
If you’re never going to use it, or you’re keeping it for the sake of sentimentality, shift your perspective and donate it so someone else can benefit from it instead.
When you free yourself of old clutter that’s not providing any real use, you’ll automatically feel lighter.
8. The responsibility of managing someone else’s life.
This can seem absolutely draining, especially if you’ve been shouldering this burden for a long time.
It’s one thing if you have a dependent who needs care, and something entirely different if you have to manage someone who’s perfectly capable of doing so, but chooses not to.
This is where you need to make the tough decision to stop micromanaging this individual and let them sort it out for themselves. Essentially, it’s a case of adopting the “not my circus, not my monkeys” attitude.
If they don’t pay their bills or do their duties, that’s not your responsibility. You can give them a clear warning, but if they choose not to listen, that’s not on you.
A big part of adulting is taking accountability for one’s own behavior. By stepping away and conserving your strength, you’re granting them the opportunity to finally start living on their own terms.
Final thoughts…
The things listed here may not be a huge deal in isolation (especially if they’re only temporary), but if you’re dealing with many of them at once, you’re going to feel immensely weighed down.
The good news is that every time you eliminate one of these things from your life, you’ll feel an immense lightening of the spirit.
If you’ve been waiting for someone to give you permission to put these things down and walk away from them, now you have it.
