karin dancy

Just the other day – and completely uninvited – COVID showed up and ordered me around for almost a week.

My usual to-do list started collecting dust. I could feel the weight of unmet deadlines getting heavier on my mind. As much as I wanted to do, my body would only let me be.

Be sick. Be tired. Be still.

Be frustrated.

I’m used to Carrying On . . . pushing through to the next to-do, getting to-dos done, and teeing up the next. So I felt the frustration of feeling stuck, unable to move things forward and along their merry way.

I couldn’t Carry On. Instead, I had to Carry None . . . I had to let go of my own expectations of productivity and let my body do what was really needed. Rest. Heal. Repeat.

Guilty as charged here for not always pausing to Carry None over the years. Like so many of us, I’ll keep on going to “get it (all) done” … ignoring illness, pushing through fatigue, refusing to let obligations just hang in the wind. And sometimes, that works . . . but at some point, it simply doesn’t. 

Without balance, our bodies will cry uncle. And if we listen, then lovingly pump our brakes to restore ourselves, they will thank us. Carrying None is an ever-so-often power move to love ourselves well, so that we can Carry On again.

Tag, You’re It:
Can you recall a time you had to Carry None in order to Carry On?