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Last week, I climbed into bed completely exhausted.

It had been one of those wonderfully full days. I’d spent the morning writing, talking with my children, and catching up with my husband, David, about a few things we had coming up. I’d also answered emails, worked on a new project I’m excited about, squeezed in a weightlifting workout before dinner, and ended the evening feeling grateful for this beautiful, messy life I’ve been given.

As I turned out the light, I remember smiling to myself. “I’m going to sleep well tonight.”

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Within minutes, my mind quietly began making its nightly rounds. Did I ever text my daughter, Saba, back?

Then I remembered I wanted to check in with my son, Buey. Somehow, that led me to wondering how David’s parents were doing. Then I thought about a friend who has been having a difficult summer and wondered if I should call her tomorrow. That reminded me of an upcoming trip and something I still needed to do before we left.

Then there was the essay I wanted to write, the church campaign we’re working on, the mammogram I’d forgotten to schedule and, before I knew it, I was lying there wondering what kind of world our children and grandchildren are going to inherit.

I actually laughed. How had I gone from sending a text message to worrying about the future of humanity in less than five minutes?

This time of year makes that invisible burden especially easy to see. As children head back to school, so many mothers are managing school supply lists, meeting teachers, filling out forms, checking vaccination records, scheduling doctor appointments, adjusting to new routines, and suddenly discovering that no one’s clothes or shoes fit anymore!

Even when our children are grown, the list doesn’t necessarily disappear. It simply changes. We’re still remembering, anticipating, checking in, and quietly keeping track of what the people we love may need next.

Lately, I’ve been wondering whether one of the greatest burdens women carry isn’t visible at all. It isn’t simply the laundry, the meetings, the caregiving, the travel, the work, or the endless to-do lists. It’s the mental weight that follows us long after the day is over.

Our bodies may finally crawl into bed, but our minds remain wide awake, moving through the people we love, the responsibilities we feel, the conversations we haven’t had, and the uncertainties we wish we could somehow control.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I didn’t simply have a busy mind. I had quietly become the keeper of far too many things. Not because anyone had necessarily asked me to, but because I love deeply. Somewhere along the way, love and responsibility had quietly become tangled together.

A few mornings later, while I was making coffee, that sleepless night came back to me. Instead of asking myself how to stop worrying, which​—let’s be honest, has never been a particularly effective strategy​—I asked myself a different question: How much of what I’m carrying actually belongs to me? 

It’s one of those questions that sounds almost too simple until you really sit with it. The truth was that I’d been throwing every concern, responsibility, unanswered question, and imagined outcome into one enormous mental pile. No wonder it felt so heavy.

I’m the kind of person who needs structure to organize things, including my thoughts. So I imagined three baskets sitting on the kitchen floor, like the piles we make when cleaning out a closet: what to keep, what to give away, and what to let go.

Creating space for the worries we carry

I began mentally placing each concern into one of those baskets. Something unexpected happened. I could breathe again.

The first basket held the things that genuinely required me.

• The conversation I’d been avoiding.
• The doctor’s appointment I needed to schedule. 
• The boundary I needed to set.

Those weren’t really worries. They were invitations to act. I’ve learned that once I know my next step, my mind begins to settle. Action has a remarkable way of quieting what endless thinking never can.

The second basket held things that belonged to the people I love.

• My children’s decisions.
• A friend’s healing.
• Someone else’s marriage.
• My husband’s emotions.
• Another person’s opinion of me.

As I looked into that basket, I realized how often I confuse loving people with carrying them​. The truth is, I can love someone with all my heart and still allow that person the dignity of living their own life. Trying to carry what belongs to someone else doesn’t lighten their load. It only makes mine heavier.

Then there was the third basket. This one surprised me. It held all the questions no one could answer.

• Will my children be okay? 
• Will I stay healthy?
• Will our country find its way? 
• Will everything work out?

These questions matter deeply, but they don’t have answers today. No amount of worrying tonight will bring tomorrow’s answers any sooner. For me, this is where prayer has quietly changed its purpose. I used to pray hoping to find certainty. Now I pray for something much simpler: perspective, peace, the courage to do what is mine to do, and the wisdom to loosen my grip on everything else.

Someone else may find that same peace through meditation, a walk in the woods, sitting beside the ocean, or simply taking a long, slow breath. The practice matters less than the willingness to admit that we were never meant to carry the whole world by ourselves.

I’ve also realized that protecting my peace isn’t selfish. It’s stewardship. Just as I try to care for my body, I’ve learned that I also have to care for my mind and my mental health.

Some mornings, I leave my phone in another room while I drink my coffee because the world can wait twenty minutes. I play soft music while I write, take walks without listening to a podcast, sit outside and watch the birds, and read books that nourish my soul instead of headlines that fuel my fear or anger.

I’ve even started scheduling time for joy. Not because I’ve finished all my work, but because joy deserves a place on my calendar too.

The internet has quietly convinced us that every empty moment should be filled. One more headline. One more email. One more scroll. One more opinion.

Somewhere along the way, we’ve forgotten what it feels like to sit around a dinner table without checking our phones, to watch a sunset without photographing it, to listen to music without multitasking, or to take a walk with nowhere in particular to go. We’ve forgotten how to become quiet enough for creativity to return. I’ve come to believe that silence isn’t empty. It’s where our souls finally have room to speak. 

Now, whenever my head begins spinning, I picture those three baskets. I don’t always get it right. Some nights, I move the same worry back and forth three or four times before I’m willing to let it go. Sometimes, I catch myself picking up someone else’s burden all over again or trying to solve tomorrow before I’ve even finished today.

Old habits die hard. But then I stop and ask myself: Which basket does this belong in? That single question has become one of the most peaceful practices of my life. Peace, I’ve discovered, doesn’t necessarily come from having fewer responsibilities. It comes from becoming more discerning about which ones are truly ours. 

Maybe that is one of the greatest invitations of midlife​: Not to become stronger so we can carry more, but to become wiser about what we were never meant to carry in the first place.

Pirie Jones Grossman is a writer and creator of The Niceness Trap, a framework that explores how women have been conditioned to seek approval—often through how they look, behave, and relate—and how to break free from that pattern. You can find more of her work on her website.