034: The Invisible Load You’re Carrying (And Why It’s Slowing You Down)

Episode Summary

We’re talking about something that often goes unseen…

👉 The invisible load.

The mental, emotional, and decision-making weight you carry every single day-whether you’re a mom, a business owner, a partner, or simply the one who holds everything together.

Because it’s not just what you do that drains you…

It’s what you’re constantly thinking about, anticipating, remembering, and managing behind the scenes.

And over time, that load doesn’t just make you tired-it limits your capacity to grow, focus, and move forward in your life and business.

In this episode, we break down what the invisible load actually is, how it’s impacting you, and simple ways to start lightening it-so you can operate with more clarity, energy, and intention.

Key Insights from This Episode

•  What the “invisible load” really is (and why it’s so exhausting) 
•  Why mental and emotional labor drains more energy than physical tasks 
•  How constant decision-making leads to hidden fatigue 
•  The conditioning that leads women to carry more than they should 
•  Why your capacity drops when your mental load stays high 
•  How this impacts your focus, productivity, and ability to grow 

3 Practical Shifts You Can Start This Week

1. Get It Out of Your Head
   Write down everything you’re holding mentally-tasks, reminders, responsibilities. 
2. Reduce Daily Decisions
   Simplify small choices like meals, routines, and schedules to conserve energy. 
3. Question What You’re Carrying
   Ask yourself: Is this actually mine to carry?
   Not everything is. 

Reflection Question

What am I carrying right now… that I haven’t even questioned?

Join the Conversation

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the Limitless Living Podcast. I'm your host, Frederica Davis, a wellness expert, entrepreneur, and creator of the Limitless Reset Method. And today is Sustainable Success Tuesday, where we talk about building success, leadership, and life all in a way that will actually support you instead of quietly exhausting you. So Mother's Day was just on Sunday, and I truly hope all of you had an incredible Mother's Day. This was the first year I didn't get to spend Mother's Day with my daughter because she was not yet home from college. And it was really kind of strange. I did not like it at all. I missed my mom a little bit. So no matter where your Mother's Day landed, whether it was the picture perfect Mother's Day or maybe not the picture perfect Mother's Day, I hope you made it through and you know how much you are loved and appreciated. So what I want to talk about today is something that we don't talk about as often as maybe we should. And it's not all those visible responsibilities. It's not the things that everyone sees you doing, but it's the things that you carry that no one sees. Because honestly, if you've ever felt like you're doing a whole lot, but you're still tired in such a way that just does not quite make sense. Even though you might be doing all these wonderful right things and eating right, sleeping right, trying to manage your time right, all these other things. Here is what might be going on. So you might be the one who is keeping everything going on and remembering everything and planning everything and holding everything together. Even if your kids are grown up, this can be the case. And even if you don't have kids and you're listening, this can be the case. Even if your life is looking manageable or even perfect from the outside, there still can be this mental load. You know, that running list that's in your head of all the things you have to remember and all the things you want to handle and all the things to check in on and things to anticipate. And that list doesn't always turn off. And your brain just goes a mile a minute sometimes, right? You feel like that? Can you relate? Because I know I can. I see it all the time in women I work with. I experience it myself from time to time. I have to rein myself back in. And it's where, you know, on paper or to the world, we shouldn't feel as overwhelmed as we do. Do you feel overwhelmed? And maybe it looks like you shouldn't, but you still do because it's not just about what you're doing. This is the whole thing. It's not just about what you're doing, even if you're doing so many of the right things. It's about what you're carrying. And it's the decisions, it's the responsibilities, it's the emotional awareness of everyone else in your life and carrying their emotions so often. I know as an empath, I'm very, very intuitive and in tune to others. So it's very easy to take that on. Do you feel like that? This can show up as the constant thinking in your head or thinking ahead and trying to predict and plan. And then over time, all of this just keeps adding up and adding up and adding up, and it builds, and then quietly it's just this heavy load that's inside that you're carrying. So let's talk about what this actually is and why it matters so much when it comes to your success and your energy and your ability to move forward, even your ability to heal. The invisible load is actually mental and emotional, sometimes more than physical. It's not just the physical side of things. This is the first thing that we should all understand that mental and emotional load can be really enormous in driving our results physically and in all other areas of our life. So, you know, most people they measure their day by what they did. Is that how you measure your day? By how many things you can check off your list? But the real exhaustion, it often is really coming from what you held all day. And that means how many decisions did you make? How much awareness did you have to exercise in your world around you, with the people in your life, the projects you're working on? How much responsibility did you hold all day? And how much emotional management did you practice all day? You know, that can be utterly exhausting, and that reduces our capacity. It really equals real exhaustion. And all of this takes energy. Oh, so much energy. So from the moment you wake up, we start having, you know, decision fatigue. It drains far more than most of us ever realize. And so you start making decisions. So maybe you pick up your phone, and the first decision is which alarm am I actually going to get up with and not hit snooze on, right? That's the first decision. Does that sound familiar? Then maybe you haven't even gotten out of bed and you're looking at your social media, or you're looking at your text messages, or you're looking at your um emails. That's decision fatigue from the moment you wake up and it reduces your capacity for the rest of the day. Then you go into your closet or your drawers. Maybe you've got too many clothes. And now you've got to decide what to wear because we all, you know, many of us, I should say, not all, but many of us have an overabundance of things. And then that becomes more decisions to make than really we probably need. And then we hit the kitchen, right? We go downstairs to get our coffee, get our breakfast, get whatever it is that we want. Now we have to decide what are we going to eat. And while there are so many people out there who don't have enough, there are so many of us who have an overabundance. An overabundance flowing in our drawers, our closets, our pantries, our refrigerators, and so on. So you're getting the picture here. This is a lot of decisions. You haven't even gone out of the house yet. And then you open up your emails, you have to decide what you're going to respond to, what really matters today, and so on. Now, if you're managing other people, holy moly, like you know, kids, family, uh, parents, a job, other people within that, a business, all of that multiplies. So by the time you sit down to do something really important, your brain is already tired. Not because you are lazy, not because you are unfocused, even, not because of all these things that we often blame this on, but really because we've already used up. You've probably already used up so much of your mental energy and given yourself decision fatigue that boom, all of a sudden you are struggling to make the decisions that really matter. So you've likely been conditioned to just carry all of this, just keep doing all of this. And if you're in America listening to this, have excess of everything and just keep doing that without even questioning it. It's just the way we do it, right? But a lot of women who have been conditioned to this, you know, to being the responsible person, the one who notices everything and keeps everything running, along with all those other things, somewhere along the way gets fried, literally fried, burnt out, but thinks that this is normal because it's become normal, it's become expected. Not just because it's normal, it's become automatic. But just because it's normal does not mean it's sustainable. It's not just slowing you down, it's affecting your capacity. So this is where it connects to everything that we've been talking about. When your mental and your emotional load are constantly high, your capacity for everything drops. That means your ability to focus, you your ability to make clear decisions or to follow through on things, that drops. Your ability to grow drops. All of it, everything is affected. So it's not just that you're tired, it's that you don't have the space to handle what you need to handle or to explain. So it's not what you're doing that's exhausting you, it's everything you're carrying that no one else sees. And so this is where I want you to pause. This isn't about blaming or beating yourself up or uh anything at all like that. So for any of you who go there, please, this is really about awareness. It's it should simply be about awareness because once you start to see what's really going on, then it becomes a whole lot easier to change how you operate. Doesn't mean you can't do all these wonderful things, but it changes you can change how you do them. So to make this practical today, so you have something actionable to take from this, I want you, number one, to get it out of your head. I've talked about this before. I want it, if it's all in your head, it feels heavier than it is. So write it down, everything tasks, responsibilities, things you're tracking. Use Chat GPT, AI, if that helps you, Claude, to organize your thoughts and make your to-do list. Whatever is going to work for you. But clarity reduces pressure. So getting things down, getting them out of your head, all of your tasks, your responsibilities, the things that you're tracking, allows you to release what's inside of you and gives you more capacity in you. And then you can handle things better. You can look at them, you can analyze them, and so on. Number two, number two, reduce your daily decisions. You don't need to decide every single thing, every single day in real time. So simplify things where you can. Simplify your wardrobe. I have a core handful of pieces that I pretty much go to for my daily life that for my daily life that actually are interchangeable and work and are simple, and I don't have to think a whole lot. They've almost become kind of a little uniform, if you will, for when I'm actually in my office seeing clients at Massage Wellness Beyond in my local wellness center. And that has made my getting ready in the morning so much easier. Oh, so much easier. So if you can do something like that, that's great. Now, does that mean you can't have fun things? Oh, absolutely. I think I must have, you know, 82 personalities, and I've got to have an outfit for each personality in my closet. I mean, really, come on, it's more fun. However, I'm not gonna wear my line dancing outfit to the office, right? I'm not gonna wear my beach outfit to the office. I'm not gonna wear my, oh, I feel bohemian. Let's go to the musical music festival outfit to the office. You get the picture, right? So you can still have these other things, but for your core everyday life, I'm suggesting you make this a whole lot easier. I used to change my jewelry every day. I used to decide on all of these different things every day. But that was bad before I carried the load of projects and responsibilities and family and all those other things. So I have simplified a lot. Do I still have those for the occasions I want them? Absolutely. But on an everyday basis, I'm simplified jewelry, simplified makeup, simplified clothing. Boom. Lots more capacity in myself because I've reduced that initial load. Uh, another one I'm gonna suggest is do not check your phone before you have had your morning water, lemon water, coffee, whatever it is, do not start into your emails and your social and all of that stuff. Just don't, because that reduces your capacity all the way through the day. Um meals, this is another very simple. I could give you very, very long lists of ways to incorporate simple changes that are easily sustainable, that increase your capacity, but just for today's sake, I just want to give you a few. So reduce those daily decisions with the clothing, your daily routine, you're getting yourself out the door in the morning, and your meals. That's one of the easiest places to reduce decision fatigue. Have a one, two, or three go-to breakfast, one, two, or three go-to lunches, one, two or three go-to dinners. Okay, that simplifies drastically. And then you just keep rotating them. Yes, you know, I'm a foodie. I love it. I love to cook. I would love to have variety all of the time. However, this makes my life a whole heck of a lot easier. I also am healthier by doing this. So even these small, small decisions, they add up. So number three, stop automatically taking ownership of everything. You know, everything that goes on, everything that goes wrong, everything that everybody wants to carry you to carry for them, everything. Just stop taking ownership of it. Because it's important you for you to ask yourself, is it actually yours to carry before you choose to carry it? Not everything is yours to carry. No is complete sentence. You don't have to pick everybody else's stuff up or every problem up and call it your own. You simply don't. So this week I'm gonna leave you with the re so the reflection question for this week is what am I carrying right now that I have not even questioned? And if this resonated with you, come join us inside the Limitless Living Community. And if you're ready to start changing how you operate in a deeper way, you can visit me at my website at fredericadavis.com. That's f-r-e D-R-I-C-K-A. If this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who needs to hear it and leave us a review. This helps other women find the show. You don't need to do more. You need to stop carrying so much alone inside. And sometimes the most powerful shift is simply recognizing what's been sitting on your shoulders all along that doesn't need to be. I'll see you in the next episode.