Janine: Hello and welcome to the Messy Midlife Toolkit. I'm Janine. Vivienne: and I'm Vivian. Janine: And in our last episode, we talked about what happens when life feels as though somebody has picked up your snow globe and given it a really vigorous shake, where everything is swirling, you're reacting rather than responding, and it can be almost impossible to see what's really going on. But once the snow begins to settle, you may start to notice something else, and that is exactly. How much you've been carrying. Vivienne: my. And of course, it's not simply the things anybody can see you doing. It's the things that you're remembering. The planning, the anticipating, checking, double checking, worrying about X, Y, Z. The things that occupy your mind, even when you appear to be doing absolutely nothing. Janine: my God. Yes, absolutely, Vivian. And can I start by asking you just one question? Like before Vivienne: Mm-hmm. Janine: your feet touch the ground this morning, how many things do you reckon you were already thinking about, remembering, prepping for? Like for me, it's disappointment that needs booking, a message I still haven't answered. Food that needs buying, my God, I have two teenagers. I always need to be buying food and there's usually a birthday card that is on my mind that I still have to get sorted. Vivienne: Yeah, yeah, okay. Janine: Yeah. Vivienne: So yeah, I can be lying perfectly still in bed while my mind has already started its working day. I mean, hands up, how many of you have got those lists or post-it notes reminding yourself of what's going on or needs to get done today? And god, this is embarrassing, but I've actually started scribbling on the back of my hand the like, Janine: Yeah. Vivienne: don't forget this today. It's crazy. Janine: no, we've we've all been there. And because so much of that work happens invisibly, other people don't see it. And sometimes we don't even realize the cogs that are whirring away in our subconscious. All you know is you're absolutely wrecked. Vivienne: Yeah, Janine: Yeah. And that that sort of idea of things whirring in the background is something that happens really subconsciously. And and today we're talking about that work that rarely appears on a calendar or on a to-do list. Because sometimes, you know, you're not exhausted because you're doing life badly. It's that feeling of exhaustion because you're carrying far more than anybody realizes. And that's the invisible load. Vivienne: Yeah, so Janine, what do we actually mean? Because I think it's a phrase that people hear, but they might not always recognise what it looks like in their own life. Janine: Yeah, I I I think the easiest way to explain it is that the visible task is only a small part of what's actually going on. Like, take a medical appointment I need to get done for my son. Okay, so the medical appointment is tomorrow. And the visible task is, yeah, I'm gonna take him into the medical appointment. And there's absolutely no problem with that. Okay, there is parental responsibility here. But before that appointment happens. You know, I'm told the appointment needs to be made. I get in touch with a couple of different options. So in the in this case it's a physio, so you're looking to see when you can get your appointment, check people's availability, book the appointment, remember it, remember to let my son know it's happening, remind everyone else I now need to shuffle around work that's due in tomorrow. So while it might just be one visible task. There's actually a huge amount more going on behind the scenes. Vivienne: Yeah, and that's why the sentence, just tell me what you need me to do, can be really frustrating because now you've got another job, right? You've got to notice what needs doing, decide who should do it, explain it, remind and possibly check whether it's been done, actioned and ticked off. Janine: Exactly. Like doing the task isn't the problem. The problem is it's more than one task. There's loads of moving cogs involved. And it's not an easy thing to just share out. Vivienne: No. And I think that that distinction matters, right? Because women sometimes say, you know, everyone, everyone helps, you know, their partner helps, the children help, colleagues help. And yet they still feel as though everything is sitting on their shoulders. Janine: Yeah, and that's because they may be the person holding the whole system in their head. It's like they're the central database. Vivienne: I like that one. Yeah. So I refer to it as the household search engine. Janine: my gosh, absolutely. We're holding Where are my keys? When's the appointment? Do we have toothpaste? What time are we leaving? Where's the thing? I left somewhere in the house three bloody weeks ago. Although I've never actually used it. Where is it? Vivienne: Yep and somehow we're just expected to know Janine. Janine: course we are, because I do think it comes down to the point where the simple question of have you actually looked becomes a completely reasonable response. Vivienne: yeah. So why does all of this feel so exhausting when we may not have physically done very much? Janine: Right, it becomes so exhausting because we've got to imagine of we're walking around with 30 browser tabs open on our laptop. You may be looking at one tab, but all the others are still sitting there in the background. One is the medical appointment, another is a school forum, another is a difficult conversation at work. It might be the food shop, always the bloody food shop. I'm thinking, you know, why is my teenager unusually quiet? What's going on? There might be a friend I've been meaning to contact. Our family birthday I literally can't forget. So it might not consciously be thinking about every tab at once, but part of your attention is still connected to each one. And just like a computer, all these open tabs slow the system down. Vivienne: my gosh, have you been sitting in my head Janine? And one tab may contain far more than its title suggests. Janine: Exactly. One task can become an entire web of thought, planning, and worry. And the brain is constantly switching between those tabs. And that switching uses energy. So does making hundreds of small decisions. So by the end of the day, when someone asks, What are we having for dinner? It feels like the most unreasonable question anyone has ever asked. Vivienne: Yep, Q meltdown. As it's not really about the dinner is it? It's just I am at capacity. Janine: It's almost never about dinner. It's never about what's for dinner. The final small thing gets blamed, but it's landed on top of absolutely everything else. Vivienne: And there's always the emotional layer as well. You know, who's upset, who needs reassuring? Is everyone getting on? How do I say this without hurting someone? And how can I make this easier for everybody else? Janine: And the body responds to those invisible demands too, like the planning, the worrying, the anticipating, the regulating your own reaction, all use capacity. You can technically have stopped working but still feel psychologically on coal. So you might be resting, but you're not necessarily recovering. Vivienne: okay, okay. So that explains why somebody can say, but I had a quiet weekend, why do I feel exhausted still? And yeah, the weekend might well have looked quiet and like you've had your downtime, but your mind never actually went off duty. Janine: Yeah, absolutely. Vivienne: Okay, so let's look at how it might show up in our lives. Do you recognise that in your own life, Janine? Janine: my gosh. yes, yes, yes. Pretty much all day, every day. And for me, it's not always about doing everything myself. I mean, I'm really blessed with a partner who's really on top of everything. And I mean, he really is on top of things. It's more for me personally that feeling of I should be keeping track of everything. Vivienne: Same, same, yep, yep. Janine: That idea of, you know, who needs to be where, what time something starts, what has to be brought, what still needs arranging. And my favorite, what might go wrong, all the what ifs involved in a day of stuff that's going on. And when someone else is taking care of the practical task, like doing the thing, I'm quite often the person that's remembering that it actually needs to happen. So that means Part of me never completely stands down. So it's that feeling that you could be just sitting on the sofa minding your own business, but your mind is already organizing tomorrow. Vivienne: Okay. So what strikes me there is that everyone else may be able to relax because somewhere in the background, they know that you are still monitoring what needs to happen. And I resent that, if I'm honest, I want to shout, why me? Why can't you take responsibility for that thing? Janine: Yeah, absolutely. And that resentment is such a strong feeling that comes up, particularly in this messy midlife of women carrying it all. And it can be difficult to recognize because nobody is necessarily doing anything deliberately wrong. And for many of my clients, they may have even created this pattern themselves. And perhaps they're good at organizing. And perhaps it might have felt easier to just do it themselves. Because they didn't want something to be forgotten, but over time it becomes the way the whole system works. Vivienne: Hmm. Okay. So they become the person who notices. All right. So everybody else becomes accustomed to waiting for that person to do it for them. I recognize that I'll just do it myself response in the moment. It often does feel easier. So I'll just get on with it. That's what we end up saying. but when you repeat it, for five, 10 years, it can create an entire system where one person notices, plans, remembers, while everyone else is still waiting to be told. Janine: Yes, yes, yes. Vivienne: Hehehe Janine: Everyone else seems to just be waiting for you to say what needs to be done. And then you start wondering why you feel irritated when somebody asks you one perfectly ordinary question. But it isn't only that one question. It's the fact that you've already answered 200 questions in your own head before anybody else has even asked one. Vivienne: Hmm. Yep. I think for me, it often shows up as being the person who makes sure everyone else is okay. I really notice when someone in a friendship group is a bit quieter than usual, or just doesn't seem themselves, I guess. And I'll, I'll check in with them separately and ask how they're doing. And if one of my friends or colleagues is going through a particularly difficult time. I'll always let them know that they're not alone and really haven't been forgotten. So for me, that's WhatsApp, right? You know, I'm going to WhatsApp someone or a voice note. I know not everyone likes a little voice note or just making the extra effort and posting them a card. And I don't do it because I feel I have to. I do it because it's important to me. that people feel cared for. I can also see that there's, of course, another tab running in the background of my mind because of that, Janine: Yeah, and I wonder whether that's when being helpful can become a r responsibility. And there's a Vivienne: Hmm. Janine: difference between choosing to support somebody and feeling responsible for what's going on in their lives. And those boundaries are important, understanding that you can't be emotionally responsible for everybody. Vivienne: No, because if you keep behaving like that, it can create a tab that's always open that wasn't yours in the first place. Janine: my gosh, yes. And eventually the cost of keeping that tab open becomes far greater than the discomfort of changing it. Vivienne: Okay, so there's something else then I'm curious about Janine. It's often the most capable person who carries all of this in the first place. What do you say about that? Janine: my gosh, I see this all the time, particularly in clients who are on the verge or are in that burnout stage. Vivienne: Okay, okay, that's interesting. So tell me more about that. Janine: Well, I think sometimes it starts with a genuine strength. Vivienne: Mm-hmm. Janine: So someone's organized, they notice the details, they're the reliable one, they're really good in a crisis, they they get shit done, they're Vivienne: Hmm. Janine: trusted because of that. Vivienne: Okay, but then reliability can become a role and a label. Okay, so then you're saying, I am the capable one, I am the organizer, I'm the person people can rely on, I'm the one who holds everything together. And once that becomes part of how you've labeled and understood yourself, letting go of something can feel like much more than just sharing a task, because it almost feels like you're changing who you are. Janine: my gosh, you're so right. And not only that, you're also changing how other people might see you. Vivienne: So you may worry that somebody will think you're selfish. Janine: Yeah. Vivienne: Okay. Uncaring or difficult, disorganized. They might think that you're thinking, they think I'm a bad mother, daughter, a bad friend or whatever colleague. But very often nobody has actually said that. But that fear of what someone thinks of you is still really powerful. Janine: Yeah. Vivienne: You may worry that you'll appear selfish, difficult, uncaring or unreliable, but where is your proof to believe that? And that thought pattern, well, we call that the dysfunctional belief. Janine: Absolutely. Because when you look for the proof in what you're thinking, it's just not there because there's a real difference between something needing to just get done and something needing to be done exactly as you would do it. You know, it's that idea of just because you can doesn't mean you should. Vivienne: Mm-hmm. That can be quite confronting, can't it? Do I want somebody else to own this or do I want them to carry it out exactly as I would? Janine: Yeah, and there's there's definitely a control issue there, right. There's no judgment in the question, but it's simply about becoming more honest about that pattern because if we want shared responsibility, we may also have to tolerate a different approach. Vivienne: Okay, well, so that brings me to someone I worked with and we'll refer to her as Becky. So she's in her late 40s, wonderful job. She's got a couple of kids and a partner. And typically life is changing just a little bit at a time. You know, her mother is increasingly needing. her support. So nothing is appearing massively urgent, massively crazy at the moment. But from the outside, she's organized, dependable, completely capable. But she noticed that she was feeling irritable, unappreciated, and increasingly resentful, which is a really horrible emotion to sit in. And so that's what she was bringing to the coaching sessions with me. And something that she kept saying was, you know, everybody is helping, but why does it feel as though everything is on me? Janine: Yeah, and that's such an interesting question because she wasn't saying that nobody did anything. She was saying that even when other people did things, she was feeling responsibility for everything. Vivienne: Yeah, yeah, she felt responsible. You know, her partner did the supermarket shopping. Great. Becky planned the meals. She checked what was running out. She wrote the shopping list. You know, she knows what everyone likes and needs. And her friends, would often say, you know, can we do anything to help you out with your mum? But Becky already had noticed that it wasn't like help that was needed. She'd spoken to the doctor, she understood all the options, she'd coordinated everyone's availability to care for mum or pick up mum or whatever. She'd explained that situation to her friends, but she was still carrying the worry about what the future held. Janine: Yeah, and what what strikes me is that she'd probably spent years looking at the visible evidence and telling herself that she shouldn't feel resentful because people were helping. But nobody, Vivienne: Mm-hmm. Janine: including Becky, really stopped to feel the weight of all those jobs like the noticing, the coordinating, the reminding, the emotional carrying. She wasn't ungrateful. I guess she was exhausted By a role that had never really been named. Vivienne: Yeah, it's exactly that, the role that had never been named. And so that makes it really difficult to delegate from, right? You know, you can't have a proper conversation about something that nobody can see because it's not tangible enough. Janine: And I imagine Becky had always become so good at at carrying it that the people around her had no real sense of that cost of that emotional load. Vivienne: Absolutely. Everything appeared to work. Nobody missed the appointment. The fridge had food in it. Her mother was getting the support that she needed. The children had what they required. They're still going to their swimming lessons. Becky's competence made the load almost invisible, but it didn't make it weightless. Janine: That's massive. It didn't make it weightless. So Vivian, like w where did you start with her? Because I imagine simply telling her to delegate would have created yet another job for her. Vivienne: Yeah. So I didn't want to create another list of tasks or to-dos for Becky. That really wasn't the right way to go. So what we did was we became curious about the role that she had taken on. things like, know, when did she become the person who remembers everything? What does she believe would happen if she stopped doing those kinds of Janine: Wow, that's massive. Vivienne: things? Yeah, it is. Which things genuinely needed her care? Okay, remember that. What genuinely needed her care? Which things had simply become hers because she was good at them? Where was she supporting other people? And where was she preventing other adults from taking responsibility? Janine: That last question feels so important because as you speak, all I see is at like an image of Becky on her own. Because Vivienne: Mm-hmm. Janine: rescuing somebody can look really similar to caring for them in the moment, but over time it can keep one person overburdened and the other person really under involved. Vivienne: wow. Yeah, absolutely. And Becky eventually realized she wasn't only afraid that something would be forgotten, she was afraid of being seen as uncaring or actually just not a good person. Janine: Yeah, that's something really quite powerful because so many of our clients are burdened by that expectation, that label of I'm a good person. so for Becky, she'd been using exhaustion as evidence that she was a good person, that she was loving people, that she was caring for her mom, but asking for help doesn't mean she loves her mom any less. Vivienne: No, of course not. So what she did, she began making responsibilities more explicit. Okay. So instead of asking somebody to complete one small part, which she then had to check could be done. She Janine: Yeah. Vivienne: asked them to own the whole thing. And she also began allowing other people to remember things for themselves and sometimes to experience the consequences of forgetting, which is a quick, easy lesson, annoying, but. It's a good one. Janine: Yeah, and it probably felt really uncomfortable at first. Vivienne: it did. Absolutely. Because changing the pattern meant Becky had to resist stepping back in. She had to make a conscious decision. But then gradually she began to see that people could take more ownership where she stopped automatically doing everything. Janine: I guess she needed to stop being the only person responsible. Vivienne: Yeah, you know, and that was the real shift to her being able to close some of the tabs that we mentioned earlier. Janine: Yeah, and a and let's return to those browser tabs for a moment because for Becky, I'm guessing the realization was that so many of her open tabs, they they could be shared with others and possibly even some could have been deleted. Vivienne: There's a way of removing the weight. And that's Janine: Yeah. Vivienne: a great exercise actually you could ask yourself. What tabs are currently open in your mind? Which ones genuinely belong to me? Remember that word, genuinely. Which could be shared? Which belongs on someone else's screen? And which could I close completely? Janine: Yeah, and that's that's exactly the type of activity we're gonna put in our messy midlife toolkit. It's called the three tab reset, and we're deliberately limiting it to three tabs because this is not about creating another enormous list. Vivienne: Hallelujah, thank goodness. Janine: It's about helping you see what's taking up your attention and what's adding to your invisible load. Vivienne: So listen, everyone, take a piece of paper or just open up your phone to take notes. Write down three tabs that are currently open in your mind. And remember three, not five. And they might be something like applying for a job, difficult conversation that needs to happen at work, making a medical appointment for your son, as Janine was explaining earlier, doing the food shop. or even planning your holiday, you know, what's going to happen, et cetera, et cetera. Janine: Yeah, some of these tabs we might want open. They might be fun things, Vivienne: Mm. Janine: but crucially we need to sort them out. So beside each tab, write one of three words. You're going to write either mine, shared, or close. Vivienne: Okay, so mine does what it says on the tin. It means that it genuinely belongs to you. Shared means that the responsibility needs to be discussed and then properly divided. And closed means it no longer needs your attention. All right, so it's no longer important. Perhaps it can't even be solved today. or Perhaps you're spending energy trying to prevent something that hasn't even happened. Janine: Then choose one tab, not all three, just one, and ask yourself what would help me reduce the energy this tab is using? Could I complete it? Could I put it in the calendar? Maybe just have a conversation with somebody, ask someone else, could they take full ownership, or consciously decide that it's not mine to carry? Vivienne: Yeah, and if that tab needs to be shared, a useful phrase might be, don't need help managing this, but I just need us to agree who's owning it. Janine: My god, that's so good. So instead of saying, Can you help with mum's appointment, for example? You might say, Could you take responsibility for arranging mum's next appointment? Can you make sure she gets there and can you follow up afterwards? Or I guess at work, you could say, While I'm away, could you take ownership of this meeting, including the following up and the planning? Vivienne: you know, when you say it like that, it's not difficult, is it? so remember this isn't about making relationships cold or transactional. It's about making invisible responsibility visible so that people are aware and it stops a buildup of resentment. Janine: And when you finish, notice what it feels like to close or share or hand back even one tab. And that's the whole exercise. We're just looking at three tabs, making that decision, creating one small change. Vivienne: Brilliant. Love that. So this week, notice one responsibility that you carry that other people might not even realise exists in your head. Janine: Yeah, and try not to jump immediately into blame. It's not necessarily about deciding that everybody around you is thoughtless. It's about becoming curious about the pattern. How did this become mine? Why do I still choose it? Could it be shared? And what might happen if I stopped carrying it alone? Vivienne: Okay, so perhaps notice whether letting go feels difficult because the responsibility matters or because being the dependable one has become part of who you are. Janine: Yeah, 'cause the task itself isn't always what drains us. Sometimes it's never feeling able to let go of responsibility. Vivienne: Yeah, The sentence that we would love you to remember from this episode is, just because you noticed it, doesn't automatically make it yours. Janine: Just because you noticed it doesn't automatically make it yours. Wow. Let it sink in and then come and join us on Instagram at the Messy Midlife Toolkit and let us know which tab are you ready to close, share, or hand back? Vivienne: will tell us the question everyone in your house seems to ask you. Janine: We have a feeling there may be quite a few what's for dinner questions popping up. Vivienne: always. So thank you for spending this time with us. We're really glad you're here. Janine: Until next time, take good care of yourself. Vivienne Berryman: We really hope you enjoyed this episode, so you know what we're going to ask. If you did, please share it with your messy midlife friends. And if you can, give the podcast a like or a follow wherever you're listening. It really does help more people find us. And come and find us on Instagram at the Messy Midlife Toolkit. What else would we call it? We'll be sharing more thoughts, tools, and bits and pieces from the podcast over there. Thanks so much for listening, we do appreciate it. And we'll see you next time.