The Gift of Laying it Down by Lexie Wolf
“Sometimes if we try to carry everything, we aren’t able to carry anything.” – Joshua Shrei
Bill and I are the parents of four young adults. We have frequent conversations with each other and our friends about the mental health crisis among young people. About how much harder and colder life seems to be for many of them than it was for us.
My favorite podcaster, Joshua Shrei of The Emerald, recently addressed what could be a small piece of this deeply concerning puzzle in a way I found illuminating. (The episode is called Carry that Weight: On Mythic Burdens and Cosmic Supports. Give it a listen).
The episode was about our tendency, in this deeply individualist society, to emotionally carry too many of the world’s burdens. The burdens of today’s society certainly feel outsized—although, with the earth being millions of years old and humanity thousands… who knows.
Shrei notes that emotional intelligence around what we can reasonably carry—and the strength to carry it—develops with age. He points out that many young people seem to be trying to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders before they’ve had a chance to learn how to carry themselves.
This has implications that intrigue me not only for young people, but for all of us.
Activism, and wanting to help others, is a beautiful, beautiful impulse—never to be discouraged. But the impulse to help can become a responsibility or a burden too heavy to carry especially when deeply felt.
I recently had a serious disagreement with someone I know, who stated a desire to “heal the world.” It made me recoil. That’s where it veers, for me, away from admirable and into something else. The desire to heal the world can skip over humility. It can skip over relationship. It can quietly or not so quietly slide into ego.
We can’t heal the world. We can work on healing ourselves, and we can do our part to serve in the ecosystem. That is already a lot.
It will likely be right around Christmas when you’re reading this, and so I’m thinking about Jesus. In a time when so many people in this highly individualistic society feel exhausted, angry, overwhelmed, and afraid, the idea that we are not meant to carry everything ourselves feels radical again.
Whether you take Jesus literally or symbolically, he represents a willingness to let suffering be shared. In the story, he carries burdens for us. He absorbs what is too much for one human body, one nervous system, one heart.
Whether Jesus is your savior, or one of many other figures from a wide pantheon of gods and goddesses across time and cultures, the invitation feels similar: let something larger than you carry what you cannot. Let the divine—however you understand it—do some of the work.
Carry only what is yours to carry. Carry it together when you can. And if you are in touch with something sacred or holy or mysterious, beautiful. Surrender some of the weight there. Exhale.
