How to Walk Away from Over-Responsibility

I’ve seen women insist on cleaning everything in the house before they could sit down… and you know it’s a funny thing… it never comes to an end. Perfect way to stop a woman. A woman must be careful to not allow over-responsibility…to steal her necessary creative rests, riffs, and raptures.

–Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The insistent tug of over-responsibility–can you relate?

To paraphrase Clarissa Pinkola Estes, women routinely try to do all the things before they make space for their own needs, whatever they may be.

And while it may not be house cleaning that gets in the way of your needs, odds are you have your own personal experiences of over-responsibility that might include:

• feeling responsible for other people’s actions and feelings
• believing you have to figure out how things will get done or problems will be solved
• keeping track and doing things for others when they are capable of doing for themselves
• having a hard time asking for help or saying “no”
• pushing through even when you’re tired or overwhelmed
• feeling like there’s never enough time

In today’s post, we’re looking at:

• what leads to over-responsibility and how it shows up
• the wise part of you that’s ready to help you step back
• a way to both “walk away” and be genuinely responsible

Does over-responsibility ever feel like a treadmill that won’t stop?

If you’re like many of my therapy and coaching clients, you’ve experienced the push-pull between taking care of your own needs and the daily grind of getting everything done and taking care of everyone else.

That’s why it might seem like there’s no way out. You’re tired and spent, yet you keep going. Of course, you want more time to replenish and renew. But in spite of your best laid plans, it rarely works out the way you thought it would. It’s like you can’t get off the treadmill.

A lot of women step on the metaphorical treadmill at an early age.

Maybe you learned early on that other people’s needs came before your own. Perhaps you had to take on adult roles and responsibilities long before you reached adulthood. You may even have been told that this was your expected role.

The themes I often hear women repeat include:

• pressure at an early age to be the perfect “almost grown-up”
• being shamed for not “doing enough” or not “doing it right”
• harsh criticism if you veer from female stereotypes
• expectations to look, act or behave a certain way
• messages that you’re not responsible enough to be successful
• a family history of women being expected to do all the work at home
• conflicting messages about women’s roles and “attitudes”

Oftentimes, over-responsibility can be traced back to trauma, and also be a way to retreat from it.

Did you have to take on roles like peacemaker or caregiver as a child? If so, as an adult you may believe you have to handle everything yourself. Furthermore, if your home environment was frightening or dangerous in any way, being responsible and taking control probably helped you feel safer.

As you moved into adulthood you may have felt contradictory and complex emotions. On the one hand you feel compelled to be super responsible; on the other hand you don’t truly believe you’re responsible enough. You keep getting things done but think you’re falling behind, even when others reassure you that you’re doing well.

This heightened sense of responsibility can potentially result in overwhelm, low self-esteem, anxiety, or depression. You might even feel bad or wrong for not being able to juggle it all: both your responsibilities and your personal needs.

So this is where I’m supposed to tell you how to stop taking on too much responsibility.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could wake up tomorrow and magically know how to practice the kind of responsibility that begins internally, focuses on your needs first, and then flows outward toward others?

Although I wish there was an easy way to get there, there’s usually deeper work to be done. By that I mean it normally takes time and practice to continue walking away from the hook of too much responsibility.

In fact, you may need to redefine what walking away means. You may also need to call on other parts of you for assistance with walking away. Parts like your inner Wild Woman, who probably knows exactly what you need and when you need it.

Wild Women: They know instinctively when things must die and when things must live; they know how to walk away, they know how to stay.

–Clarissa Pinkola Estes

A few years ago I surprised myself and literally walked away.

Are you shocked that I still struggle with over-responsibility? (Probably not.) Although I’m much farther along the path than I was 10 years ago, it’s going to be a lifelong journey.

And quite serendipitously, when I was writing the first draft of this post several years ago, a big insight about my relationship with responsibility arrived. It happened in a flash: sitting at the kitchen table sipping coffee, gazing back and forth between the words I was typing and the gorgeous day that was unfolding right outside the door.

I looked down and noticed the two Clarissa Pinkola Estes quotes (the one above and the one at the beginning of this post) almost touching on my laptop screen.

Just then, the beautiful autumn day seemed to merge with the words…

over-responsibility, wild women, rests, rifts, raptures, walking away or staying, life and death, nature, the turning of the seasons.

We often tend to think of deciding to walk away or stay as big and dramatic.

Yet, in that instant of seeing all the words coalesce on my computer screen, I remembered that it’s usually not big, dramatic things (like walking away from jobs or relationships or homes or the sky falling) that lead to real transformation. It may feel like it, but in reality it’s often very small and instinctual steps, adding up over time.

However, when we push those small instincts aside instead of pausing to notice them, we’re actually feeding over-responsibility.

Because the opposite of over-responsibility isn’t under-responsibility. It’s more about knowing how and when to walk away, sometimes in minuscule moments…as we stack the breakfast dishes in the sink, or tally up the emails to be answered.

Then, letting the dishes and the emails die for a short spell, trusting that we possess intuitive magic to bring them back to life when we need to.

I believe we all have access to this instinctive knowing. We might need to cultivate it, but it’s definitely there: deep-rooted, unrehearsed, spontaneous.

You’ve felt it, haven’t you? That automatic knowing in your bones. That mysterious pull to drop everything and walk away, right now.

So I did it myself: I opened the door and walked away.

As I stepped outside to sit in the presence of autumn leaves (turning all shades of gold, brown, orange), there they were: a family of deer.

I sure wasn’t expecting them, and neither were they expecting me. We were all startled, and they got very still like deer do, ready to leap away at any second.

I had an urge to move toward them but instinctively knew to stop in my tracks and be still with them. And breathe. (It was kind of like the five of us breathing together.)

Soon after, they relaxed and went back to grazing. At one point they began grooming each other. It was a special moment, to witness how they cared for each other.

Finally, both the deer and I were ready to move on.

We’d been together for 30 minutes, when I’d only planned to stay for ten.

So I gathered up my coffee mug and journal, now ready to bring the dishes and emails back to life. I’m happy to tell you they were easy to revive, with absolutely no ill effects from their tiny deaths.

For several years women have been telling me about a deeper layer of self-care.

Not exactly with definitive words though. But it is intimately related to moving away from the burdens of over-responsibility.

I recognize it when my clients talk about it and I’ve taken to calling it the self care of being with:

• a deep yearning to collect our missing pieces and give space to all the parts of ourselves that are longing for more from us
• an internal rebellion, requiring women to stop and let go, in the moment, often without planning
• opening up to the wisdom of small, personal uprisings, without always knowing the outcome.

You may inherently understand that this layer of self-care is an antidote to hyper-responsibility. It may be hard to name, but you know it with feeling, sensing, instinct.

And it is about life and death in some way, about being able to make the decision to walk away or stay even in the smallest of moments.

Because life is short isn’t it? And an excessive sense of duty and responsibility can rob us of so much life.

At a core level, releasing the burdens of responsibility begins with:

• instinct
• mystery
• rebellion
• nurturing your inner life
• releasing agendas in the moment
• holding the paradox of both walking away and staying

Writing prompts to explore your relationship with responsibility.

One of the best ways you can begin or continue your own journey is to experiment with these writing prompts:

1. Write for about 10 minutes about a time when you were in tune with the instinctual part of you, the part that knew what you needed in the moment. Write in the present tense, as if the experience is happening right now. Pay particular attention to your senses: the sights, smells, sounds, tastes, feel of the experience.
2. Respond to these sentence fragments/questions and write for five to 10 minutes:

• My relationship with excessive responsibility is…
• My inner Wild Woman wants to tell me…
• What tiny opportunities do I have to walk away in the moment?

Practice listening to your intuition, your inner voice; ask questions; be curious; see what you see; hear what you hear; and then act upon what you know to be true. These intuitive powers were given to your soul at birth.

–Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Do you need support with over-responsibility, self-acceptance, and embracing your inherent self-worth?

If you’d like help knowing yourself better and feeling freer to be who you truly are, my free course — Finding Yourself Again — is a good place to start.

My course can help you gain insight on the critical voices and beliefs within you and begin to transform them with creative and imaginative approaches. It’s based on the same practices that have helped my clients reclaim what’s missing and move toward what matters.

You can learn more about this free course here. And if you have any questions, get in touch.