Latest / Still Standing: Stories of Resilience, Survival & Strength / Why You Can’t Stop Thinking About That Stranger’s Pain | Still Standing
Transcript
- You’re lying in bed at 2 a.m., replaying a conversation with someone you met once at a grocery store, wondering if you said the right thing. It wasn’t even that big of a deal, but your chest is tight, and you feel like you’ve failed them. Take a breath with me. Just one. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Feel your shoulders drop away from your ears. Good. Now I want to ask you something that might sound strange. What did that cost you? Not money. Time. Energy. The quiet erosion of your own peace that happens when you carry a stranger’s sorrow on your back like a secondhand coat you didn’t ask for but can’t take off. We talk so much about setting boundaries with people who know us—partners, bosses, family members who drain us. But we rarely talk about the invisible threads we tie to total strangers. The woman crying in the pharmacy aisle because she can’t afford her insulin. The man sitting alone on the park bench, staring at nothing, looking exactly as hollowed out as you felt last Tuesday. Or maybe it was just a comment online. A tweet from someone miles away, sharing a grief so raw it made your throat close up. You scrolled past, but you didn’t leave it there. You took it in. You held it. And now, here you are, carrying it home. Let’s sit in that for a second. Because society has sold us a lie. A very expensive, very comfortable lie that says being strong means being unbothered. We see these images of stoic warriors, or calm yogis, or successful executives who never seem to flinch, and we think that’s the goal. We think resilience looks like armor. Like if we just harden our hearts enough, we won’t get hurt by the chaos of the world. But here is the truth I have learned after burning out in corporate boardrooms and rebuilding my life on hiking trails: armor doesn’t keep you safe. It keeps you lonely. And it exhausts you. To be completely detached is to be dead inside. Your reaction to that stranger’s pain isn’t a flaw. It’s not a weakness. It is proof that your nervous system is working exactly as it should. You are wired for connection. You are wired for empathy. The problem isn’t that you care too much. The problem is that we haven’t given you permission to care without consuming yourself. We treat empathy like a limited resource, like if you give ten percent to a stranger, you have no energy left for yourself. But love isn’t a pie. It expands. The ache you feel? That’s the space where your compassion lives. Don’t try to shrink it. Try to understand it. But I hear you. I hear the voice saying, 'Marissa, that sounds nice, but I’m drowning.' And I believe you. There is a difference between holding space for someone and taking on their burden as your own responsibility to fix. This is the fine line, isn’t it? The line between compassion and enmeshment. When you meet that person at the grocery store, and they start talking about their illness, and suddenly you feel responsible for making them feel better. You offer advice. You buy them the item. You promise to pray for them. You walk away feeling lighter for a moment, only to realize an hour later you’re checking your phone, hoping for news of their improvement. Why? Because if they are okay, then you are safe. If they are suffering, then you are failing. This is a heavy burden to place on your young shoulders, or your tired shoulders, or your grieving shoulders. It is not your job to heal the world. It is your job to witness it. There is a profound power in simply seeing someone. In nodding. In saying, 'That sounds incredibly hard.' You don’t need to fix it. You don’t need to absorb it. You just need to acknowledge it exists. When you stop trying to fix, you stop feeling guilty when things stay broken. I remember a day a few years ago, early in my recovery. I was still wearing the suit, still thinking in spreadsheets, but my hands were shaking. I was in the cereal aisle, paralyzed by choice. A woman next to me, maybe sixty, picked up a box of generic oats. She started crying. Not sobbing, just silent tears running down her cheeks into her beard. My first instinct—the old Marissa, the fixer—was to panic. To offer tissues. To ask what was wrong. To try to solve the mystery of why this woman was weeping over breakfast food. But I stopped. I remembered a therapist telling me that presence is a gift. So I just stood there. I looked at her. I let the silence stretch. I didn’t touch her. I didn’t speak. I just existed alongside her grief. After a minute, she put the box down. She took a deep breath. She looked at me, really looked at me, and whispered, 'Thank you for not making it weird.' I walked out of that store empty-handed, without cereal, but I felt more grounded than I had in months. I hadn’t fixed her. I hadn’t taken her pain. I had just shared the air. And that was enough. That was everything. So how do we forgive ourselves for caring too much? How do we stop punishing ourselves for having such wide-open hearts? We start by recognizing that your sensitivity is not a defect. It is a data point. It tells you what matters. It tells you where the wounds are in the world, and in yourself. When you feel that pang of guilt for not doing enough for that stranger, ask yourself: What am I afraid will happen if I let them suffer? Is it that I’m bad? Is it that I’m unsafe? Often, our guilt is just fear in disguise. Fear that if we don’t carry everyone’s load, we’ll be abandoned. Or worse, that we’ll be powerless. But you are not powerless. You are human. And humans are allowed to set limits. Forgiveness begins when you say, 'I care about this person. I wish them well. But I cannot carry this for them.' You can release them. You can visualize handing that weight back to the universe, or to God, or to the natural order of things. You are not the savior. You are the witness. And witnesses are vital. Without witnesses, trauma grows in the dark. With witnesses, it can begin to heal. But you must remain standing to witness. You cannot stand if you are crushed under the weight of others’ stories. This week, I want to invite you to practice gentle boundaries. Not walls. Doors. Doors that you can open and close. When you encounter pain that isn’t yours to hold, pause. Check in with your body. Are you tightening? Are you rushing to respond? If so, slow down. Remind yourself: I am here. I am safe. Their story is not my story. You can support from a distance. You can donate instead of engaging. You can look away instead of absorbing. You can send good thoughts instead of carrying the burden. And if you find yourself obsessing over a stranger at 2 a.m., gently bring your attention back to your own breath. Back to your own bed. Back to your own life. This isn’t selfish. It’s sustainable. We need you whole, Marissa. We need you present. We need you able to show up for the people who are actually in your life, without being drained dry by the echo chamber of the world. Care deeply, yes. But care wisely. Let your heart be a river, not a swamp. Let it flow through you, nourishing the land, but never stagnating within you. Flowing water stays fresh. Stagnant water breeds sickness. Be the river. Remember that episode we talked about recently, 'The Quiet Courage of Being Yourself at Work'? We discussed how hard it is to show up authentically when you’re surrounded by expectations. Well, showing up authentically for yourself means honoring your limits. It means admitting when you’ve reached capacity. It means saying, 'I loved that person. I helped where I could. Now I go home.' There is dignity in that boundary. There is strength in letting go. You don’t need to earn your rest by saving everyone. You earn your rest by surviving today. By breathing. By noticing the beauty in the small moments, not just the pain in the large ones. Forgive yourself for the times you cared too much. Forgive yourself for the times you didn’t care enough. Forgive yourself for being human in a world that demands superhuman endurance. You are doing enough. You are enough. Just as you are. Right now. In this moment. With your messy hair and your tired eyes and your big, beautiful, overwhelmed heart. Keep it. Protect it. Let it beat. That’s all you have to do. I’m so glad you’re here. Take good care of that heart of yours. I’ll see you in the next one. Bye for now.