Where did it all go?
Last week we looked at the wet Monday that tipped you over, and how it’s rarely the rain. It’s that there was nothing left to absorb it.
So this week, a slightly uncomfortable question. If there was nothing left on Monday, where had it all gone?
It’s Sunday evening. The dishwasher’s on, and you finally sit down. Ten minutes, that’s all you want.
Your phone pings. The class WhatsApp group: forty-three new messages about a non-uniform day. Then a client, sorry to bother you on a Sunday, just a quick one. Your mum, checking you can still take her to her appointment on Thursday. A friend’s voice note, eleven minutes long, about the week she’s had. You listen to all of it. Of course you do. By the time you look up, it’s ten o’clock and the ten minutes have gone.
None of those people did anything wrong. Every one of them matters to you. But have you noticed how many little things drain your battery in a day, without you ever really agreeing to them?
Think about your phone again. Some days it runs down far faster than it should, even when you’ve barely used it. Then you look, and there are a dozen apps running in the background. Notifications pinging. Something you opened on Tuesday and never closed.
That’s what slow leaks feel like in us. Not one big drain, but lots of small ones you’ve stopped noticing.
Being always available is one of the biggest. The part of you that’s half listening for the phone even when it’s face down. Then there’s holding other people’s worries: the colleague going through a hard time, the parent who isn’t as steady as they were, the friend who always calls you first. You carry their worries home as if they were your own.
And underneath, older leaks. The habit of saying yes before you’ve thought about it. The sense that rest has to be earned. Patterns that formed further back, or over years of keeping everything going, now running in the background with today’s pressures layered on top.
On Wednesday, at eleven o’clock, the country will fall silent for two minutes to remember those who gave their lives in war, and the families who have carried that loss ever since. It puts our own busyness into perspective. And it’s a reminder of how much meaning there can be in simply stopping together, for something that truly matters.
If your reserves have been leaking for a while, your body has probably been telling you. The headache that arrives every Friday afternoon. Shoulders that never quite come down. Lying awake at night, still answering messages in your head. Symptoms you’ve tried everything for, that still won’t shift.
So what happens if nothing changes, and you head into the busiest weeks of the year with every app still running?
You may already have tried to plug the leaks. Notifications off. A firm no to the extra project. Leaving the phone in another room. Those things genuinely help. But switching off one app doesn’t stop the others, and boundaries are hard to hold when you’re already running on fumes. Managing the leaks is one thing. Building the capacity to notice them, pause in the moment and choose what you give, is another.
If you run a business or lead a team, this will be familiar. You’re the one everyone comes to: the quick question, the decision, the reassurance. Your door is always open, and that’s part of what makes you good at what you do. But when every interruption draws on the same reserves, your clearest thinking gets whatever’s left at the end of the day.
It’s the same for the practice manager at a busy GP surgery, fielding questions from doctors, patients and reception all day, then lying awake working out next week’s rota. Nobody is taking too much. There’s just never a moment when nobody is taking.
And if you’re someone who tells everyone you’re fine because that’s what you’ve always done, this is for you too. Fine is often just what running low sounds like.
None of this is your fault. Caring about people isn’t the problem. Your system simply hasn’t had the chance to refill as fast as it’s been giving.
Something to sit with this week: what’s been running in the background for you, and when did you last notice?
This month, I’d love you to join me for Yin & Tonic: November 2026, Refilling Your Reserves.
It’s free, on Zoom, on Thursday 26 November, from 7pm to 7.30pm UK time. Thirty minutes when nobody needs anything from you, with a simple practice that’s yours to keep.
No experience needed. No need to be on camera. No need to share anything about yourself
Will you join me? It’s half an hour nobody else can claim.
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