When Strength Becomes Weakness

Last week, I spent a few days by the sea. And I didn't go into the water once.

Not because it was cold. Not because I don't love the sea.

I simply didn't feel like it.

I read. I walked. I sat on the beach. And as the days passed, one thought kept coming back:

"I want to go home so I can finally rest."

When Strength Becomes Weakness: A Story About the Inner Guard

The thought unsettled me. Wasn't that exactly why we had come? To rest?

Instead of simply accepting it, I started judging myself.

• I hadn't gone into the water.

• I wasn't making the most of the holiday.

• I wasn't even relaxing.

As if even rest could become something to succeed or fail at.

Then I asked myself a different question:

What if the problem isn't that I don't know how to rest?

What if I'm tired in a way that one week by the sea simply cannot fix?

Over the past few months, anxiety has become a constant presence in my life. For a long time, I saw it as the problem. Gradually, though, I began to wonder whether anxiety was something else entirely. Not the cause. The price.

The price of being, for too long, the person who anticipates, takes responsibility, and thinks several steps ahead.

When you're that kind of person, people usually describe you in positive terms.

• Responsible.

• Reliable.

• Organised.

• Someone they can count on.

And there's a lot of truth in that.

Those qualities have helped me build a business, navigate difficult times, and make decisions that were not always easy.

But there is another side to them:

• These qualities don't stay at work.

• They don't switch off on Friday evening.

• They don't disappear when you go on holiday.

Slowly, they stop being just the way you work. They become the way you exist.

As I was reflecting on all of this, a metaphor came to mind.

It's as if a guard lives inside me.

Her job is to notice possible dangers, anticipate risks, stay prepared, and make sure nothing important is missed. That inner guard has probably contributed to many of the good decisions I have made over the years.

But there is one problem.

She doesn't seem to know when her shift is over.

At some point, I realised that I'm not tired of my work. I'm not tired of my clients. I'm not tired of the people around me. I'm tired of the constant feeling that I have to remain on guard.

It's a different kind of tiredness:

• Anxiety says: "Be careful."

• Exhaustion says: "I can't keep being careful."

When I realised this, I also realised that over the past few months I haven't only been working on my anxiety. I've been questioning a much deeper belief:

• That if I'm not careful enough... If I don't anticipate what might happen... If I don't think it through one more time...

• ...something bad will inevitably happen.

Perhaps this is where something paradoxical begins.

The qualities that have served us so well for so long eventually start working against us.

The ability to carry responsibility, anticipate problems, and cope with uncertainty stops being a choice.

It becomes our default way of being.

And that's when strength begins to look like weakness.

Not because we've become less capable, but because we've forgotten that being capable is supposed to be a choice and not a permanent state.

Today, I don't think this is only a story about anxiety. I think it's a story about the people everyone describes as strong. The ones who always manage. The ones who always cope. And who one day discover that the hardest thing is no longer carrying a little more.

The hardest thing is allowing themselves, for a while, to stop carrying everything.

Perhaps true resilience begins right there, not when we endure a little longer, but when the guard inside us slowly realises that not every moment is an emergency.