Getting Out of Our Own Way:
What If We’re Not Here to Hold It All Anymore?
This piece poured through in the wake of some big realizations—about service, systems, collapse, and the ways we’ve turned caring into control. It’s for the empaths, helpers, creatives, and visionaries who are feeling the urge to do things differently… but maybe don’t have words for why yet. If you’ve been exhausted by holding what’s not yours, or wondering what care looks like when the old systems fail—this is for you.
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Getting Out of Our Own Way: What If We’re Not Here to Hold It All Anymore?
By Erin Middleton
What if the collapse of institutions — like the current dismantling of the Department of Health and Human Services — isn't just a crisis,
but an opening?
What if we’re not witnessing the end of the welfare state as we know it,
but a breaking open of the box we tried to cram “care” into?
To step into what’s next, we have to ask ourselves something radical:
What if helping isn’t about managing other people’s pain anymore?
What if it never was?
The Disintegration of Outsourced Care
We’ve been taught to fear collapse.
The crumbling of systems — healthcare, housing, education, emotional support — is often framed as tragedy to be avoided at all costs.
But what if these systems weren’t actually serving us to begin with?
What if they were poor substitutes for something ancient and wise that we forgot?
In the wake of institutional collapse, there is something surprising emerging:
space.
Not just destruction — but clearing.
Not just absence — but invitation.
Detroit: A Garden Grows Where the System Gave Up
Detroit has become a living metaphor for this moment.
After years of deliberate disinvestment in the inner city, whole neighborhoods became empty land where homes once stood.
At first glance: devastation.
But in the absence of institutional control, something else happened.
People showed up.
With what they had.
With what they loved.
With what they were excited to create.
They turned the empty lots into gardens, health centers, schools, art spaces, food co-ops —
not through permission, but through participation.
Not through policies, but through presence.
This is what happens when people are trusted to care.
This is what becomes possible when we are forced to stop relying on external systems, and start listening to what we already know.
Love Finds a Way
And it’s not just cities.
The National Park Service has now been gutted—staff slashed, funding pulled, protections being stripped away.
But the number of people who love these lands hasn’t disappeared.
If anything, it’s growing.
The caretaking may no longer come from uniforms or official policies…
but it will come.
Because love finds a way.
People who feel connected to these places will gather.
They’ll protect, tend, and co-steward in new ways—
guided not by bureaucracy, but by reverence.
Redefining What “Helping” Actually Means
To embrace this kind of care — organic, creative, sovereign —
we have to redefine what “helping” is for.
For so many empaths, especially white-bodied empaths, “helping” has been synonymous with managing other people’s pain.
It’s been about caretaking as a subtle form of control.
Absorbing what isn’t ours.
Staying vigilant to everyone’s emotional state.
Contorting ourselves to avoid causing more harm.
All of this stems from something deeper:
Ancestral shame, unacknowledged betrayal, and a gnawing fear that if we live from our truth, we will hurt people again.
We’ve confused guilt with responsibility.
We’ve confused martyrdom with morality.
But here’s the truth:
Managing someone else’s pain is not healing.
It’s interference.
It’s a detour around the sacred truth that everyone has their own connection to Source.
Their own path of transformation.
Their own timing.
Trying to take that from them — even out of love — disempowers them and disconnects us.
That’s not service.
It’s separation dressed up as sacrifice.
What If You’re Not Responsible for Anyone’s Pain?
Just pause with that.
What if you weren’t responsible for anyone else’s pain?
What would your life be like?
What would become possible?
What might rise in the space currently occupied by guilt, self-censorship, and energetic micromanagement?
Your creativity?
Your clarity?
Your joy?
Your role as a co-creator instead of an emotional janitor?
The New Soul of Care
We are being forced — invited, really — to create something new.
Or rather, something very old and very true.
Communities of care.
Born from mutual thriving, not mutual depletion.
Built on resonance, not rescue.
Rooted in inspiration, not obligation.
And we all have a role in this — especially those who’ve been wired to manage others’ emotions instead of trusting our own.
Because here’s the miracle:
When you stop managing what was never yours to hold,
you finally have the energy to build what is.
And what’s yours to build is beautiful.
Why Holding What Is Ours Is Beautiful
There’s a fear many people carry — often unnamed —
that if we stop managing each other…
if we let go of control, hierarchy, or constant supervision…
we’ll descend into chaos.
A kind of spiritual Lord of the Flies scenario, where everyone is out for themselves and no one shows up to help.
But what if that fear isn’t actually about our nature —
but about our conditioning?
What if the real problem isn’t freedom…
but what happens when freedom is severed from connection?
Because here’s what I believe:
Most people are hard-wired for belonging.
Most people, when given time, space, and genuine attention,
will begin to remember what they love.
And once they do —
they’ll want to offer it.
This is what we see in Detroit.
It’s what we see in grassroots movements, in mutual aid, in creative collectives and spiritual communities all over the world.
When people are trusted, they rise.
When people are seen, they contribute.
When people are free, they create.
Holding what is ours — our joy, our grief, our gifts, our visions —
isn’t selfish.
It’s sacred.
Because it’s from that place of sovereignty that we actually have something real to give.
So yes, the guardrails are falling.
But maybe they were never keeping us safe.
Maybe they were keeping us small.
And what comes next will be shaped — not by how well we manage each other —
but by how deeply we show up as who we truly are.
Maybe this is where real care begins.
🌿 If this stirred something in you, I’d love to hear from you.
About the Author
Erin is a mentor, intuitive guide, and creative visionary who supports empaths and sensitives in reclaiming their wholeness, dissolving emotional patterns, and stepping into their full power. She helps those who have spent their lives holding everyone else’s pain reconnect with their own clarity, intuition, and creative life force. Through her writing, coaching, and community spaces, Erin invites a radical reimagining of care—not as sacrifice, but as embodied presence. She believes that when we stop outsourcing our power and start showing up as who we truly are, we become the foundation for the world we want to live in.