We can't talk about responsibility without talking about the capacity to hold it

We treat the ability to pay attention and hold space like it’s a personality trait determined by genetics.

“She can handle a lot,” or

“You’re so good at dealing with so much,” or

“I was born type A,”

you know all the sentiments.

Our culture emphasizes showing up, not just right now, but every day, forever, without fail. We value consistency and output and showing up responsibly, but rarely do we do the deeper investigation into what supports the ability to do so in the first place.

Remember the old adage: yoga is skill in action (read more about that here). We know this conceptually and nod along because intellectually, it all makes sense. But what about when we take into account the context in which it lives?

In execution, the idea of skill in action depends on a lot of things, like discernment, the wherewithal to pause when reactive, relational awareness, and the willingness to take accountability.

These are not inherently easy things, folks. They take practice, a willingness to be uncomfortable, and most important to note… it’s really fucking hard to access all of those things when we are chronically depleted. In other words, we need capacity.

So when we talk about showing up in the world responsibly, as fully formed humans, we have to acknowledge capacity as the source that makes it all possible, otherwise what we’re really doing is showing up from a different state entirely: reactivity.

We can’t pour from an empty cup. We can’t show up well in the world in a sustainable way without capacity.

Capacity is not fixed. Some days, some weeks, some seasons, your capacity may be the size of a tablespoon. Other times, it may feel like a ridiculously overpriced oversized Stanley cup. This isn’t a coincidence, so let’s get a little nerdier about it.

Our capacity fluctuates depending on sleep, stress load, relational safety, and our environment. It’s shaped by things as big as the pacing of our life, the level of expectations on our shoulders, and constant deadlines. It’s also shaped by quieter, more mundane things that add up through sheer repetition and consistency: loud noises, bright cold lights, and constant stimulation.

When it all comes together in lived experience, the idea of “improving capacity” can feel impossible, because most of our precious time is spent basically trying to catch up to the demand. The idea of rest becomes an afterthought that’s forced on us in the form of collapse or burnout or illness. Or, we find rest in other sort of satisfying ways, like doomscrolling for dopamine hits, little productivity checklists disguised as self-care, or vacations and yoga retreats that simply replicate intensity but with a beach for a background.

And to be sure, there are some really lovely things we can leverage within our own life: pockets of rest, calming environments, epsom salt baths, putting our phones down, and long, melt-in-your-arms type of hugs.

And those things matter. They absolutely matter. They soften the edges. They give us small deposits back into the system.

But most of the time, they’re operating inside the same context that drained us in the first place.

We’re still operating at the same pace, the same level of expectations, the same decision load, the same low (or high) level hum of constant responsibility. The rest starts to feel like patchwork. Much needed, helpful, but patchwork all the same.

It’s a process that we all know intimately: doomscrolling for dopamine hits, routine-optimization to foster the feeling of control, weekend getaways that promise transformation… We tell ourselves we’ll recover “later,” at some unknown future time, when life gets easier, things calm down, and people stop needing things.

Unfortunately and rudely, life is life.

The reminder here is that if capacity “for stuff” is contextual, then so must be the support system. Telling folks to “rest more” is about as helpful as saying “be less stressed,” (looking at you, chiropractor I went to in 2017). Especially when we don’t change anything about the environment we’re actually in.

Because “resting more” when you still have a pile of dishes to do, dog doodoo to pick up and 1000 decisions to make feels annoyingly tone deaf to your own reality (at least for me).

This is why I think so much about context in the spaces I teach. Yes, being given the tools matters, but so is creating the conditions for the work to really land.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the past few months, with leading back to back YTT weekends, assisting in Morocco, and the general rhythm of life reminding me that capacity is never as theoretically clean cut as we hope it to be.

In both training and retreats, there is a hunger for depth. People want information, yes, but that alone isn’t the point.

What I don’t want to do is teach people how to override themselves more efficiently.

I do not want to hand you tools for simply surviving an unsustainable path.

I do not want my classes to become one more place to “perform” being well and good and palatable.

I want to teach from a lens that gives us permission to ask: what actually builds capacity?

Sometimes it’s renegotiating expectations. Sometimes it’s a deep breath when it feels like we’re seeing red. Sometimes it’s less stimulation, fewer nervous system demands, and more time to just… be. So your body and brain can catch up.

The older I get, the more I think support is not a feeling, but a series of chosen actions. In how we pace our classes, in how much room there is to actually think, it’s in whether a space asks you to perform again and again, or actually gives you permission to arrive.

In other words, maybe we can move the question from “How do I become someone who can handle more?” to something like “What is the environment I’m asking myself to survive inside of? And what would actually support me in showing up well and sustainably over time?”

More to come.

Love & Snacks,
Elena

P.S. A lot of this is informing how I’m thinking about Panama later this year too — less about escape, more about support.