Care without collapsing, even during collapse

You cannot outwork, outcare, or outsacrifice a decision that has already been made elsewhere. The work is learning to care without making yourself responsible for holding everything together.

“Tamara, were you talking to me in your last blog?”

Friend, I’m talking to all of us right now.

Caring, not carrying, is a BIG one. I heard from many of you that last week’s shares about caring that becomes over-carrying really hit you right in the chest. That’s in large part why I share some of my own story at times. You are not alone. You are actually in great company, and this is why we have these conversations!

Picking up where our story left off last week.

By the time I left my institution, I was no longer trying to sustain a thriving program. I was trying to hold together something that the university had already decided was over. It’s like when you’re the one in a relationship who doesn’t want it to break up, but the other person has already moved on.

Within months of returning from FMLA, the reality became very clear, very quickly. For years, I had been sacrificing my health and relationships to save a program that upper leadership saw as too resource-intensive and not relevant to their vision.

After I resigned (or as I like to say, put myself into early academic self-retirement), my program, the oldest PhD program at the university, stopped taking new students immediately. They moved the now-closed master’s program fully online. Near 60 years of history educating and training scholarly leaders, closed.

Nothing I had been carrying during my career there stopped that outcome.

Not my overwork, my commitment, my willingness to absorb more in my body and mind--not to mention my anxiety-producing to-do list. I couldn't rescue the programs or my students.

And I hated that. It was hard not to feel it as a personal failure.

I think many of us are quietly trained to believe that if we just care enough, work enough, sacrifice enough, we can prevent institutional and systemic harm, closures, defunding, and even collapse. And I think this story extends to climate and polycrisis spaces and conversations, too.

But here is the truth I now say to clients, colleagues, and students as gently and clearly as I can: There is nothing one person can do to prevent closure, defunding, or institutional dissolution if the decision has already been made elsewhere.

(And if we’re having this conversation, then the writing is on the wall. Please look at it. Long and hard if you need to. I’m honored to even stand next to you as we witness what it says. And hold our care and our grief together.)

I say this not to be a downer or cynical, but as a way to set yourself free. It’s liberating to honestly witness and hold the loss and love. Your over caring and carrying doesn’t change much in a neoliberal, late-stage capitalist organization driven by flashy performativity, increasing numbers and money, and competition. Let it go and do what you need to do. Put your care where it matters. And collapsing programs and institutions will show you clearly what matters.

I’m not advocating for full disengagement. What I am arguing for is discernment.

You can care without collapsing into overing or numbing, even during collapse.

You can care deeply about people and refuse to become the container for everything they cannot yet hold.

You can be committed to an organization or institution and still refuse to sacrifice yourself to stabilize its dysfunction.

You can lead with compassion and still insist on boundaries, accountability, and structural change.

In fact, that may be what integrity actually requires. Because the goal is not to become the person who can carry the most, but to build and participate in systems that ask less of any one person.

And that begins with one of the hardest practices of all: Not taking on what does not belong to you, even when you could, when you know how, and when others would gladly let you.

You practice that in the small moments and get your reps in so you can recognize it and choose it when the stakes are much bigger.