When Capable Isn’t the Same as Capacity
For a long time, I thought being capable of doing something meant I should be able to do it. If I knew how to do it, had done it before, had the skills or could physically accomplish it, then I should be able to do it now.
The last two years have taught me that capability and capacity are two very different things.
My nervous system taught me that the hard way.
I’ve spent most of my life carrying more stress than my body was designed to continually handle. I was functioning. I was working. I was figuring things out. I was being resilient because that’s what I do. But during the 2024 election, I could feel something changing in me.
Stay with me through this next part, because the politics aren’t the point. What was happening inside my body is.
I had lived through the first Trump presidency and COVID and everything that came with those years. This time I was watching what he was saying before the election. I was watching what was being planned. Project 2025 had been published. I was listening to the things he was saying and what he planned to do if he returned to office. And I kept telling people that I thought we were watching the dismantling of our government as we knew it being laid out in front of us.
People told me I was being dramatic. I was overthinking it. It wasn’t going to happen.
Then I woke up around 3:00 in the morning after the election and saw that he’d won, and before I was even fully awake, the first words out of my mouth were, “That’s not the truth.”
That’s what came out of me in that moment. I can’t prove that the election was stolen. What matters is that my nervous system had already spent months watching for danger, and when I woke up that morning, my body believed the danger had arrived.
Then I watched what began happening before he even took office. My body had been bracing for something I believed was coming, and now it was here.
Something in me simply couldn’t do it anymore.
Within 2 weeks of the election, my nervous system shut down.
My body started shutting down everything it decided wasn’t essential to keeping me alive, and even some of the essential stuff wasn’t working particularly well. At first I thought it was the flu or a parasite from living in Mexico.
My vision changed. My digestion stopped working properly. My circulation was affected. My thinking became foggy. My hearing and sense of smell were heightened. I couldn’t rest properly. I could barely eat, and most of what I did eat wouldn’t stay down. My emotions were all over the place.
I could walk, but exercise beyond that was nearly impossible. Eventually I became severely dehydrated and malnourished.
I felt like the walking dead.
I could still work for a few hours on some days within my own business because I had the flexibility to work when my body allowed it and stop when it didn’t. But the idea that I could function like a traditional employee was almost laughable. Even part-time.
And one of the things I heard was, “Why don’t you just get a job? It would get you out of the house and bring in some more income.”
Because technically, I was capable of getting a job. I had decades of experience. I had skills. I knew how to work. I knew how to show up, solve problems and get shit done.
What I didn’t have was capacity.
There is a fucking difference.
Eventually my body forced the issue. After 7 months of barely being able to eat and throwing up, I ended up having emergency surgery to remove my gallbladder. Six months later, I had another surgery to remove my upper teeth, which had been badly damaged during those months of being sick. Four months after that, I was threatened in the place where I was living and had to get myself out within a day and move somewhere safe.
And next month, I’ll move again.
These last two years have been some of the hardest of my life. And I’m not exactly a spring chicken anymore. I’m tired of being resilient. I’m tired of getting knocked down, figuring out how to get back up and then being expected to prove I’m okay because I managed to stand again.
I’m also tired of capability being used as evidence that I should have more capacity. Because they aren’t the same thing.
Right now, I don’t have the physical and neurological capacity to work consistently.
I’m capable of walking into a crowded store, but sometimes my body still starts to shut down. My vision gets wonky. My ears start ringing. I have trouble breathing. I can become exhausted at the drop of a hat, and it’s an exhaustion that taking a nap doesn’t fix.
I’ve gotten much better at regulating my nervous system. I’ve learned how to recognize what’s happening and what helps. I use breathwork and other tools to bring myself back. I’ve learned how to filter what I’m taking in instead of absorbing everything around me.
Most days, I regulate myself pretty damn well.
But regulation doesn’t equate to unlimited capacity.
I was reminded of that again in August during what I have affectionately come to call the eclipse season from hell. I was ripped to shreds emotionally, psychically, spiritually and energetically. It needed to happen. There were things I’d carried for decades that were finally ready to be unlocked and released, and I’m grateful for what came out of it.
But holy hell, it took a lot out of me.
During that same time, a situation came up while I was already completely tapped out. I was capable of having the conversation. I knew what I wanted to say. I loved the person involved and wanted to work through it.
I just didn’t have the capacity to do it well.
That’s an important distinction for me now. Because I could have forced myself to engage anyway. The old version of me probably would have. I would have pushed past what my body was telling me because someone I loved needed something from me, and being there for the people I love is important to me.
This time, I stopped.
I took myself out of the situation for a little while because I knew that if I engaged from where I was, I was much more likely to react than respond. Saying no in that moment caused additional pain, and knowing that added another layer to what I was already carrying.
But I was out of gas. Completely.
After some time, I was able to come back and be fully present for the conversation. I could listen. I could explain myself. I could hold space for what the other person was feeling without abandoning what had been happening inside me. Most importantly, I could explain that my lack of capacity had absolutely nothing to do with how much I love this person.
I simply didn’t have anything available to give in that moment.
We are living through an enormous amount of collective stress right now. Every damn day there seems to be something else to process. Political upheaval. War. Economic pressure. Sky-high prices. Changes involving institutions and rights people believed were secure. Another thing being dismantled, threatened or changed before we’ve even processed the last one.
As an empath, I’ve gotten much better at not absorbing it all and recognizing what belongs to me and what doesn’t. I’ve learned that I need filters more than I need walls because I don’t want to stop feeling or knowing what’s happening in the world around me. Sensitivity is part of who I am.
But filtering takes energy too.
And sometimes I just run out.
That’s what I understand differently now.
Capacity isn’t a measurement of my intelligence, my skills or my work ethic. It isn’t proof of how much I care about someone. It isn’t evidence that I’m lazy because I could technically do more. And it sure as hell isn’t a measurement of my worth.
Capacity is how much of myself I have available to me right now.
And that amount changes.
Mine has changed after trauma and illness. With loss. When I’m worried about money. When my nervous system has spent too long scanning for the next threat. It’s changed as I’ve gotten older and after years of being the strong one, the person everybody knows will figure something out.
And I know I’m not the only one. Sometimes we’re still completely capable of carrying the thing in front of us.
We just don’t have the capacity to pick it up right now.
I’m learning to stop treating those moments as personal failures. Instead of automatically asking myself, “Why can’t I do this? I know I’m capable of it,” I’m learning to ask a much more useful question.
“Do I actually have the capacity for this right now?”
Because those are two very different questions. One asks me to judge myself for what I can’t do. The other asks me to listen to myself and make a choice based on what I actually have available.
Sometimes the answer is no, I don’t have the capacity.
Not forever. Just for now.
0
0 comments
When Capable Isn’t the Same as Capacity
powered by
skool.com/saj-shiftas-5297
For midlife women who’ve outgrown the life they built and are creating a life that feels like home.
Suggested communities
Powered by