Do you remember the game? Everyone sits in a circle. Someone walks around the outside, tapping heads. Duck. Duck. Duck. Harmless touches, predictable rhythm. Then without warning: GOOSE. One person suddenly has to jump up and chase while everyone else watches.

Workplaces play this game too. The person walking the circle moves through the team with routine requests. Small asks. Normal interactions. Duck. Duck. Duck. Then they place their hand on someone’s head and declare them responsible for the surprise emergency, the last-minute deliverable, the crisis they didn’t create. GOOSE. Now sprint.

The Pattern

The Duck-Duck-Gooser (The Gooser, for short) creates chaos through three interconnected patterns:

Poor time management

They agreed to something weeks ago. It got dropped. They remembered ridiculously close to the promised delivery date. Now it’s your emergency. Sometimes they have the integrity to own it: “I know this is my fault.” Often they don’t—they just expect you to fix it.

Process avoidance

They tag you to do something urgently to get around proper channels. When you push back—”Something of this magnitude had to have been known for a long time, this didn’t just come up”—they deflect. The urgency is manufactured to bypass the process they should have followed.

Disrespect for capacity, complexity and skill

They ask you to do something you do well—but in an exceptionally short period compared to what the work actually requires. This isn’t just stressful. It sets you up for potential failure because you don’t get to operate at full capability, flow, and thoroughness. A reasonable timeline would let you do quality work. Their timeline guarantees something’s getting sacrificed.

The result?

Teams become jumpy. Deep work becomes impossible when you’re braced for the tap.

How This Hits Empaths

Empaths are the easiest to tag. You don’t want to let people down. You’re reliable. You respond. These qualities make you visible when someone needs a goose.

The cost isn’t just the surprise tasks. It’s the hypervigilance. The constant low-grade anxiety of never knowing when you’ll be selected. Your nervous system can’t settle. You can’t sink into deep work because part of you is waiting for the tap.

This erodes nervous system safety slowly but relentlessly. Even on days when you don’t get tagged, you’ve burned energy bracing for it.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Monday morning standup. Your manager casually asks each person about their weekend. Duck. Duck. Duck. Then: “Oh, and by the way, the client needs that analysis by tomorrow morning. I know we didn’t discuss this, but you’ve got this, right?” GOOSE. You’re now responsible for work that requires three days, due in eighteen hours, decided without your input.

The pattern teaches you that calm moments are temporary. Safety is an illusion. The tap is coming. You just don’t know when.

Tiny Tools for Tiny Spaces

Here are a few things to try out when you find yourself in these situations.

Somatic Reset
Calm your body, and your mind will follow

When you feel the hypervigilance building—shoulders tight, breath shallow, stomach clenched—your body is telling you something true. The tap might come. That doesn’t mean you have to live in readiness for it.

Place one hand on your chest, one on your belly. Breathe slowly. Say quietly: “Right now, I am not being chased. Right now, I am here.” Ground yourself in present safety rather than future threat.

Boundary Statement
An action statement that supports your values & capacity, “If X happens, then Y will result.”

“If you continue to assign urgent work without advance notice, then I will need to deprioritize other commitments to accommodate it—and I’ll need you to communicate those changes to the affected stakeholders.”

Clarity Question
Minimizes misunderstanding, encourages alignment

“Something of this magnitude had to have been known for a while. When did this first come up, and what prevented it from being addressed earlier?”

This question exposes whether the urgency is real or manufactured. It names the time management failure and the process being bypassed.

Prevention Tool
Being proactive protects, whereas reactivity drains

Keep a simple log of surprise urgent requests—what was asked, when, the timeline given, whether it could have been anticipated earlier. You’ll see patterns. This data protects you from gaslighting when they claim “this never happens.”

Advanced Tiny Tool for Big Empaths:

When tagged with surprise urgency that doesn’t respect your capacity or the quality of your work, consider saying:

“I understand this feels urgent to you. The timeline you’re requesting doesn’t allow me to deliver the quality this work requires. I can deliver [realistic scope] by [urgent deadline], or I can deliver [full scope] by [realistic deadline]. You choose which you need more.”

Why this is advanced:

You’re naming the impossible tradeoff they’re forcing. You’re demonstrating you manage your capacity even when they don’t manage their planning. You’re making visible that demanding quality work in unreasonable timeframes sets you up for failure. You’re refusing to inherit their crisis while still offering realistic options.

The boundary is this:

Their poor time management is not your emergency to absorb. Their process avoidance is not your problem to enable. Their disrespect for your capacity and skill is not your obligation to accommodate. You can help—on terms that don’t sacrifice quality, your other commitments, or your wellbeing.

The Truth Underneath

The Gooser doesn’t always realize what they’re doing. Sometimes they genuinely believe the urgency just materialized. Sometimes they know they dropped it and feel guilty. Sometimes they’re deliberately using urgency to bypass processes that would slow them down.

Regardless of intent, the impact on you is the same: hypervigilance, disrupted flow, work that can’t be done properly, and the ongoing expectation that you’ll catch what they drop.

Here’s what you need to know: their chaos is not your calling. Their lack of planning is not your emergency. Their manufactured urgency is not your obligation to perpetual readiness.

The Gooser will keep playing the game. You cannot stop them from walking the circle and tapping heads. You can, however, decide you’re not playing. You can refuse to jump up and chase. You can stay seated even when they yell GOOSE.

You’re not responsible for catching every surprise they throw. You’re responsible for managing your capacity in a way that’s sustainable. Those two things often conflict. Choose sustainability. Every single time.

Next time someone yells GOOSE, remember: you can walk instead of sprint.

Now it’s your turn.

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You recognize them by the constant motion.

Head bobbing in agreement. Yes to the client. Yes to the executive. Yes to the team asking for contradictory things. Yes to everyone, all at once.

They can’t hold a position because holding a position means disappointing someone, and disappointing someone feels dangerous.

They want to be liked. They need everyone to be happy. They cannot handle upset, conflict, or the discomfort of saying no.

So they agree. Constantly. To everything.

Everyone downstream pays the price for their unmanaged need for approval.

Welcome to The Bobblehead.

What They Do

The Bobblehead operates from a core anxiety: being disliked is dangerous. Disappointing people is threatening.

This drives predictable behavior:

Universal agreement
They say yes to clients, stakeholders, executives, team members—often to requests that directly conflict. The client wants it Tuesday. The team says Thursday is realistic. The Bobblehead tells the client Tuesday and the team to make it work.

Conflict avoidance
When two parties disagree, The Bobblehead agrees with whoever they’re talking to at the moment. They’re not lying—they genuinely want both people to be happy. They just haven’t accepted that’s impossible.

Boundary collapse
They cannot hold a line when holding it means someone will be unhappy with them. Every boundary is negotiable when the alternative is someone’s disappointment.

The result? When you’re an individual contributor with people-pleasing tendencies, you mostly harm yourself. When you’re a leader with people-pleasing tendencies, everyone under or around you absorbs what you won’t say no to.

What This Looks Like in Practice

The client asks for something unrealistic. The Bobblehead says yes without checking with the team. Now you’re responsible for work that requires three people and two weeks—except you’re one person and have three days.

Or: Two stakeholders want opposite things. The Bobblehead agrees with both. You discover the conflict only when you try to execute, and now you’re stuck choosing which promise to break.

How This Hits Empaths

If you’re an empath, The Bobblehead is particularly exhausting because you can feel their anxiety. You sense their fear of disappointing people. You understand why they keep saying yes.

This makes it hard to hold them accountable. Pushing back on their over-commitments feels like adding to their distress. So you absorb the chaos—the conflicting directives, the impossible timelines, the cleanup from promises they shouldn’t have made.

You become the person who makes their dysfunction functional. And they never have to learn, because you keep catching what they drop.

If You See Yourself Here

If you recognize yourself in The Bobblehead, here’s what matters:

Your desire to keep people happy is real. Your discomfort with disappointing others is valid. What’s not sustainable is sacrificing your team’s capacity and your own credibility to avoid temporary discomfort.

Every yes without checking costs someone downstream. Usually someone who doesn’t have the power to say no to you. Start practicing: “Let me check with the team and get back to you.” That pause protects everyone.

Tiny Tools for Tiny Spaces

Here are a few things to try out when you find yourself in these situations.

Somatic Reset:
Calm your body, and your mind will follow

When The Bobblehead agrees to something that will land on you without checking first, your body knows before your mind processes it. Place both hands flat on your thighs. Press down firmly. Take three slow breaths. Say quietly: “Their inability to say no is not my obligation to say yes.” Feel the distinction between their anxiety and your responsibility.

Boundary Statement:
An action statement that supports your values & capacity, “If X happens, then Y will result.”

“If commitments are made without checking my capacity first, then I will need to deprioritize other work to accommodate them—and I’ll need you to communicate those changes to the affected stakeholders.”

Clarity Questions:
Minimizes misunderstanding, encourages alignment

“I see we’ve agreed to [X] and [Y], which conflict. Which takes priority? I need clarity before I can execute.”

This makes visible that their universal agreement created a problem you cannot solve without their input.

Prevention Tool:
Being proactive protects, whereas reactivity drains

Document the commitments. Keep a log of what The Bobblehead agrees to and when. Note what was promised versus what's actually possible. This protects you when they later claim "the team said they could do it."

Advanced Tiny Tool for Big Empaths:

When the pattern persists despite clear boundaries, consider this:

Stop catching what they drop. You cannot teach The Bobblehead to hold boundaries while you’re competently managing the consequences of them not holding boundaries. Sometimes the kindest thing—for both of you—is letting them feel what happens when you stop absorbing their chaos.

Say no without asking permission:

“I don’t have capacity for this. My current commitments run through [date].”

Or, something like:

“This request is in direct conflict to previously approved XYZ. We will pause on working this topic altogether until a change order has been signed.”

You don’t need their approval to protect your capacity. You don’t need to ask them to reprioritize your workload when you’re already certain of what’s in progress. This isn’t rudeness—it’s clarity.

Why this is advanced:

You’re refusing to make their dysfunction functional. You’re letting them experience the natural consequences of their people-pleasing instead of shielding them from it. That’s not abandoning them—that’s protecting yourself from being consumed by their pattern.

The discomfort they’ve been avoiding by saying yes to everything? Let them sit in it. That’s the only teacher that works.

The Truth Underneath

The Bobblehead isn’t trying to make your life harder. They’re trying to avoid the discomfort of disappointing people. What they don’t realize is they’re just redistributing the disappointment—from people with power (who can handle it) to people without power (who can’t say no to them).

Every time you make their chaos work, you teach them this pattern is sustainable. It’s not. It only appears sustainable because you’re absorbing the cost.

You’re not responsible for teaching them to hold boundaries. You are responsible for protecting your own capacity from their inability to protect it for you.

Let them feel the consequences of over-committing. Let them explain to stakeholders why promises won’t be kept. Let them sit in the discomfort they’ve been avoiding by saying yes to everything.

That discomfort is often the only teacher that works.

Next time you see the constant nodding, remember: their yes doesn’t obligate your capacity.

Now it’s your turn.

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Two lines of kids, arms locked tight. One team calls out: “Red Rover, Red Rover, send [name] right over.” That person has to run full speed and try to break through the other team’s linked arms.

But there were two experiences in this game.

Sometimes you were the one being called—running full speed toward linked arms that wouldn’t soften.

Sometimes you were standing in the line, watching someone run straight at you, knowing that if they broke through at YOUR link, you were the weak spot.

Either way, you took the hit.

What the Game Actually Looks Like

Workplaces play Red Rover in two simultaneous ways:

You’re the runner: Leadership sends you to break through a resistant team, client, or department. “Go get buy-in.” “Make it happen.” “Bridge the gap.” You’re running full speed at a wall that has no interest in letting you through.

You’re the line: Leadership sends someone through you. A new policy. A rushed project. A difficult stakeholder. You’re supposed to absorb the impact without breaking—and if you do break, you’ve failed.

Most exhausting? You’re often playing both roles at once. Running toward one wall while another person runs toward you.

How This Hits Empaths

Empaths feel both sides of every collision.

When you’re the runner, you feel the resistance in the line. You know they don’t want to let you through. You can sense their frustration, their pressure, their boundaries. This makes you hesitate, soften your approach, try to make it easier for them—which means you fail to break through.

When you’re the line, you feel the force of what’s being pushed through you. You understand why the runner is coming. You can see they didn’t choose this. You want to help—but helping means breaking your own position. So you absorb the hit and blame yourself for not being stronger.

The game requires you to be hard in both directions. Empaths default to soft. That mismatch is exhausting.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Your manager tells you to “get stakeholder X on board” with a decision that’s already been made. You’re the runner. Stakeholder X is the line. They don’t want this decision. They weren’t consulted. They have good reasons to resist. You’re supposed to break through anyway.

Or: Leadership pushes a new process through your team without warning. You’re the line. Your team is confused, resistant, overwhelmed. You’re supposed to hold the position, implement it smoothly, and absorb the impact without complaint.

The expectation? Execute both perfectly. Don’t break. Don’t bend. Don’t fail.

Tiny Tools for Tiny Spaces

Here are a few things to try out when you find yourself in these situations:

Somatic Reset
Calm your body, and your mind will follow

When you feel caught between two forces, place both hands on your chest. Close your eyes. Feel your heartbeat. Inhale slowly through your nose, and sigh out your exhale through your mouth.

Remind yourself: I am not responsible for making incompatible forces compatible.

Sample Boundary Statement
An action statement that supports your values & capacity, “If X happens, then Y will result.”

"If you need me to both break through resistance with Team A and hold the line against Team B, then I will need to choose which relationship I'm prioritizing. I cannot maintain trust on both sides while executing opposing mandates."

Clarity Question
Minimizes misunderstanding, encourages alignment

“Who else is aware that I’m being asked to break through in one area while defending in another?”

This reveals whether leadership even sees the contradiction.

Prevention Tool
Being proactive protects, whereas reactivity drains

Track which role you’re in each week. When you notice you’re playing both simultaneously, document it. Pattern recognition helps you say “I’m noticing I’ve been assigned contradictory roles three times this month” with data.

Advanced Tiny Tool for Big Empaths:

When you’re being assigned both roles, consider saying:

“I do not have the capacity to execute both A and B. If you need both done, I will need [additional resources/extended timeline/help from others]. If that’s not possible, then I can commit to one or the other—you choose which.”

Why this is advanced:

You’re naming the impossible position clearly. You’re putting the choice back on leadership instead of absorbing it as your problem. You’re protecting your capacity with a clear consequence: they get one role or they provide support, not both roles with current resources.

The boundary is this:

You can run toward resistance. You can hold a line against force. What you cannot do is absorb the full impact of both roles while maintaining your integrity, your energy, and your relationships.

The Truth Underneath

Red Rover only works as a game because it’s temporary. The hits hurt, but then the game ends.

Workplaces expect you to play it continuously. Run full speed at resistance all day. Hold the line against force all day. Absorb hit after hit after hit. Then come back tomorrow and do it again.

The problem isn’t that you’re not tough enough. The problem is that the game was designed for short bursts, not sustained impact.

You’re not weak for feeling the collisions. You’re human. The system that sends people running at each other and calls it “alignment” or “driving change” or “implementing strategy”—that system is broken.

Next time you feel caught between two forces, remember: the insistence on constant collision is the design flaw, not you.

Sometimes the smartest move is stepping out of the line entirely.

Now it’s your turn.

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“We really value work-life balance here.”

You’ve heard this in job interviews, company all-hands, HR presentations, and policy announcements. It sounds supportive. Caring. Progressive.

Here’s what it usually means:

“We expect you to manage the impossible demands we’ve designed into this role, and when you can’t, we’ll frame it as a time management problem—not our system design flaw.”

Because here’s the truth: work-life balance isn’t something you find.
It’s something companies either build into their structure—or don’t.

And, not surprisingly, most don’t.

Instead, they hand you a phrase, a yoga discount, a comp day, and the expectation that you’ll somehow alchemize 60-hour weeks into sustainable wellness.

Welcome to the myth of work-life balance.

What the Lie Looks Like

Companies say they support work-life balance while simultaneously:

• Expecting you to work your standard business hours while simultaneously scheduling meetings outside of those hours to accommodate themselves, the client, or “everyone else”

• Praising employees who “go above and beyond” when responding to emails at 11pm

• Setting deadlines that require weekend work

• Understaffing teams so “flexibility” means “always available”

• Offering unlimited PTO with a dozen strings attached which almost no one feels safe using

• Creating cultures where capacity management and boundaries are seen as “not being a team player”

The policy says: “We respect your personal time.”
The practice says: “We expect you to sacrifice it.”

The gap between what’s promised and what’s practiced? That’s where empaths get stuck. Because we can feel the dissonance—and we absorb it.

How This Hits Empaths

If you’re an empath, the work-life balance myth doesn’t just frustrate you—it makes you feel like you’re failing at something that was designed to be impossible.

Because when a company frames balance as an individual responsibility, empaths internalize the imbalance as personal failure:

• “I’m not managing my time well enough.”

• “Other people seem to handle this—what’s wrong with me?”

• “Maybe I’m just not cut out for this.”

The truth? It’s not about hours. It’s about energy.

Do you have enough energy at the end of the day to:

• Take care of yourself?

• Be present with people you love?

• Do something that makes your heart happy?

If the answer is “no” more often than “yes,” that’s not a personal failure.
That’s a system that’s extracting more than it’s sustainable to give.

Why the Myth is Perpetuated

Most companies aren’t actively trying to burn you out.

They’re optimizing for productivity—and they’ve learned that:

• Individuals will absorb what systems don’t provide

• Empaths will fill gaps without being asked

• If you frame exhaustion as a personal time management issue, people will blame themselves instead of the workload

It’s easier to offer wellness apps than to reduce meeting load.
It’s easier to say “set boundaries” than to staff appropriately.
It’s easier to talk about balance than to design for it.

The phrase “work-life balance” shifts responsibility from the system to the individual.
That’s not an accident. That’s the point.

Here’s the Part Few Talk About

Balance works both ways.

Sometimes people work more than necessary because work feels safer, cleaner, or more controllable than what’s waiting outside the workplace.

I know. I’ve been that person.

Using work to avoid life isn’t balance either—it’s another form of imbalance. One that companies benefit from, even if they’d never say it out loud.

If you’re working excessive hours because home feels harder than the office, that’s real. That’s valid. That’s also not sustainable.

This isn’t judgment. This is recognition that balance isn’t just about what work demands—it’s also about what life requires from you when you’re not working.

Tiny Tools for Tiny Spaces

When you’re navigating the myth of work-life balance, here’s what helps:

Somatic Reset:
At the end of your workday, place both hands on your chest.
Close your eyes.
Inhale deeply for four counts. Exhale slowly for six.
Say internally: “I did what I could with what I had. That’s enough.”
Repeat three times.

Reframe the Question:
Stop asking: “Am I balancing my time well?”
Start asking: “Do I have energy left for my life after work takes what it takes?”

If the answer is consistently no, the problem isn’t your time management—it’s your workload or work environment.

Climate vs. Weather Check:
Ask yourself:
“Is this imbalance temporary (weather) or constant (climate)?”

Weather = a product launch, a seasonal crunch, a specific deadline
These pass. They’re survivable.

Climate = the normal state of operations
If the “normal” is unsustainable, you’re not in the wrong season—you’re in the wrong environment.

You don’t like winter? Don’t live at the North Pole.
You don’t like constant crunch mode? Don’t stay in a climate that treats burnout as baseline.

Advanced Tiny Tool for Big Empaths:

When someone says “we value work-life balance” but the system contradicts it, consider saying:

“I appreciate that work-life balance is a stated value. I’m noticing [specific pattern: weekend emails, after-hours meetings, unrealistic deadlines]. Can we talk about how to align practice with policy?”

Why this is advanced:
You’re not complaining. You’re naming a gap between stated values and lived reality.
You’re asking the system to take responsibility for what it designed.

Sometimes they’ll adjust. Sometimes they won’t.
Either way, you’ve stopped pretending the imbalance is your fault.

The boundary is this:
You can work hard during defined hours. You can flex occasionally for true emergencies. What you can’t do is sustain a system that treats constant availability as the baseline and calls it “balance.”

The Truth Underneath

Work-life balance is a myth because work and life aren’t separate.

Work is part of life.

What people are really asking for when they say “balance” is:
“Can I have a life that includes work—without work consuming my entire life?”

The answer should be yes.

When it’s not, that’s not a personal failure.
That’s a system that hasn’t been designed with human sustainability in mind.

You’re not bad at balance.
You’re just trying to balance something that was not created to be balanced in the first place.

Next time someone tells you they value work-life balance, watch what they do and how they behave—not what they say.

Now it’s your turn.

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You know that physical sensation when you’re about to say no to someone at work? That tightening in your chest. The heat crawling up your neck. The mental scramble to find softer words, better words, safer words than the one screaming in your head.

Because “no” feels dangerous.

We’ve been trained to believe that refusal triggers retaliation. That establishing capacity and boundaries invite punishment. That our job as empaths is to absorb everyone else’s needs and somehow still have energy left for our own work.

Here’s the pretty little lie we tell ourselves: If I just say yes one more time, they’ll see how valuable I am. They’ll stop asking for so much. They’ll respect my limits.

They won’t.

The No That Doesn’t Happen

Do any of these scenarios feel familiar?

• Your manager can’t manage their own time or workload, so they come to you at the last minute with “urgent” requests.

• Your colleague avoids difficult conversations, so they route their work through you.

• Your stakeholder changes direction constantly, and you’re expected to pivot without question.

• Your vendor, salesperson, or account manager promised the client something without coordinating with you, that was not scoped or planned, and now it becomes your responsibility to deliver it within the same timeframe of all the other work that is already happening.

An empath in a toxic workplace becomes a pressure valve for everyone else’s chaos. Each time you swallow a no, you’re teaching people exactly how to use you.

The irony? You’re protecting yourself from a reaction that might not even happen. Meanwhile, the resentment building inside you is absolutely happening. The exhaustion is happening. The slow erosion of your boundaries is happening.

The Power in the Pause

Here’s something that changes everything: the realization that not every request requires an immediate response.

“I’ll get back to you.”

That’s it. That’s a complete answer.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that speed equals competence, that hesitation signals weakness. So we respond in real-time, before we’ve checked our capacity, before we’ve assessed what saying yes actually costs.

The pause creates spaciousness. It moves you from reactive to deliberate. It gives you permission to consult your actual schedule, your actual energy, your actual priorities before committing.

“Let me check my calendar and get back to you.” “I need to think about that.” “Give me until the end of the day to respond.”

These aren’t stalling tactics. They’re capacity and boundary-setting in action. You’re claiming the space to make a conscious decision rather than defaulting to yes out of panic or people-pleasing.

The Architecture of No

When you’ve taken that pause and determined your capacity and boundaries, here’s what clarity looks like:

No - Solid. Complete. Requires nothing else.

Not now - Also a no, but anchored to timing.

Not that way - Also a no, but about the approach or method.

Not them - Also a no, but about who should handle it.

Notice something? Each “not” still starts with “no.” You’re just giving context.

Some people will tell you to soften it with phrases like “How about...” or “Instead of...” or “Alternatively...” These can open dialogue, which has value. They’re also exhausting when you’ve already done the mental work to arrive at your boundary, and now you’re being asked to project-manage someone else’s reaction to it.

Use them if they help you feel centered. Skip them if they’re just emotional labor you don’t have capacity for.

The Mirror You’re Holding

If you’re feeling like people don’t respect your capacity and/or boundaries, here’s a question worth sitting with: How are you showing up for yourself?

People respect you in proportion to how much you respect yourself.

A well-placed no establishes this. It demonstrates that your time, energy, and capacity matter. That you take yourself seriously. That your boundaries are real, not suggestions.

When you consistently override your own limits to accommodate everyone else, you’re teaching people that your capacity and boundaries are negotiable. You’re modeling that your needs come last. You’re showing them exactly how much - or how little - your capacity and boundaries should matter to them.

This is the mirror: you can’t ask others to do for you what you won’t do for yourself.

If you want people to respect your capacity, you have to respect it first. If you want them to take your boundaries seriously, you have to take them seriously. If you want them to stop treating you like an unlimited resource, you have to stop treating yourself that way.

The uncomfortable truth? The source that needs adjusting might not be them. It might be you.

The Generous No

Here’s what I’ve learned: a clear no, delivered with care, is more generous than a resentful yes.

When you say yes but mean no, you’re lying. You’re building time bombs into your working relationships. You’re training people that your capacity and boundaries don’t matter, which means you don’t matter.

A well-delivered no does something radical: it tells the truth about your capacity while respecting the other person enough to handle that truth. That’s not cruelty. That’s clarity.

Saying no gets easier with practice, but it never feels completely comfortable. That’s because boundaries require you to prioritize yourself in environments designed to extract maximum value from your empathy.

Each no is an act of self-preservation. Each no teaches people how to work with you, not around you. Each no is you choosing yourself.

Start small. Say no to the meeting that could be an email. Say no to the “quick favor” that will take two hours. Say no to being the emotional dumping ground for someone else’s poor planning.

Practice the pause before you answer. Notice when you’re about to say yes out of fear rather than capacity. Check the mirror: are you respecting yourself in this moment, or are you abandoning yourself to manage someone else’s reaction?

Your no is complete. It doesn’t need decoration, apology, or justification.

It just needs to be said.

Tiny Tools for Tiny Spaces

Somatic Reset:

Before responding to a request, take three breaths. First breath: notice the panic. Second breath: locate your actual capacity. Third breath: decide what’s true. Your body knows your limits before your mind rationalizes them away.

Capacity Phrases:

• “I’ll get back to you.”

• “I don’t have capacity for that.”

• “That won’t work for me.”

• “I can do X, but not Y.”

• “I need to say no to this.”

Notice none of these apologize or over-explain. That’s intentional.

Clarity Questions for Yourself:

• What am I actually afraid will happen if I say no?

• Has that fear ever actually materialized?

• What’s the cost of saying yes?

• Am I trying to control someone else’s reaction, or am I setting my limits?

• How am I respecting (or not respecting) myself in this moment?

• What am I teaching people about my limits by how I respond?

Advanced Tiny Tool for Big Empaths

When you say no and someone pushes back, you don’t need to defend your decision. You can repeat your capacity: “I understand this is disappointing. I still don’t have the capacity for it.”

Or redirect the ownership: “If this is critical, let’s talk about what can be moved off my plate to make room. You’ll need to have that conversation with [stakeholder, manager, project lead] about why their ask—which is already in queue—is being deprioritized in favor of yours.” Ask for that communication to be in writing, with confirmation from the person whose work is being deprioritized.

By stepping out of the middle, you put the ownership on them to align. You’ve stated your capacity, your availability, and what is impacted by saying yes without trade-offs.

As a not-so-small side note: if the trade-off is your wellbeing, quality time with loved ones, or participation in obligations outside the workplace after working hours—those should never be up for negotiation.

The Truth Underneath

The first no is the hardest. Your nervous system will convince you that disaster is imminent. Your mind will offer a thousand reasons why you should say yes just this once. Your empathy will feel like a liability instead of a strength.

Say it anyway.

Because here’s what happens on the other side of that first no: you survive. The world doesn’t end. People adjust. Some might push back, but that’s data about them, not evidence that your limit was wrong.

Each subsequent no gets a fraction easier. Not because establishing boundaries stop feeling vulnerable, but because you’re building proof that you can set them and survive. You’re collecting evidence that your capacity matters. You’re learning that self-respect isn’t selfish—it’s structural.

Your no is teaching people how to work with you. Your pause is teaching you how to honor yourself. Your boundaries are teaching everyone—including you—that you’re not an unlimited resource to be depleted.

You’re a person with limits, needs, and the right to protect both.

No is a complete sentence. You don’t owe anyone more than that.

Say it. Mean it. Respect it.

And watch what happens when you finally start treating yourself like you matter.

When you swallow a no to keep the peace, you're teaching people that your boundaries are optional. They’re not.

Now it’s your turn.

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Do you remember the kids game, “Red Light, Green Light”?

One person stands a short ways away and they are “the light.” A group of kids all stand at the same starting line. When “the light” is facing away from you, it’s a green light and you get to move forward. When the light turns around, they shout “Red Light!” and you have to immediately freeze—no movement, or you’re out.

Well, guess what? You’re still playing that game and you didn’t even know it.

Every day you go to the office, you’re playing the corporate version of Red Light, Green Light.

Except you’re not playing one game—you’re playing six at once.

Bob’s light says green. Susan’s says red. The client’s is flashing. Your manager’s hasn’t turned on yet. And if you move at the wrong time for the wrong person? You’re out.

Welcome to corporate, where success isn’t about doing good work—it’s about remembering which invisible rulebook applies to which stakeholder at which moment.

What the Game Actually Looks Like

Bob the ________(fill in the title/role of your choice) wants:

• Status updates in format A

• Delivered every Tuesday by 3pm

• No team messages—he’ll book meetings

• Updates sent via Slack DM

Susan (who plays the same role as Bob) wants:

• Status updates in a completely different format

• Tracked in Confluence, not email

• Backup documentation attached

• Delivered Thursdays by EOD

• She won’t deliver the report herself—you send it to leadership

• All communication via email, never Slack

Your client wants:

• Weekly summaries in PowerPoint

• Delivered Fridays before noon

• CC’d to three people (but never mention the fourth)

• Only “high-level,” no details

Your manager wants:

• Real-time updates when asked

• But also hates being “bothered”

• Prefers verbal check-ins

• Unless she’s busy, then email

• You’re supposed to know which

The expectation?
Track all of it. Execute flawlessly. Switch contexts seamlessly. Don’t mix them up. Don’t ask for clarification—you should “just know.”

Make a mistake? Then you’re the problem.

How This Hits Empaths

If you’re an empath, this isn’t just annoying—it’s cognitively and emotionally exhausting.

Because empaths don’t just track preferences. We track:

• The emotional state of each person

• Their communication style

• Their triggers

• Their unspoken expectations

• The relational cost of getting it wrong

This means that we are forced to bear the burden of tracking who wants what format by when in which system in what tone and style and how they’ll react if we don’t deliver it just so.

This is not “attention to detail.”
This is unsustainable cognitive load disguised as competence.

The game isn’t hard because the rules are complex.
The game is hard because there are multiple simultaneous rule sets, none of them written down, and the consequences of mixing them up are treated as your failure—not a system design flaw.

Why This Happens

Most people aren’t trying to make your life harder.

They’re optimizing for their workflow.

• Bob likes Slack because it’s fast

• Susan likes email because she needs a paper trail

• The client likes PowerPoint because leadership does

• Your manager doesn’t want to be “micromanaging”

Each person creates a system that works for them—without considering that you’re the node connecting all of them.

Rarely does anyone ask:

• “Is this sustainable for the person executing it?”

• “Are we creating conflicting expectations?”

• “Should we standardize anything?”

The system assumes you’ll absorb the complexity, and that you, the big hearted empath will just... figure it out.

Tiny Tools for Tiny Spaces

When you’re playing too many Red Light, Green Light games at once, here’s what helps:

Somatic Reset:
Notice where you’re holding tension (jaw, shoulders, chest).
Place one hand on your heart.
Inhale for four counts. Hold for two. Exhale for six.
Repeat three times.
Remind yourself: I’m doing the best I can with an impossible system.

Boundary Phrase:
(Internal mantra)
“I’m not responsible for reconciling everyone’s conflicting preferences.”

Clarity Question:
“Is this failure actually mine, or is this the natural result of managing too many uncoordinated rule sets?”

Prevention Tool:
Create a simple tracking document (for you, not them):

This isn’t you being “high-maintenance.”
This is you managing a system no one else is coordinating.

Advanced Tiny Tool for Big Empaths:

When the preferences conflict and you’re caught in the middle, you have options:

Option 1: Ask them to coordinate

“I want to make sure I’m meeting everyone’s needs. Right now, Bob prefers X and Susan prefers Y. Can we align on one approach, or should I continue managing both separately?”

Option 2: Standardize at your end

“Bob and Susan, you are both asking for the same information but in formats that are specific to your preferences. I will post all the information you need here in this format. That way you can adapt it as needed.”

Why this is advanced:
You’re naming the system issue without blaming anyone.
You’re either asking leadership to coordinate what they’ve left uncoordinated, or you’re taking control of what’s within your power to standardize.
You’re revealing that the complexity isn’t invisible—it’s just unacknowledged.

Sometimes they’ll coordinate. Sometimes they won’t.
Either way, you’ve made the cognitive load visible instead of silently absorbing it.

The boundary is this:
You can execute multiple workflows. What you can’t do is read minds, predict shifting preferences, or be punished for not intuitively knowing which game you’re in at any given moment.

The Truth Underneath

You’re not “bad at following instructions.”
You’re not “too detail-oriented.”
You’re not “overthinking it.”

You’re playing the game and trying to manage an inherently unmanageable system—and likely doing it remarkably well.

The fact that you can track this many personalized rule sets simultaneously?
That’s not a baseline expectation. That’s a skill.

Please remember this, the source of the problem isn’t you.
The problem is that empaths are so good at absorbing complexity that no one notices how much we’re carrying.

Next time you feel frozen mid-step, remember: the lights aren’t just inconsistent. There are too many of them—and that’s a system design flaw, not yours.

Now it’s your turn.

Which part of this resonated most? Leave a comment—I read them all.

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Let’s set the scene, shall we?

You’ve been working on an important project or deliverable for weeks. Maybe even months.

You’ve asked for feedback. Crickets.
You’ve sent status updates. Read receipts, no replies.
You’ve scheduled meetings. Declined.
You’ve tried to loop them in early. “I trust your judgment.”

Then—right when you’re finally ready to present or send out your hard work to the intended audience—they descend.

Like a seagull spotting a sandwich on a table.

They circle. They squawk. They swoop in, pick it to pieces, poop all over what you’ve created, and fly away.

No context. No collaboration. Just... crap.

Just when you were feeling good or hopeful about being done... but now? The thing you were ready to deliver is suddenly un-shareable. Not because it was wrong—but because it’s now been ruined by their stuff.

So now you have to clean up what they’ve left behind, redo parts of it, maybe (okay, very likely) even have to do more, and somehow are still expected to hit the deadline—which you do.

Welcome to the Swoop-N-Pooper.

What They Do

The Swoop-N-Pooper operates on a predictable cycle:

1. Circling from a distance during the messy, ambiguous early stages, making just enough noise from a distance so you know they’re there

2. Performative presence with the occasional check-ins and vague “looks good!” comments

3. The swoop right before something goes live or gets presented—suddenly it becomes critical they get to see it all right away

4. The drop—last-minute “feedback” that makes your work unusable as-is (according to them)

5. The exit, leaving you to clean up and restore what was already fine

They don’t collaborate. They contaminate.
They arrive too late to be helpful and too early to be ignored.
They say a lot of words, create a lot of work, and ignore what else is on the table.
Somehow, when they leave, it feels like you’re the one who didn’t plan well enough.

How This Hits Empaths

If you’re an empath (like me), this behavior doesn’t just frustrate you—it destabilizes you.

Because empaths don’t just hear last-minute feedback. We internalize it:

• “Did I miss something?”

• “Should I have forced them to engage earlier?”

• “Was my work not as ready as I thought?”

You start questioning your clarity, your process, your timeline—even though the work was fine.

The Swoop-N-Pooper doesn’t improve things. They make them messy. They drop their anxiety, their need for control, their lack of preparation onto your finished product—and then you’re left scrubbing it clean.

And the worst part? It stinks. Literally and figuratively.

Why They Do It

Here’s the truth: most Swoop-N-Poopers aren’t actively trying to sabotage you.

They’re avoidant, overwhelmed, or just bad at timing.

• Engaging early may feel vulnerable or perhaps gives the perception of them trusting you

• Waiting until something’s “done” lets them avoid the messy middle

• Last-minute involvement lets them feel relevant without doing the actual work

Some genuinely believe they’re “adding value.”
Some panic when they realize they’ve been absent and overcompensate with noise.
Some just operate on a completely different timeline than reality requires.

But regardless of why—the impact on you is the same:
Your ready-to-share work now needs cleanup that wouldn’t exist if they’d just shown up when it mattered.

Tiny Tools for Tiny Spaces

When you’re dealing with a Swoop-N-Pooper, here’s what helps:

Somatic Reset:
Drop your shoulders. Soften your belly.
Close your eyes.
Slowly inhale through your nose to the count of four—letting your tummy expand on the inhale. Slowly exhale through your mouth to the count of four—let the exhale be like a long sigh.
Let your body know: this is their mess, not your failure.
Do this for as many cycles as you need, but do it at least 3 times.

Boundary Phrase:
(Out loud or internally)
“Your last-minute panic is not my emergency to absorb.”

Clarity Question:
“Was this feedback actually necessary, or is this their anxiety landing on my work?”

Prevention Script:
If you want some Swoop-N-Poop prevention, consider sending something like this:
“Your input is needed while in the draft stage—I am scheduling a review at 50% completion so there’s time to incorporate changes before the deadline. If that time does not work, please suggest a new time during that same week. We will close down the feedback loop on [state a date/time] to focus on final delivery.”

Sometimes they’ll show up early. Sometimes they won’t.
Either way, you’ve named the pattern—and proactively protected your peace.

Advanced Tiny Tool for Big Empaths

If you’re ready to take it one step further—to stop absorbing the consequences of someone else’s poor timing—here’s the advanced move when you know the pooping is about to begin. Consider saying this (calmly, factually, out loud):

“I’ll let [the project team/client/management/developers] know you’ve just provided this feedback and that incorporating it will require additional time. We’ll now be delayed by [X days/weeks].”

Why this is advanced:
You’re no longer absorbing the timeline consequence.
You’re naming it.
You’re assigning the delay to the feedback, not to yourself.

This honors:

• Your time

• Your expertise

• Your actual capacity

You must live your life. You must care for your mental, physical, and emotional health.

And there are truly only so many hours you can spend cleaning up someone else’s mess.

The boundary is this: Their late involvement creates a cost. That cost belongs to the project timeline—not to your nights, weekends, or wellbeing.

The Truth Underneath

You’re not crazy for noticing this pattern.
You’re not overthinking it.
You’re not too sensitive when you become disoriented by this behavior.
More importantly, you’re definitely not responsible for cleaning up someone else’s inability to engage when it counts.

The Swoop-N-Pooper’s mess is not your problem to sanitize.

Next time you see the shadow of wings circling overhead, remember: their poop is not your job to clean up.

Now it’s your turn.

Which part of this resonated most? Leave a comment—I read them all.

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Hit the share button. They’ll thank you later.

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So it begins. I now have two publications here on Substack (at least for now).

Reflections from The Temple and Big Empaths, Tiny Spaces

Over the past several years, I’ve been in a not-so-quiet internal resistance to allowing what I believed were two distinct personas in what I do in this world today: my inner-focused transformational work (transformational life coaching, sound mediations, conscious-connected-breathwork) and my buttoned up corporate and consulting work.

We spend years curating personas both inside and outside the work place. We are constantly and heavily conditioned to keep things separate or risk losing credibility on either side.

Since 2018, I’ve been on a path of transformation, healing, completely re-arranging my life, which I am passionate about walking alongside others who are on that path, too.

It hasn’t been until quite recently that I’ve allowed myself to acknowledge that I get to be wholly myself, regardless of which space I am in. I get to be both a transformational guide AND a very experienced corporate professional. With this acknowledgement, I also had to drop the ego of, “no one is going to understand this…they’re not my audience”.

My god, how presumptive is it that I thought I’m the only person in the world who has lived life, gone through hardship, believes in the power of personal transformation AND can show up and talk about marketing technology, processes, and best practices at the same time. I don’t have to be small to fit into the spaces I am in, the lessons learned carry over with us regardless of where we are showing up.

I am essentially still guiding, coaching, helping, mentoring while simultaneously putting into practice the things that helped me arrive to this day in all areas of my life.

The Tricks the Mind Plays

Sometimes, our mind will interpret a change in the surface we’ve been walking on and translate it into danger—imagining a cliff where there’s only a shift in color or texture.

We feel it in our body, our mind reels, we think we have to gather ourselves up for flight or a leap, when all that’s needed is a single step forward.

My dear little Momo (may he rest in peace) was a fairly fearless dog.

But when running through the house, he’d leap over the seam between the kitchen and dining room floors. The color shifted from tile to wood—no ridge, no step, perfectly level—and yet he’d always take a running jump, never realizing he could simply walk across like everywhere else.

I’ve stood at that same threshold often, this being one of them, looking between what’s familiar and what’s next, convincing myself I’m standing at the edge of something perilous. Yet, nearly every time I put one foot in front of the other, or shifted my perception, the ground has been solid beneath me. And if it doesn’t, great, I get to take a step in another direction. That’s the beauty of it all.

Taking the Leap

I’ve realized that while I’ve been helping to guide and offering others the insight to trust what’s underfoot, I was staring at my own line and mistaking it for some sort of an abyss.

Then I remembered Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Near the end, Indy faces the final test before reaching the Holy Grail: a canyon too wide to jump, the inscription in his father’s journal reading, “Only in a leap from the lion’s head shall he prove his worth.”

He looks across the void, exhales, and steps forward.

His foot lands on stone.

The bridge, carved to blend perfectly with the canyon walls, had been there all along.

The test wasn’t about distance—it was about faith. It was about trusting in what couldn’t be seen until movement began.

That’s the real test of every threshold: Not whether we’re brave enough to leap, but whether we can remember the foundation has always been there.

Knowing it has been built from everything we’ve lived, learned, and survived.

For me, that realization changes everything.

Whether I’m consulting in corporate, facilitating breathwork and sound meditations, or coaching individuals, I am still me. Regardless of which realm I’m in, my ethos and my values remain the same. I don’t have to split myself in two.

Get to the Point, John!

I’ve always been a highly sensitive person (HSP), an empath, and as such it almost gives me “spidy senses” about a space, a person…a sense of what is going on under the surface, because I can feel it.

That’s what us HSPs and empaths do, we feel what is happening around us, if not careful we confuse those feelings for our own, or take on what someone else or a group is feeling, and end up losing ourselves.

We will lose ourselves to keep the energy around us calm; we will do more, sacrifice our boundaries, appease…and in the workplace, an empath can be seen as an easy target to manipulate, control, and guilt into situations that suck out their life force.

So to me, the workplace is a series of Tiny Spaces: cubicles, offices, conference rooms, zoom and Teams calls that all come together to become a bigger entity. We get to embrace Big Empath energy in each of these tiny spaces and the players within them.

Reflections From the Temple will continue for the inner-world of nurturing of the temple that each one of us have inside as we come home to ourselves. This to me, is the most sacred of work, when we care for ourselves.

Big Empaths, Tiny Spaces meant to help us in dealing with the outer world, providing some comfort that you aren’t alone. That there are indeed bat-shit crazy things that go on in the workplace that make you go “What fresh hell is this?” Regardless if it with processes, company culture, co-workers, staff, managers, vendors, bosses…I’ll share tips, tricks, and tiny tools that will hopefully allow you to bring them into your day-to-day worklife and be the proud, strong, and sensitive Big Empath that you are.