I Used to Think Fixing Was My Job (Because It Was)
Why being the fixer costs more than you realize, and how to stop. fixing. everything. Regardless of the aftershock.
THE STORY
Last week, I pre-scheduled Unfiltered.
It was meant to be a quiet week, a week to honour grief.
A year since we lost my mother-in-law, and gathered to bury her ashes. I needed stillness. Space. Breath.
Pause.
And I did. We did. We laid her to rest in a place that felt like her: close to family, close to nature, filled with birdsong and peace. It felt like a release.
And afterwards?
A shift.
From joyful, peaceful and even playful to a sudden, rigid, bone-deep tension that cut through us.
One of those moments where the wrong thing is said, and emotions spike, nervous systems clash, and suddenly, I’m thrust back inside the oldest story I know:
Fix this.
Smooth it over.
Make everyone feel okay.
Because that’s what I learned growing up.
That peace comes when I do the emotional labour.
That love means becoming the bridge, even if it means breaking yourself in half to span the gap.
And until this past year?
I never even considered, let alone recognized…
Other people’s emotions?
They’re not mine to hold, or manage.
To caretaker or to solve.
To fix.
And, most wildly of all, to feel.
That might sound obvious to some. But to me? That realization shook something loose, and it still ripples through my mind like this wildly sexy epiphany. Freeing and a little risque.
Because when people expect you to fit that role, forever, and you suddenly stop? Life sometimes gets a little quieter, a little more uncomfortable, while simultaneously… lighter.
I wasn’t raised to just be the fixer… I was raised to be the softener.
The one who read the room, caught the shift in tone, sensed the moment the room started to feel off, snagged the shift in the skin around someone’s eyes, the crinkling that signalled anger, disappointment, disgust... and then did whatever it took to make it (the person, the situation, the room) okay again. At whatever cost.
If emotional bartering were currency?
I’d be one of the richest women alive.
MY INVITATION TO YOU
But this week?
I didn’t.
I was standing literally in the middle of grief, tension, and a legacy of “make it okay,” and I did nothing. Not because I didn’t care. But because I did. Deeply.
I found out I’m a self-projected Projector in Human Design last week, too, and suddenly it all made sense, why I lose my voice when I don’t feel safe, and why I need to hear myself to know.
This time, I didn’t jump in. It felt like a freeze, but it wasn’t.
It was a pause. A sacred one.
It was hard. Really fucking hard. To not agree. Not disagree. To not take sides. Not offer a balm or a bridge. To feel the urge, to run between and to fix, and yet stay still.
To not explain, or apologize for being a human.
But in that moment, and the days after, I realized this was me taking my own medicine. This was me listening to myself.
This was the shift.
I’m not the bridge.
I’m the boundary.
I choose what I carry, and what I no longer collapse under.
Even if it makes someone uncomfortable.
Even if it makes me uncomfortable.
It didn’t feel good at first. It felt like betrayal. It tasted like regret.
But now? In reflection? In speaking it out loud? It feels like truth.
When we actually listen to ourselves, and learn how to pause (not freeze), we honour ourselves.
And the people we love.
Even in their anger. Even in their silence. Even in their processing of emotions you once smoothed over for them. Or someone else did.
In the absence of processing emotions for someone, you give them something.
The proof that they can, too.
That’s a gift I didn’t even know I had.
Today, inside the Unfiltered Café, I’m breaking down what actually happened after I didn’t fix it:
→ How I moved from being the fixer in my family to the one who could just be, even inside tension, silence, and someone else’s anger
→ The difference between a freeze and a pause, and how I finally learned to tell them apart
→ A nervous system ritual I used the day after, when my body felt like a baby bird flailing in a storm
→ How I pulled back, not out of disconnection, but out of deep self-honouring (and didn’t even realize it in the moment)
This isn’t about letting people down.
It’s about no longer letting yourself down by trying to hold it all together for everyone else, and ignoring yourself in the process.
🌀 The full spiral, the reflection, and the ritual?
That lives inside the Café.
Join the Unfiltered Café below.
$5CAD/month. Less than your coffee and 1000x more regulating.
🌀 The Spiral Shift
I always thought fixing it made me strong. Or maybe, the feeling was valuable.
That’s how I showed my worth.
That stepping in, smoothing over, absorbing it all made me safe, loved, worthy.
🔓 The Shift
But last week? I didn’t.
In the middle of grief, tension, and a rising emotional wave that begged me to step in, to take sides, I didn’t rush to repair. I didn’t use my voice to agree, to keep the peace, or speak over my own stillness.
I paused.
I stayed.
I held myself instead of holding it all.
And that pause didn’t just shift something small. It cracked open a spiral that went deeper than a single moment.
It showed me the patterns I've always called protection that were just survival mechanisms at play.
Because I wasn’t just playing peacekeeper.
I was performing for safety. For belonging. For worthiness.
And inside of that, I was able to ask:
What if being the bridge was never my job?
What if my strength lives in your stillness?
What if "not fixing it" is exactly how I heal the part of me that thought love had to be earned through self-sacrifice?
This spiral showed me I’m not broken.
I’m just breaking up with old roles. Especially the ones I never signed up for.
And this time, I stayed with myself through it.
⚙️ Brand + Body Aligned Action
Here’s what I actually did that changed everything:
📝 I noticed the urge to fix and named it out loud (to myself).
📝 I asked: Is this even mine to hold?
📝 I let myself pause without explaining.
📝 I gave my nervous system one anchor: one breath, one moment, one sound. And space.
📝 I moved after I felt ready, not obligated.
Because if you resonate with this, holding the boundary is the act of care. For them. For you. For your work.
👉 One action you can take today:
Pause before you respond to tension.
Just for a moment. A breath. A check-in.
Ask: “What do I actually need to feel steady?”
That’s your first move.
✍️ Journal Prompts
In my life, do I believe love = sacrifice?
Does “fixing” cost me anything, emotionally or physically?
What would holding myself in those moments look like instead?
🌀 Embodiment Cue
When you feel the urge to jump in, smooth it over, or make it okay: pause.
Place a hand on your heart or your solar plexus.
Whisper: “It’s okay to not fix this. This isn’t yours to fix.”
Let the discomfort move through, not over you.
This is your spiral. And it's also your shift.
Come back to this anytime you’re tempted to trade your truth for someone else’s peace.
You're not broken. You're just becoming unbreakable.
xo,
Mel