The Systems at Fault, Not You

"The great benefit of slowing down is reclaiming the time and tranquility to make meaningful connections - with people, with culture, with work, with nature, with our own bodies and minds."

- Carl Honore

I have written about this before, but always in fragments. It’s woven into conversations where the words felt heavy, spoken around rather than named directly. It’s often talked about as though it’s branded on you, visible for everyone to see, yet rarely given the space it deserves.

Despite touching on it in previous pieces, I have never isolated it or spoken about it in depth. Lately, it has felt important to do just that. To slow down, to name it clearly, and to give it space of its own.

The work I do centers on helping people understand their current conditions fully. I often ask, How many times have you gone to a doctor’s appointment and walked out without a clear understanding of what was just said? Exactly. I have worked with many incredibly intelligent physicians, but I have also witnessed a persistent problem: the language barrier between medical professionals and the people they serve.

Medical jargon is not accessible to the average person. Being told you have “this” or “that” diagnosis does little to help if you don’t understand what it actually means for your body, your life, or your future. Without that understanding, it becomes intimidating to imagine what lies ahead or to grasp what is changing inside of you. I’ve written before about how fear grows in the absence of clarity. How the unknown quietly takes over when information is incomplete or inaccessible.

At the heart of my work is education. Helping people understand themselves fully. Inside and out. When someone understands how their body is changing with illness, injury, or disease, they are better equipped to make informed decisions about their health and their life. I believe deeply that knowledge is power. As understanding grows, the image becomes clearer, the fog begins to lift.

And this is where another part of my role emerges. I help people learn to be softer with themselves. To loosen the grip of blame. To begin reducing the shame that often follows a body that no longer performs the way it once did. This isn’t about dismissing grief or forcing acceptance, but it’s about replacing self-judgment with understanding.

Which brings me to the thing I have never fully given space to:

The shame we carry when we can’t do it all.

The Birth of The Shame

Where does the shame come from when we can’t do it all?

It is born quietly, shaped by the culture we live in. A culture that equates independence with strength. It grows through the stories we are told about worth, productivity, and self-sufficiency.

Many of us have spent decades proving our capabilities through work, caregiving, managing households, solving problems, and being reliable. Independence is not just something we practice; it becomes part of who we are. How we identify. How we survive.

So, when illness, injury, or aging begins to change what the body can do, the loss is not only physical. It becomes deeply personal. Needing help can feel like a contradiction to everything we have worked so hard to establish. This is where shame begins to bloom. In the quiet inner dialogue between you and yourself.

Why can’t I do this anymore?
I’ve always been able to before. I should be able to handle this.

There is also the weight of expectation, not only from ourselves, but from others. I was recently reminded of this while working in our rehabilitation unit. A gentleman shared that his family had come to visit him for the first time since he became ill. At first, this felt like good news. But then he said, “Yeah, it was great… but also not.”

When I asked him what he meant, he explained, “My family still sees me as the man I was before I got sick. Right now, I feel terrible. I have no energy to socialize. But I feel like I must. For them.”

This is something I hear often. When we are no longer able to perform the roles we have filled for much of our lives, others may still expect the same pace, the same capacity, the same resilience. Inside, we can feel torn between two versions of ourselves — the one we have known for years and the reality we are now inhabiting.

Every role we hold carries unwritten responsibilities. Think of a chef, for example. A chef is expected to cook skillfully, manage a team, delegate tasks, and lead under pressure. These expectations become part of the identity itself. But what happens when we can no longer meet the criteria of the roles we once fulfilled?

This is where an identity crisis quietly begins. It rarely announces itself. You may not say,” I’m having an identity crisis”. You may not even consciously recognize it. But your body and mind do.

A misalignment forms. The mind says, I’ve done this for years.
The body responds, I can’t right now.

Each time this internal conversation repeats, the nervous system takes note. Without understanding what is happening systemically within the body, it becomes easy to interpret these changes as personal failure rather than physiology.

This is where shame truly takes root. Not because something is wrong with us, but because we were never taught how to make sense of a body that is changing its rules.

The Battle Between the Body and Mind

This is often the point where frustration deepens. Where people begin to feel at odds with themselves. The mind feels capable, willing, and familiar. The body, however, begins to move differently with each passing year.

I recently read an article titled Understanding Cognitive Decline in Aging: Mechanisms and Mitigation Strategies, which explores the normal, expected changes that occur as we age. From a physiological standpoint, it reinforces an important truth: slowing down is not a failure. It is the result of systemic changes that happen over time.

To simply put it, as we age or live with chronic illness, the body’s ability to efficiently deliver oxygen and nutrients can change. Circulation may no longer be as robust as it once was, often due to long-standing conditions affecting the heart, blood vessels, or metabolism. Systems that once worked effortlessly may now require more energy to perform the same tasks. Over time, this decreased efficiency becomes noticeable. Not because the body has failed, but because it has adapted to years of use.

The brain changes as well. There are natural shifts in white matter, which plays a role in processing speed and communication between different parts of the brain. Cortical thinning (thinning of the brain’s outer layer – the Cerebral Cortex), a normal part of aging, can also occur. Influencing thinking, language, and emotional regulation. This does not mean intelligence is lost. Knowledge remains. Wisdom often deepens. What changes, more often than not, is the pace at which information is processed and acted upon.

And yet, the mind rarely feels its age.

When people are asked how old they feel, the answer is almost always the same: not as old as I am. Many describe feeling mentally unchanged from their younger years. The curiosity, humor, desires, and sense of self remain intact. Inside, they feel like the same person they have always been. Now, when I ask them to do a cartwheel, that quickly reveals otherwise and we laugh.

The brain does not exist in isolation. When changes occur in the brain, they often ripple outward into the rest of the body. Movement, balance, coordination, digestion, continence, and even energy levels are all influenced by how the brain communicates with the body. When processing slows or neural pathways become less efficient, tasks that once felt automatic may require more effort or intention. This can show up as slower movement, increased fatigue, changes in gait, or difficulty coordinating everyday actions. It’s not because the body has forgotten how, but because the communication systems guiding it have changed

This is where my role as a nurse becomes especially important. Education matters. Understanding what is happening inside the body can dramatically change how these experiences are interpreted. When medical language is translated into something accessible, people are better able to make informed decisions about their health, and not only in the present, but in moments that require complex, high-stakes choices.

Understanding what happens to the body during events like prolonged oxygen deprivation or cardiac arrest is not meant to instill fear. It is meant to provide clarity. This kind of knowledge allows people to approach difficult decisions with greater confidence, grounded in reality rather than uncertainty.

Understanding offers a wider lens. The story shifts from personal failure to biological reality. And even that small shift can begin to loosen the grip of shame.

I want to be clear: I don’t write these pieces to scare people. That has never been my intention. My goal is to help people approach the reality we all face with honesty, compassion, and thoughtful understanding. Clarity is not cruel. It is grounding.

Reframing What We Call “Failure”

Think of an old car.
Over time, it doesn’t drive the way it once did. Parts wear down. New sounds emerge. Maintenance becomes more frequent. None of this surprises us. We expect it. We may curse at it when it stalls or groans, but we don’t shame it for being old. We understand that with time, function, performance, and rhythm change. And still, we’re content when it gets us from point A to point B.

But when it comes to our own bodies, we hold ourselves to entirely different standards.

We expect ourselves to function as we always have. Nothing truly prepares you for the unexpected twists. Illness, injury, aging that result in a loss of function. The transition from capability to limitation can be deeply unsettling, especially when it happens suddenly.

Our bodies are vehicles too.
Yet when our personal function shifts, we often interpret it as failure rather than information.

Pain, fatigue, brain fog, emotional overwhelm. These are not character flaws. They are signals. Much like a light on a dashboard, they alert us that something within the system needs attention. When we don’t understand how to interpret these signals, the nervous system often takes over, responding with fear, frustration, or shame.

This is where understanding becomes an act of compassion.

A central part of my work is helping people shift the narrative around their current state by making sense of what is happening internally. When capacity changes. When identity is shaken. When grief quietly enters the room. Despite being young, I understand the grief of not being able to do what you once could. Not only through my own experiences, but through the countless stories entrusted to me. I’ve seen how deeply it cuts when the body and mind begin to misalign, when they no longer respond the way they once did.

And yet, I’ve also witnessed the quiet beauty that can emerge through slowing down. How wisdom deepens. How presence sharpens. How care becomes more intentional when urgency fades.

This is the part of my work I love most—the reframing. The moment we begin to settle the nervous system by changing the way the mind interprets what the body is communicating. Together, we break complex challenges into simpler, more tangible pieces. We identify what is compromised, what resources are needed, what skills may be learned, and what limitations deserve respect. From there, we reshape the questions we ask ourselves.

What if asking for help isn’t a weakness, but a new skill to learn?
What if slowing down isn’t falling behind, but adopting a pace that honors your current capacity?
What if rest isn’t laziness, but a form of self-care your body is actively requesting?

It’s also important to remember this: when the brain is affected, the body often follows. Changes in cognition, stress, grief, trauma, or neurological health can ripple outward. Impacting energy, movement, digestion, sleep, and emotional regulation. This isn’t imagined. It’s physiology. The brain and body are in constant conversation, and when one struggles, the other listens.

So perhaps this moment isn’t about pushing harder or fixing yourself.
Perhaps it’s about investing in yourself.

To preserve yourself.

Not to return to who you were,
but to care for who you are now.

A Note From Me

This work is not about fixing yourself or forcing acceptance before you are ready. It is about understanding. About meeting yourself where you are, without judgment, and allowing the story to be more honest than the one we have been told.

If you find yourself carrying shame around what you can no longer do, I want you to know that you are not alone. That shame did not appear because you failed. It grew in the absence of explanation, in a culture that praises independence but rarely teaches us how to live with change.

I am curious where you notice this shame show up in your own life. Is it in the tasks you avoid now? The help you hesitate to ask for? The quiet comparisons you make between who you were and who you are today?

If you feel called, I invite you to share your story. Not to justify it. Not to make it sound better than it is. Just to name it. Because naming it is often the first step toward loosening its grip.

And if nothing else, let this be a gentle reminder: your body is not betraying you. It is communicating. And you deserve the time, the language, and the compassion to understand what it is trying to say.