What To Take, What To Leave, And When Enough Is Enough

ahhtherapy ~newsletter ~September 2026

Living Better. Living well. It begins with the exhale ~"Ahh"

The Last Row

In old harvest traditions, farmers left the very last row of the field unpicked. On purpose.

Not because they forgot it, but because some of the harvest was never meant to be taken. It was intentionally left behind as an offering to Mother Earth, and for any creature, person, or being who might have needed it more than they did.

That notion is something that’s crossed my mind more than a couple of times this week, mostly because I’ve been noticing the squirrels in my backyard. It seems as if they have lost their minds!!

They’re frantic, digging, burying, doubling back to check their own hiding spots.

They can sense something coming that they simply can’t see yet, and they’re not pretending to be doing anything else,... You know- the way we do. They’re not apologizing for gathering or getting nervous. They just know instinctively what to take, what to leave, and when enough is enough.

And we as humans, we're just not so good at that last part.

Most of us were never taught it at all. We were taught to keep going. To be useful, to be needed, to be the one who notices what everyone else requires before they even have to ask. And most of all, to gather as much as we possibly can. More, more, more, society tells us.

Nobody ever sat us down and said: you’re allowed to leave a row behind. You’re allowed to leave it standing.

So we didn’t. OR we don't. We just kept clearing field after field, season after season, gathering and gathering and gathering.

Sometimes we called it love. Sometimes we called it responsibility. Sometimes we called it just “who we were”.

When Feeling Becomes Carrying

Many of us who are sensitive to things, and you might be one of them if you’re reading this, walk around taking in everything. The room’s energy even before anyone says a word, the tension in a text before we’ve even opened it, the sadness sitting behind someone smile.

We feel it, and somewhere along the way, we quietly decided that feeling it meant we were responsible for carrying it. Unlike the squirrels, we never quite learn where our own hiding spots are, our own limits, our own last row to leave behind. We just keep gathering, past the point of enough.

That’s a heavy way to move through a life. You still show up. You still answer the phone. You still hold the family together even on the hard holiday, you still say “I’m fine” so someone else doesn’t have to worry, you still find the extra ounce of patience when you didn’t think there was any left.

From the outside, it looks like strength. And it is. But strength that never gets to leave a single row unpicked isn’t sustainable. It’s just slower burnout, dressed up nicely enough that no one, including you, notices it happening because it looks so much like being a “good” person.

And this is something I want you to know from the bottom of my heart. A reminder, perhaps, but still, sometimes we need those.

You are allowed to feel deeply without carrying everything you feel. Without taking it all on. Those are two different things, even though we treat them like one.

Feeling is information. And it’s your nervous system doing what it was created to do, sensing what’s coming, just the way the squirrels do. That’s not a flaw in you.

Carrying it, though, that is a choice. Sometimes an unconscious one, made so long ago you forgot you were the one who made it. At some point, somewhere, most likely long ago, you decided that love meant harvesting every last row for everyone else, and that if you left anything unpicked, even once, everything might fall apart.

What’s in Your Last Row?

I want to ask you, honestly: what’s in your last row right now?

What’s growing there that actually isn’t yours to take? Someone else’s mood, their unfinished healing, the parts of their story they haven’t done their own work on yet?

What parts have you quietly been doing for them?

Maybe it’s an expectation that was handed to you so early, maybe in childhood, you never questioned whether it was true. Something along these lines: you need to be the one who keeps everyone calm. The one who doesn’t get to fall apart. The one everyone leans on, who somehow isn’t allowed to lean on anyone back.

What idea of yourself have you kept over-harvesting, long after it stopped supporting you?

You can love people fully and still leave that row standing. Those aren't opposites. They never were. Release isn't the opposite of abundance ; it's what makes room for it. You cannot keep receiving a harvest with hands that are already full of rows that were never yours to clear.

There's a kind of faith in leaving a row unpicked…

A trust that the field will still be there next season, that you don't have to take everything now to be safe later. Maybe that's what release really is. Not letting go because you've given up, but letting go because some part of you finally believes there will be enough again.

This Is the Ground I Want Us to Stand On Together

This is the ground I want us to stand on together at the Mabon Circle this Tuesday, September 22nd. A moment to name what needs to be named: what’s been over-harvested, and what’s quietly grown anyway despite it.

To leave the row that isn’t ours, and gather the abundance that already is. To really assess, regroup, and celebrate what our harvest has been this year, and to say it out loud, together, instead of quietly carrying what no one else even knows you’ve been holding.

None of us were built to carry all of this alone. That’s one of the precious things circles are for.

If this spoke to something within you, know that’s worth trusting. And yes, there’s still a seat for you.

And don’t worry, you don’t need to bring anything. Maybe a journal if you have one, but we’ve got you even if you don’t.

We’ll be doing some of this noticing on paper, some of the healing through ritual, some of the blessing through attunement, and some of this creatively aligning back into our true nature. And we’ll be doing it together, with people who are there to hold space with you, to take sanctuary in all of it, and who won’t rush you past either the releasing or the gratitude.

Hope to see you there!

For today, though, just this: notice one thing in your last row ~something you've been harvesting that was never yours. You don't have to leave it yet. Just notice it, and let yourself see it clearly, maybe even for the first time.

That's usually where it begins.

With tenderness & grace,
​Shana

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