05/06/2026
It had been a year… and there my daughter and I were again—standing around with friends, neighbors, and a few strangers, mentally preparing for the task ahead while nibbling muffins and donuts next to a very optimistic coffee urn.
It was the first of two days for the annual alpaca shearing at our neighbor’s farm The Artsy Farmer
Once assembled, we split into teams and got a quick orientation. I was assigned the same role as last year, so it came back quickly. The playlist was cued, cranked up… and we were off and running (sometimes literally, depending on the alpaca’s opinion of the situation).
If you’ve never experienced an alpaca shearing day, it’s a bit of a wild ride.
It starts a little bumpy as people figure out their roles, but by mid-morning we had found our groove and were running like a well-oiled machine. Over the course of about nine hours, our two teams supported the shearer and his head assistant in shearing 105 alpacas.
We busted ass.
Some alpacas went along with the plan… others made their objections very clear to everyone within a half-mile radius and required a bit more… persuasion...to participate.
My job was to grab the secondary fleece from the neck and then sweep up the leftovers to reset for the next alpaca. I was on my feet most of the day—which is not my norm.
That was kind of the point.
Anxiety does its damnedest to convince us to stay in what’s comfortable and predictable.
Every once in a while, I like to remind it (and myself)… I can do hard and uncomfortable things.
At one point, I noticed myself getting irritable.
Not because anything was going wrong—but because one of my teammates kept doing things I was already handling.
And here’s the uncomfortable part…
I wasn’t just noticing over-functioning.
I was in it.
(Which, if you know me… is not exactly shocking. 🙃)
Once I caught it, I dialed myself back. And when I did, something interesting happened...
I stopped being frustrated… and started being fascinated.
Because that same dynamic was playing out all around me.
The over-functioners jumped in and handled things before they needed to be handled… which created the perfect conditions for someone else to hang back a little longer.
Not because they couldn’t do it.
Because there was no space left to step in.
At one point, the “boss” stepped in and told a few people to stay in their lane.
And when they did?
The people who had been hanging back stepped up.
Same team. Same people. Different dynamic.
Over-functioning looks like helping… but it often lands like control.
And if I’m being honest… this doesn’t just happen on alpaca farms.
It shows up in classrooms.
In workplaces.
In friendships.
And all the time in parenting.
We jump in to make things easier, smoother, faster…
And unintentionally remove the exact space someone else needs to figure it out.
It made me wonder 🤔
How often do we call it “helping”…
..when it’s really just our discomfort with letting someone else struggle?
Something I’m still practicing… even when every part of me wants to jump in 🤪
