Confessions of a Recovering Middleman 🔥🌿
By Sage Robinson-Miller – Growth Coach – Growing Sage
For most of my life, I thought I was being helpful.
Now I'm starting to wonder if I accidentally built an entire identity around being the middleman.
Looking back, I can trace it all the way back to childhood. As an only child, I spent the first seven years of my life navigating the space between two parents who, in hindsight, probably shouldn't have stayed together as long as they did. I wasn't trying to become a mediator. I wasn't trying to become a peacemaker. I was just a kid trying to understand the environment around me. But kids are observant. They notice things. They notice tension. They notice changes in energy. They notice when something feels off, even when nobody is talking about it.
I got really good at reading a room.
At the time, I thought that was normal.
It wasn't until much later that I realized I kept recreating that exact same role over and over again throughout my life.
Somehow, I always ended up in the middle.
✔️ Friend groups
✔️ Sports teams
✔️ College roommates
✔️ Family situations
✔️ Athletic training
✔️ Teaching
If two people weren't getting along, I noticed it. If there was tension in the room, I felt it. If something needed fixing, I was usually halfway to solving the problem before anyone even realized there was a problem. Looking back, it's almost impressive how many different ways I found to recreate the exact same job description.
Then I became an athletic trainer.
Which, quite honestly, may be the Super Bowl of middleman jobs. 🏈🤣
For twenty-five years, I stood in the middle of coaches, athletes, parents, administrators, doctors, teachers, and just about every other group you can imagine. One minute I was helping a coach understand an athlete. The next minute I was helping an athlete understand a coach. Then I was helping a parent understand both of them.
The funny thing is that I loved it.
I genuinely did.
I loved helping people. I loved solving problems. I loved building relationships. I loved creating trust. I loved being someone that people could come to when they needed support. Some of my favorite conversations during those years had absolutely nothing to do with injuries. They were about life. They were about confidence. They were about relationships. They were about helping young people navigate difficult moments.
If I had hated the job, leaving would've been easy.
The problem was that I loved it.
That's what made it complicated.
The other thing that made it complicated was that I was good at it. Really good at it. Most people expect major life pivots from people who have never been able to sit still. They expect it from people who bounce from job to job or hobby to hobby. Nobody is surprised when those people decide to reinvent themselves.
But when you're known for something, when you've built a reputation around something, and when you've spent decades becoming one of the best at something, people assume you're going to do it forever. Honestly, I assumed that too.
Maybe that's why it took me so long to see what was happening.
While everyone else was complimenting my ability to handle things, I never stopped to ask whether I should be handling all of them in the first place.
That's the trap of being the reliable one.
At first, people appreciate you for stepping up. Then they depend on you. Then eventually you become the person everyone assumes can carry a little bit more. A little more responsibility. A little more pressure. A little more emotional weight. A little more stress.
The sneaky part is that after enough years, you stop waiting for other people to hand you those responsibilities. You start handing them to yourself.
And I was exceptionally good at that.
Looking back now, I can see how often I inserted myself into situations that weren't actually mine to manage. If there was conflict, I wanted to help resolve it. If there was tension, I wanted to smooth it over. If there was a problem, I wanted to solve it. I wasn't trying to control anything. I was trying to help.
But somewhere along the way, helping slowly turned into carrying.
And I didn't even notice it happening.
The strange thing about carrying responsibility is that you don't usually recognize it while it's happening. You recognize it years later when you look around your life and realize how much energy you've spent managing things that were never actually yours to manage in the first place.
For me, that realization didn't arrive all at once. It showed up slowly through exhaustion, stress, and a constant feeling that I was responsible for outcomes I couldn't control. It showed up in how often I worried about other people's experiences. It showed up in how often I felt responsible for keeping everyone comfortable. It showed up in how difficult it became to separate my own needs from everyone else's needs.
The irony is that very few people were asking me to do those things.
Most of the pressure was coming from me.
That's what makes these patterns so difficult to see. When somebody else places an expectation on you, it's obvious. When you place it on yourself, it just feels like part of your personality.
For years, I thought my growth journey was about learning to ask for less permission.
Permission to change. Permission to slow down. Permission to prioritize myself. Permission to build a different kind of life.
But eventually I realized permission wasn't really the issue.
The issue was responsibility.
Or more specifically, imaginary responsibility.
The kind we quietly assign ourselves without ever questioning it.
The kind that sounds noble.
The kind that earns praise.
The kind that slowly drains your energy while everyone around you keeps telling you how amazing you are.
That realization hit me harder than I expected because once you realize something isn't yours, you can put it down. Not abandon it. Not ignore it. Just stop claiming ownership of it.
That may sound like a small shift.
For me, it changed everything.
One of the most freeing lessons I've learned over the last few years is that just because I can carry something doesn't mean it's mine to carry. Just because I can solve a problem doesn't mean I need to solve it. Just because I understand everyone's perspective doesn't mean I'm responsible for managing everyone's experience. Just because I care doesn't mean I have to carry it.
Those are very different things.
And learning the difference has probably saved me thousands of hours of energy.
These days, I still care deeply about people. I still help when I can. I still support the people I love.
But I'm trying to do it from a different place.
Not from obligation.
Not from responsibility.
Not from some unconscious belief that it's my job to hold everything together.
Just from genuine compassion.
And it turns out those are not the same thing.
💭 Reflection Questions
🔥 Where in my life am I carrying responsibilities that don't actually belong to me?
🌿 Have I confused helping with rescuing?
🕯️ What might become possible if I put down what was never mine to carry?
🌙 Final Words
Looking back, it's almost impressive how many different ways I found to recreate the exact same role throughout my life.
Only child for seven years.
Peacemaker.
Athletic trainer.
Teacher.
Fixer.
Problem solver.
Apparently my nervous system spent forty years seeing middleman opportunities and saying:
"Perfect. Sign us up immediately." 🤣
These days, I'm trying something different.
I'm learning that caring about people doesn't mean carrying them.
And honestly, for a recovering middleman, that's been one of the most freeing lessons of my life. ❤️
Thank You for Growing w/Me.
With Love,
– Sage 🌿
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