#15 Being over caring isn't kind and it isn't loving

Are you making more time for illness and disease, than you are for health and wellbeing?

Hello You! :)

Are you still trying to live up to your parent's/teacher’s/society’s expectations?

Are you still trying to be a 'good' girl/boy?

Do you even know what 'good' means or are you still trying to work it out?

I know. So many questions.

Pause.

Go back.

Read them again.

Slowly.

And feel in to each one. Reflect and be honest. At least with yourself…

Photo by Simran Sood on Unsplash

Many of us don’t even realise we are not living our own life. There is so much to do. Always someone else to think about. So many responsibilities. Something or some-one more important than ourselves. And if we do put ourselves first, we’re judged as selfish or fear we will be.

It’s so easy to forget that we have needs of our own when there are so many old family patterns, people and societal ‘norms’ pulling on us to perform in certain ways. We ignore tiredness, aches, pains and keep going. They need us. These people. That cause. And it gives us a sense of security and meaning to feel needed.

I suppressed a lot of my true nature growing up. I was a ‘good girl'. I fitted in just nicely. I didn't rebel. By my teens I was a Mediator. A Peacekeeper. Reliable. Dependable. Caring. Good in a crisis. It was my world and I loved it. I felt important. It allowed me to feel I had a place in the family. That I was worthy and deserving of being alive. Because I was ‘good.’ In my world caring meant looking after everyone else’s needs, not just first, but at all times. I didn’t think I had any needs.

3 Myths

Caring = good.

Caring = putting everyone else’s needs first and ignoring our own.  

Caring = Love.

It gave me a sense of self-worth. Of value. Of purpose. It was all externally motivated though. I needed and craved the attention it gave me. There were no guarantees of success because the validation had to come from other people and we have no control over other people’s thoughts or beliefs. So when I got it ‘wrong’ I thought I just had to try harder. It wasn’t enough for me to know I was doing the ‘right’ thing. I needed the feedback from others.

I bent over backwards trying to get that recognition and appreciation. Trying to work out who I needed to be and what I needed to do.

They said I had an old head on young shoulders. I was grown up. Sensible. I beamed inside from that recognition. It gave me a sense of false control. Of meaning. And most of all, a Purpose. In my world (meaning my mind) everyone knew it was important to be seen to be caring. But caring turned into rescuing. I really felt like I had to rescue everyone and that continued right up into my forties.

But it was also exhausting. Why was I feeling so tired when I was 16 and going to bed at 7pm? Why didn’t I just do what my brothers were doing and go out with friends and have a good time? Well, I did a bit of that of course. But mostly I wanted everyone to be happy. Parents, aunties, uncles, brothers, cousins, the world…

I kept pushing through. Striving for more, for better, for success. Without really knowing what success even meant. But I was pushing in the wrong direction and had no idea!

It took me a long time to learn that sacrificing myself for everyone else was eventually soul destroying, completely exhausting and unhealthy.

Sound familiar?

It was no one’s fault. No one told me overtly I had to be like that. I had decided it was the right way for me. But it was definitely encouraged and much easier for the adults to deal with a child who towed the line, than another child demanding attention or causing ructions.

I somehow kept going through my first marriage, fostering teenagers and having my first two children and training to be a nurse. I had a couple of years of reprieve in between marriages. But into my second marriage with six children to care for, there was no space for me again. Children have to be looked after. Cared for. Children's needs come first. That’s how it should be. I had made choices, some of them very tough choices, and I had to live with those choices.

Breastfeeding my fourth child was agony. The others hadn't been like that. I felt resentful and every time I put him to the breast I would weep as he fed. The searing, burning pain that ran up my breast and into my armpit was unbearable. Previously bottle feeding had been unthinkable but this time I would have done it. I would have done it, if he hadn't had multiple food allergies and I could have weaned him sooner. As it was, I kept going for thirteen months. Gradually we found some foods he could tolerate. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. But on top of that having to mess about with my diet because even just on my milk he reacted to things, is when resentment found a permanent home in my body. A brewing chronic anger. A sense of life being unfair. A woman’s lot being unfair. I had created this. I had made many choices along the way that led me to this. It was my bed and I had to lay in it.

Chronic anger = resentment.

I ignored how I was feeling and kept going. The first symptoms I became aware of were a flat, heaviness pressing down on my chest. Of course these weren’t the first signs or symptoms but they were the first ones I took notice of. A short while later this was accompanied by nausea and fatigue. This was the beginning of chronic health issues. And then with the deaths of my son and brother, the shock and trauma blew me out of the water and my body shut down.

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Many of us ignore our own inner knowing and intuition until our bodies eventually do it for us. They literally say ‘no’ through fatigue, pain, ill health or serious disease.

In his book- when the body says no – Gabor Mate shares page after page of stories and research that shows that caring people are much more prone to chronic and serious illness. It's much more important for us to be seen to be kind than to cater for our own needs, set firm boundaries and live lives that we want. Even when diagnosed with a terminal illness, he says, these types of people will worry about how their loved ones will cope.

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If you tune into your body, you will feel resistance to opening up and being your True Self. Our body, can hold on to old trauma for a long time, creating patterns in our systems from wiring in our brains. Our body chemistry becomes distorted over time but our wonderful body keeps trying to recalibrate and rebalance. It doesn't know that the danger has passed, so we have to retrain it. This takes time, patience and compassion for ourselves. It also takes honouring our true selves. That's not easy in a world that expects us to get on with it and keep pushing through. A world that tells us not to be so sensitive. Not to make a fuss. Not to be a nuisance or a burden.

A world that told women we could have it all! What a lie! (More on this in a later post).

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It's time to change our perception of what it means to be kind.

Is it kind to keep putting everyone else first so that eventually you run out of steam and are no use to any of them? Or worse, you die, leaving them to grieve?

Wouldn't they rather you were still here albeit a little more assertive but having some fun in your life?

Do you really want them to say at your funeral she was the most caring person and always put everyone else first!?

Really?

Or do you want them to say, she had fun!

She made me think about my own life and how I want to live it.

She inspired me to go for the life I really wanted.

I am having so many adventures because of her.

She was colourful, funny and sometimes a bit crazy but always an inspiring role model.

Remember the time she…. {fill in the blank} - followed by peels of belly laughter that almost makes them fall off their seats or pee their pants!

These are the things I want people to say about me when I die.

So who do I need to be for that to happen?

What do I need to do?

Well, I know more than ever who I am and what's important (more on this later) and how you can work it out for yourself - hint: the answers are inside us not out there!

And what we need to do first is build AWARENESS of what’s not sitting right, what feels wrong and what we're doing before anything can change. Before we can change we need to know what we’re doing.

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Now I know what's important and I know what's not important.

Bringing attention to those things, I choose…

I make my intentions explicit.

To myself.

To my loved ones.

I inform without the need to explain or come up with excuses for honouring my needs.

I begin. I begin. I begin.

I fail. I fail. I fail.

And I begin again and again and again.

Each time re-remembering a little more of who I am, my true identity and what I'm here for.

What I choose. The life I choose. How I choose to live.

With integrity.

With authenticity.

With courage.

With humility.

With humbleness.

Imperfectly.

With Love.

For myself

and then others.

This is not selfishness but the greatest gift I can give my loved ones and the world.

The world doesn't need another stressed out human spilling its suffering over everyone.

The world needs balanced, creative, joyful, ordinary people who honour their strengths and their weaknesses.

The world needs people who build individual and collective resilience.

The world needs people who allow spaces, rest and reflection between actions.

Most of all, the world needs you to embrace your True Self to build healthy, harmonious lives, families, communities and societies.

Your True Self is waiting. Your True Self is patient. Your True Self is still full of the vibrancy you came into this life with. Your True Self is ready.
What are you waiting for?