Who have you had to be for yourself? #62

You've bent over backwards helping other people and being who you think they want you to be and now you're exhausted.

Photo by sidath vimukthi on Unsplash

Dear Lovely You,

thank you for your patience. I really appreciate you still being here. It’s been a long time while I navigate supporting two close family members while they go through treatment for advanced cancer.

Phew!

I am learning so much about myself and the old patterens that I flip back into that no longer serve me.

When we found out last year that they probably had cancer, we walked out of the hospital into the car park. The rose garden that was there when I worked there has long gone. There isn’t even any grass. Instead it’s all modern, efficient and ugly and smelly. They put their arms around me and said I was shaking. I said, ‘you are too,’ as we clung to each other not wanting to believe it.

These days there are protocols to follow and, I found, no-one seems capable of using their own common sense. So it took months of phone calls and pushing for things to happen before scans and biopsies and treatment began.

Driven by a need to protect my loved ones, I did the pushing. I spoke to doctors, nurses, radiology departments and secretaries. I joined up the dots that they seemed incapable of doing. I relayed messages between different teams. I was stressed and exhausted but needed to do the best I could for my dear ones.

I knew it couldn’t go on because I was feeling a lot of anxiety, so I stepped back to consider what I might do for myself.

I started with an hypnosis app and within four days the anxiety I had been experiencing reduced by about ninety percent.

I then began to meditate again and found teachers in podcasts online spouting wisdom that I had forgotten or suppressed because I wanted to be right about having to be the person I was becoming again, pushing, striving and moaning about everything.

It couldn’t go on.

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Who have you had to be for yourself?

I have heard this a few times now and it hit me like lightening.

Who have you had to manipulate yourself into being, in order to be accepted and loved?

Who did you decide to be, way back when you were a child and learned that not all of you was acceptable to the adults?

I have had to be a good girl, reliable, dependable, capable, caring, resourceful, a good listener, practical, counsellor, nurse. The one who knows what to say. The one who can deal with difficult situations. Strong, resilient.

And I have felt, in the past, I’ve had to be this for EVERYONE (except myself. Myself had to 'get on with it.' My own needs had to come last).

I was basically overcompensating for feeling like I was a nuisance, a hindrance, a burden and not wanting to be the needy one.

Under it has been a whole lot of resentment in the past. I had a feeling I believed I hurt people. That hurting people just happens by my mere existence since conception. So I had to work extra hard to save or help ALL people and when I fail, it's my fault,
rather than my responsibility.

When I take responsibility, I give from love, from choice and it has a whole different quality to it. A softness. A brilliance. A pleasure.

And when I give from have to, must, should or ought it's hard again. My body hardens. My jaw sets. My thoughts loop around in my head. I barely breathe. My throat tightens. My back eventually hurts with the effort.

It's like ego identity is in a square box hiding in the dark but running the whole show. Tough. Spikey. Unrelenting. Pushing through.

My soul, however, is wrapped in a golden heart and radiant with energy. In flow. Soft. Flexible. Fun and free. Patient. Still whispering to me or screaming through my body. Sit down. Rest. Play. Create. Just do something for fun. Then rest some more.

I'm wondering who else is pondering this question of 'who you've had to be for yourself' and what's occurring for you?


I am so very grateful. Grateful for the awareness I have that is freeing me of these constraints and helping me to support them, while I nurture and nourish myself as much as possible. 🥰

With Love
from My True Self to Yours
xx Karen xx

www.thekarenrobinson.uk


PS. I’ll be sharing more of my journey with supporting my loved ones as we go. Eventually I’ll be able to write more about them but for now they want to keep things private. Thank you for your understanding.

Share with your caring friends and family and subscribe or give it a like so more people can gather together and become Empowered Carers. 👇👇👇

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