Why I can’t help you #47
Letting go of your old identity & prioritising your own wellbeing by making boring decisions.
Dear Lovely You,
most of us caring types won't prioritise our own wellbeing until it becomes urgent. Most of us will wait until we are completely exhausted, in severe pain or get a diagnosis of a chronic or serious illness.
The patterns of over giving and people pleasing are so ingrained that we react on autopilot. If we do wonder what it would be like to put ourselves first, those thoughts are often quickly squashed and buried under worries for our loved ones and met with anxiety because it just doesn't feel safe to not be the caretaker. Afterall, if we change, we risk losing our Identity which is perhaps the scariest death of all.
Grief and Identity
In Mexico they have a celebration called The Day of the Dead at the beginning of November every year. It's a time for families to come together and remember their dead loved ones often from generations before.
They believe that we humans have three deaths.
The first is when we learn as children that we are mortal and not going to live forever. Then there is our actual death when our consciousness leaves our human over-coat and our physical body dies.
The third, and the one that upsets me the most, is when you have been forgotten. When no-one speaks your name any more or remembers anything about your life. Imagine that. You've lived a full life and no-one remembers you. You never made it as a writer, a celebrity, a famous scientist, politician or won the Nobel Peace Prize so you won't be remembered in a hundred years’ time.
It's quite a humbling thought and this is why this tradition is important still to so many people. We want to be remembered and we want to be remembered in a particular way.
Just as in life we care givers want to be remembered for being kind, caring and unselfish.
Boring Choices that Need to be Made
Choosing my health once again as a priority this year was a necessary choice. My body had still been showing me that I am not up to pushing through and putting others first all the time.
I had wanted to get on and create offerings for you this year that support you, inspire you and really help you to take better care of yourself. To remove some of the obstacles to you prioritising your wellbeing and your ability to thrive.
Not being able to do that saddens me. I love writing. I love sharing. I love, love, love being of service and yet I must first be of service to myself.
I must practice what I preach. Listen to my body. First and foremost, honour my own needs.
The grief of releasing an old identity
Since reframing health to Relaxed Radiance, I am finding it easier.
And there is another letting go of my old identity and a sense of grief. Letting the old identity die and the new more authentic me immerge is beginning to get easier.
Finding Myself in Nostalgia
A playlist entitled Mellow Classics jumped out at me on Spotify yesterday and made me feel nostalgic for the 1970's. There were a lot of easy listening tracks from that era and it took me back to a much simpler time. Less decisions to be made because there was far less information. My mum doing the laundry in a twin tub then hanging it all out on the line which hung across the garden. (How many women would have the time to stand over a twin tub these days despite all our so-called modern conveniences?) Long summer days. My brothers and I sitting in our tent made of blankets hung over the swing while eating beans on toast.
It wasn't just easier for us it seemed easier for the adults. Maybe I was looking at it with rose-tinted glasses and the innocence of a child but it was also about the feeling I got listening to the mellow music of that time.
My mum used to play it through the radio or on her record player. I heard it so often I knew the words and enjoyed moving my body to the music. I knew the heartache of lost love, the feel of freedom and feeling the elements on my skin through those songs.
Living to the beat of my own drum
As I worked through the jobs I needed to get done, I found a rhythm and pace that was nourishing to my nervous system and felt myself relax. Ah... this is what I need. Of course this was nothing new. I have known for years I needed a slower pace, a simpler life and more solitude. I knew I needed to listen to my body more and honour its needs. I knew that pushing through was no good for me. Of course I did. But it didn’t feel like a choice until there was no choice.
There is knowing and then there is a visceral feeling of real knowing. A slowing down to it. A pause…
A welcoming in by your body. At last it says as it settles and unwinds. I have been waiting for you.
My body thanked me with eight hours of sleep last night. I woke feeling like I had actually slept and then began to feel excited and found it turning to anxiety like it often does. But over the last month or so I have been re-regulating my nervous system. Instead of it being switched on too much stress (fight/flight energy) and overwhelming me, I am learning to allow it to be ordinary.
You see, getting excited about feeling better was flipping my body into anxiety. Excitement and anxiety are the same biological reaction getting us ready for action. But my body has been getting the message that that reaction in my body is dangerous for me. It has coupled excitement with danger.
I am having to retrain my nervous system and I am currently doing that by letting being well be ordinary.
Instead of my mind flipping into - oh I feel better. That means I can do this this and this and do more, I am shifting my perception.
Now it's more like. Oh... I slept well. That's nice. I like how that feels. Then orienting to my environment, the weather, the house plants, the dishes, the laundry.
Not trying to be all things to all people but luxuriating in the mundane. Switching off from continual learning from podcasts and books and instead watching the birds in the garden, touching a plant or watching a warm-hearted movie.
Waiting for the Calling
In actual fact, I have no idea what you want dear reader. I know over a hundred of you read these letters every week but I don't know where you are at in your journey from Exhausted to Empowered Caretaker.
I don't know what your needs are and maybe you don't either. Perhaps you’re still working that out.
But I do know I have a calling. I do know I am on the right path. And I do know that when I get the calling, it will come in the right way and at the right time. It will come in such a way that I will know it in the very cells of my body and the fibre of my being. I will be well enough and I will be ready.
My work until then is to continue to listen to my body. To continue to learn to regulate my nervous system and to honour my own needs above those of any others.
What is your body telling you about the needs you are denying?
What do you need from me?
Why I can't help you
You can only help people who are willing to take responsibility for and help themselves, otherwise it's like banging your head against a brick wall. You can never do enough for people who don’t take responsibility.
I can only help you when you know what you want or at the very least what you don’t want. I can only help you when you are able to ask for what you want and receive it. I can only help you when you can take full responsibility for your healing and growth. I can only help you when you find a little courage to accept that your wellbeing is as deserving of attention as those you care for and give to.
And I can only help you if I have enough capacity and resources within myself. I can only help you if I have something to give. Like a fresh toothpaste tube when gently squeezed will load your toothbrush with fresh minty paste. But the emptier it becomes the harder it is to push the paste out. Eventually it takes much more effort and you have to squeeze right from the bottom, all the way up the tube, to get out anything at all.
Over the years we have emptied ourselves of all our juices not stopping long enough to refill our tanks let alone have them overflowing and abundant with flourishing, nourishing and nurturing energy.
Left on the side, I can't get any more out of the toothpaste tube. The remnants of what's left are going stale and dry, the tube wrinkled and faded, but still nobody will throw it away. They still want to get more out. Just like people want to get more out of you and you letting them because you think you don't have a choice.
The choice is quite simple really but fear of losing our old identity stops us.
Squeezing all our own juices out in service of everyone else is not healthy or sustainable and life is not for that. We are here to be fully expressed, vibrant, joyful, connected beings. At least that is a choice. And no, you don't have to choose that.
But I believe choosing vibrancy and authenticity over exhaustion. ill health, resentment and anger is a more wholesome and if you like, sensible and least selfish choice to make in this little ordinary life we have.
I may not be remembered in a hundred years’ time and at the end of the day that doesn't really matter. What matters to me most now is how I feel day to day. And I believe if I feel better, that ripples out to those around me and that’s my service to the world. And that’s enough.
Being a somebody is not about being remembered. Being a somebody is about remembering yourself here and now.
Coming back to the essence of who you are and the community that is your body, cells, tissues and systems that work tirelessly to maintain equilibrium better serves your immediate, local and worldwide community as well as yourself.
With Love
from my True Self to Yours
Karen xx
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"I am having to retrain my nervous system and I am currently doing that by letting being well be ordinary". I really enjoyed this piece, it was honest and I really liked your new perception of letting wellness just be something to be observed and not idolized/ hype up.
Thanks for the restack Karen 💜