LETTING GO – AN ACT OF SELF LOVE
Overwhelm… it starts with that one little word you said that you regret saying. It’s not a big thing. It is just one little word, but you know you don’t feel right about saying it. What follows is an action. It’s force of habit, oops, “I did it again. I said, ‘yes’ when I decided I would not do it again.” By May van Reenen – Kinesiologist, Holistic Health Practitioner
“Here I am doing it. I know. I know. It’s not that bad.”
But it is. It is that bad. You know it and you argue inside your head. No-one knows, except the voices in your head.
Enquiry ensues. “Why do I always do this to myself?” Or even better, unconscious victim mode sets in with “Why does this always happen to me? Why am I always the one staying until the end, helping to clean up, sorting the chaos?”
The truth is that we chose this. We did this. We kept doing it to ourselves up to the point where everything added up and blew, or worse… didn’t blow!
Now it just drones on in low idling gear of not-good-enough, never-getting-rest, until I-can’t-take-it-anymore and more-more-more until I break-but-I-can’t-afford-to-let-go, who-will-look-after-it-if-I-don’t, how-did-I-get-here, I-can’t-stop-must-keep-going-give, and-going-give-more, and-more-going-more-giving, more-madness-more-giving, crazy-loop-I-cannot-get-out-of, how-do-other-people-cope-in-this-life-I-can’t!
Until we start thinking, and worse, believing “there must be something wrong with me.”
Over and over we’ve done this to ourselves to the point of being overwhelmed and exhausted!
The beautiful, uncomfortable and simple truth is that we have a nasty habit of neglecting ourselves while believing we can spare others the consequences of their own choices.
No-one makes us do it. We just keep choosing to care more about others than ourselves and we take on responsibilities that we simply weren’t meant to carry.
Here’s the thing: We cannot reach the point of overwhelm if we have been focusing only on what is within our sphere of control, our own life and our own stuff that we have to deal with. As humans we are built in a way that provides for our needs for so long as we follow our inner guidance wisely and act in self-responsible ways.
The pain, exhaustion and suffering sets in when we attempt to take over the loads that others were meant to carry for themselves.
We simply have not been calibrated to handle anyone else’s troubles for them. We have been perfectly calibrated to face our own fate.
As humans, we do well in communities, where we experience and sense the love, strength and support of those among us. When we feel a sense of belonging, yet still function as individuals, each being seen and appreciated for our unique contribution, for what we bring to the group, we grow and develop safely.
When we take on responsibilities of others in a way that creates inequality, we disturb the natural balance and hijack all the work for ourselves. This is usually an unconscious act which we may believe to be selfless, yet, when we investigate our subconscious motives and driving forces, it probably actually comes from an ego and fear-based need to be needed. On a deeper level there may be a hidden, often invisible, judgment over the other person whom we have decided, autonomously, “needs our help”… Really, do they? Or are we enabling their (perceived) weakness?
WHY would we be doing this? There’s always a payoff when we compulsively keep doing things we actually do not want to do. There’s a subconscious driving force and probably an emotional emptiness inside ourselves that desperately needs a regular topping-up of approval.
This unequal “helping” behaviour is a way to solicit feedback from a world in which maybe we haven’t learned to communicate in safely or relate in as equals. Maybe we need recognition to fill a little place inside ourselves no-one knows about, “If there’s nothing for me to help with, I get anxious, then I start doing everything, I get overwhelmed and when I’m neither anxious nor overwhelmed I get depressed.”
Consider maybe that within our culture and family systems we typically might have been raised to please, help and serve others. In our pleasing, helping and serving others, we get the approval we so desperately need to fill the hole where love and acceptance for who we truly are should actually be.
A sense of emotional peace and safety means feeling “okay to be me just as I am”, not having to add, do, be, help, serve, please in order to solicit that feedback that brings relief to the pain of not knowing if we belong.
We do belong. We automatically belong somewhere simply because we have been born.
However, sadly, many of us have not been raised in emotionally safe, nourishing or nurturing environments, and therefore compulsively have a sense of “having to do stuff for others” and looping in a never-good-enough state, which our bodies remember as “home”.
If we had to start instead giving ourselves the kind of attention and care we need, filling our cups to the brim and then having all that love spill over onto others, then no-one would have to feel empty or be made weak in order to be helped for our sake of needing approval. We will all have a place, a purpose, a sense of belonging and an abundance of emotional health.
Let go the reigns of the other person’s horse and let them ride.
Ride beside them and feel your own joy in this experience.
It is YOUR LIFE, after all. LIVE.