My dad has a chronic illness.
He did his best raising me and my brother despite his conditions.
Since I can remember I was always worried about him.
I felt fear that he might die soon, I felt helpless that I couldn’t help him, I felt anger that he was sometimes spiraling around his suffering.
It was only when I started therapy at age 20, when the realisation dropped that none of his suffering was/is/never will be my responsibility. His suffering is not my suffering.
I can love him, but this love doesn’t need to be constantly expressed through fearful worries or putting his needs before my own.
Everyone has people pleasing tendencies to different extents and mine comes from suppressing my needs in the presence of someone who ‘needs’ more attention.
You’re only aware of the burdens you’ve been carrying once they’re gone
I had a Reiki session the other day. You can lie face up or face down receiving Reiki and for some reason I also prefer lying face down, on my belly with my back up.
My friend who gave me Reiki did a fantastic job and I was quickly in a meditative trance state while lying on the massage table surrounded by dimmed lights, healing sounds from the music box in a freshly smudged room. After a while I felt an energetic pull on my feet as if something was leaving my body and then a few minutes later it continued on my back. Heavy smokes of stored external energies that don’t belong to me found their way out of my back and I was left in a beautifully relaxed state.
You’re only aware of the burdens you’ve been carrying once they’re gone.
It was not the first time that I felt an energetic release like this, but it was a good reminder again:
How often in our daily lives to we take on responsibilities that is not ours to take?
How often do we act out of good intentions, but blind to see that our interventions might not contribute to the higher good of the situation or the person, but is driven by our own need to feel needed?
It is like over caring for a child and taking away the opportunity to experiment themselves and learn from their mistakes.
It is like over watering a plant without realising that it is not water that the plant needs.
I recently got out of a short, but intense situationship where the guy displayed similar patterns as my father.
Even though the attraction was strong from my side, after a while I was constantly triggered by his actions which led me finding myself in situations where I took responsibility for his condition even though it was not my burden to carry.
My caretaker – syndrome went full on and I was constantly drained not knowing how to act differently. Which made me end this situationship (i hate this word so much😅), because it was not serving both our highest good.
Selfless sacrifices is a closed act in and of itself. It doesn’t require outside approval, any form of reciprocation or acknowledgement.
If we sacrifice ourselves out of pure unconditional love, there is no expectation about the outcome or any means of control. And while doing it we have hold the full picture:
That we are as well a part of the equation.
