I sat for a few minutes yesterday with a dear friend who I respect immensely. She has lived through things that would have broken just about anybody else, and yet through it all she’s managed to retain an incredible amount of goodness and kindness.
She’s one of those people who just seems to take the hits, and come back stronger.
My admiration for her knows no bounds.
During the short time available to us, we spoke about some of the things that are causing her stress and discomfort. She has an assignment within her faith that requires her to be in a position of care and caring over a number of people, and like the person she is, she is giving everything to her assignment. I’m pretty confident no one would work harder, and no one would care more.
But I fear that she is caring too much.
Trust me, I’m not someone to talk with any great integrity on functional boundaries. At 52 years old, I’m still working on that. I have done more than my fair share of sacrificing my quality of life for others, but I can honestly say that I’m getting better at it. I wish I could say the same for my friend, although I fear that I can’t.
Because she cares so much that it’s robbing her of the life that is her own.
She shared with me that she struggles greatly to find a balance with her caring, and much of the time she gives too much, cares too deeply, and it’s affecting how she lives.
Since I’ve known her for many years, and we have had many deep discussions, I felt it was pretty safe to ask her one of those questions that she has come to expect from me.
“Do you have any idea why you can’t stop caring?”
I could already see the tears falling as she shook her head and spoke a quiet “no”. I gave her space to feel, and then I asked her simply “May I make a suggestion”. Through her tears she smiled at me and with a nod of her head gave me a gentle “of course”.
I took a deep breath, because I knew what I was about to share was going to be painful for her, but that she would also hear me and know the intention with which I spoke.
And I said something like this… “Those who are still in pain and are not healed cannot bear to see that pain in others, so they try to heal the world in the hopes that they can heal themselves”.
The moments we shared after that were brief, but I got to see her incredible spirit as she listened, took the words into her heart and nodded briefly. Thankfully she knows me well enough to know that my intention was never to hurt, but to tell her truth that might help her heal.
I honestly think that she is one of the strongest people I know, because I feel that she is carrying so much, and yet still she makes room in her heart for others.
Sometimes I think it’s because that way she doesn’t have to focus on herself.
Healing is always an individual thing, and all of us are on that journey of ours alone. Yes other people can help, but there is no real substitute for sitting down, and allowing yourself to actually feel what you feel. I’ve been working on that more lately, and honestly that pretty much sucks sometimes.
But the truth is this… the emotions we refuse to feel are the things that will stop us from being able to heal.
Read that again for me. I need you to understand it. We all carry a burden, and no matter how large or how small, that burden is ours. We are the ones that have to deal with it, or we can just carry it around for as long as we want.
But every day we carry that which is unnecessary is a day that we don’t experience life at its fullest.
And life will never be as good as it could be if you are still wounded by pain from your past.
The more you heal, the more you can find a balance between what you owe to others and what you owe to yourself. The less you need emotionally, the more you are able to give to others.
We all experience trauma, we are all wounded at some point, but not all of us have done the work to clean the wound and allow the scar to heal over, so that we can stop bleeding and start living.
And I promise you, you will never do a more important work than working on yourself.
I sincerely hope that my friend will be able to give the same loving kindness to herself that she would give to everybody else. I hope that someday soon she will be able to rest, and spend some of her precious time helping herself to heal, so that she might find a better balance.
She is someone who has so much to give, so much love to share, but until she learns to balance that love with a love for herself, I fear she will always find life draining.
And she deserves so much better than that.
May she, and you, find peace today,
And Always.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings