There is a difference between being wanted and desired for who I am versus being needed for what I can do for someone. I’ve learned that both can happily coexist but in that situation, if I was unable to do what it is I usually did or was completely over doing it, there would be respect and understanding and mutual agreement on a way forward.
 
In my own life I had expected as a mother I'd no longer be needed in a gradual way, when the kids started to become teens and into early adulthood. These were kids I had long awaited and it wasn’t an easy road to having them. Yet I found my responsibilities shifted from full time parenting to part time much earlier than imagined, with no control over that decision.
 
It’s a common situation I imagine with so many couples separating these days, and many blended families. While it certainly has its benefits, it’s also takes an undeniable toll on all concerned.
 
Someone was talking to me about being needed in this way, as they are in an unhealthy relationship where there are children involved. I could relate to what they were saying, I had tried to give my own kids as healthy an upbringing as I could, while being thoughtful and kind, and doing everything I was apparently needed for in the relationship and home.
 
My expectation going into parenthood was that it would be a shared responsibility, yet I found myself with the lion’s share, giving up my career to become the parent they needed. I was lonely and burnt out and found solace and wellbeing in good friendships and in the learning and growth from my experiences.
 
Like all parents, there are things I value and want for my kids that I know they'll get when they are with me.  I think subconsciously I believed if I did everything that was needed of me the kids’ future would be safeguarded, because I'd be there to hold boundaries and provide the support they need emotionally. Yet I found myself discarded anyway.
 
Looking back there were many many red flags, I had tried to convince myself I was more than just a commodity as a partner and mother, but it turned out I wasn’t and it’s given me a whole new perspective on being needed.
 
One day I was full time mum expecting a gradual return to myself/my own career/life etc, then suddenly life changed direction. I generally try to look at the positives but there are times I'm just running on empty. I certainly find it hard to be a stop/start mum; it’s a challenge to get into the space and momentum to get my livelihood into focus before suddenly I’m school mum again and the kids want and need my help and attention or they are off sick and so forth.
 
I shared with this person that there are many things I could feel bitter about, but mostly though I grieve the parts of me I gave away and allowed to be treated so poorly and accept so little. My big realization in the aftermath of my relationship was that I had simply been a commodity, rather than being loved and accepted for me.
 
What I realised was I wouldn't even have attracted that dynamic initially if I had loved and accepted myself enough to know and hold far healthier boundaries around my own needs and desires.
 
The same could be said of various positions I worked in throughout my career that ended in redundancy. People and organisations where I had been loyal and given huge parts of myself, yet what did it all amount to? And the amazing thing I discovered is that people not only survive without me doing what I used to do, they can oftentimes thrive also. Given the opportunity to step up, many do so successfully.
 
Someone wise shared with me recently a reflection on their own relationship "I can only love the parts of her she shows me". That is the clincher, it is my responsibility to assert myself, to become consciously aware of and brave enough to be honest about what I need and want and be strong enough to walk away when it’s not forthcoming in whatever kind of relationship or interaction I am having.
 
As a child, like any child, dependant on the adults who look after us, I had to bend and mould to fit in that space. But I am no longer a child; I get to choose which relationships to be in. But I also have to trust that ‘out there’ there are people who are waiting with open arms, looking for the kind of person I am and what I have to offer.
 
I understand that is hard for many of us to believe when – at the very time our neurons started firing and wiring – we felt we had to be someone else to be loved. Certainly my nervous system was wired on the basis that it was necessary for me to act and behave in certain ways in order to fit in.
 
Being needed in that way is an illusion. There's no love, loyalty, connection and belonging in being needed. When those things are not there and I do for others what they can do for themselves, well, I can only tell you it makes made me feel resentful and worthless.
 
I’ve learned if those things like love, loyalty, connection and belonging are not there and I am needed because others can’t do things for themselves, there has to be some form of exchange to make it feel valuable. Gratitude or reward can come in many forms, and certainly there is huge satisfaction in teaching someone how to do something new rather than just doing it for them.
 
So what are the dynamics in your most interactive relationships? Remember there’s a big difference between being needed because of what you can do for someone versus who you are to someone. Have the courage to stand up for who you are, embrace being wanted for that because it won’t just garner you more respect, you will all be much happier even if it means taking separate paths.
 
If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Expand Your Emotional Vocabulary to Get Your Real Needs Met, Put Mature Parts of You in the Driving Seat for Better Results, How to Break Free of Addictive Relationship Patterns and Ways to Reach for Growth Rather Than Reacting With Old Conditioned Constriction. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

This week I was at a Family Constellations workshop, which addresses personal and ancestral trauma in a group therapy setting. It happened to be all women in the workshop, and we each had different issues we wanted to look at ranging from unwelcome and unhealthy patterns in our lives to taking a deeper look at anger (and why they felt unable to express any) or love (and why they felt unable to let it in).

As always it was an insightful day, and afterwards I headed to the nearby beach to take a long walk. When I was there I met an elderly tourist who had been here travelling for several weeks, and she was intrigued by the Bluebottle jellyfish that had washed up on the shore.

As we got talking, we seemed to wander into the topic of relationships and it transpired that – similarly to the other ladies I’d been in the workshop with – this lady, although older, also had the same history as most of the workshop participants with the father of her children.

It is interesting how many people I come across with this co-dependent dynamic of a people pleaser coupled with someone more self absorbed. Although it’s not exclusive to women (I know several males who tend to be the pleaser) it certainly seems common. I have read its one of the most common dysfunctional relational patterns there is.

Certainly as we all shared stories over lunch, and then on the beach, the commonality of patterns as these relationships broke up was extremely similar. The more self absorbed partner was focused on money and material things, using lies as a means to get what they wanted with seemingly no moral regard (and certainly no regard to the equal rights of their prior partner), and very quickly moved on to new partners in order to help manage their childcare responsibilities and provide the validation they needed and adulation that had long since waned in their previous relationships.

This makes sense to me since one is a giver, the other a taker. These are patterns we learn in our childhood – both insecure - seeking responses and reactions from the other for validation of a sense of self and value. And yet healthy relationships are founded on a balanced flow of give and take, where each person’s wants, needs and desires are held in equal regard.

What I was heartened by in the workshop, is the conscious awareness that each of us had awakened to in terms of owning our own parts in these dynamics, and the willingness and desire to learn and grow from them.

I now recognise that I grew up with an anxious attachment style, I was overly attuned to others’ feelings and most definitely derived my sense of self worth from the responses and reactions of those around me, rather than having a healthy sense of self esteem. As a result I became a perfectionist, a giver, had an over developed sense of responsibility and was highly independent, rarely asking others for help. I became what Terri Cole would describe as a high functioning co-dependent.

What also seemed to be a commonality between the women I spoke with this week is, once children come along, our focus necessarily shifted to their needs and – as a consequence – our value to our partners changed and diminished as we found ourselves alone in the arena, and often berated for our choices.

It is a rude but necessary awakening, especially since women are socially conditioned to nurture, fix and care for others. And, certainly in my case, like many, when children are involved there is a much deeper sense of obligation to stay and fix things or at least ride them out. Also in my case there were practical financial challenges to overcome, having made a conscious choice to leave my career and focus on child rearing in the hopes of providing my own children with a healthy sense of attachment and emotional regulation.

However, life had a way of manoeuvring, and I found myself navigating through a post-split carnage beyond my control and sharing more in common with these other ladies than I would ever have thought possible for myself.

It is an experience that has been simultaneously difficult and rewarding. I won’t deny as I’ve learned to have and hold healthier boundaries, especially with people whom I had previously over-catered to, it has brought about the death of some relationships and the reorientating of others, as well as new relationships that are on a more healthy footing.

The older lady I met was reflecting on the ways in which her grown children mirrored some of those unhealthy patterns in their own relationships and how hard it had been reorientating to them after many years of overgiving and finally deciding enough was enough.

When a friend of mine had then been talking about how female lionesses’ choose multiple partners in order to have the strongest cubs, it made me reflect on how it’s my offspring that have given me the strength to become aware of and tend to my own wounds.

I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to learn and live my own lessons alongside my children’s development years. Who knows how they will turn out, they do and will continue to have their own challenges for sure, that is life, but at least I feel they are now seeing more healthy examples of behaviour from me in terms of interacting with others.

And, as one workshop participant put it, even as we learn healthier ways of being, the anxiety that comes up in our bodies in response to our older, well-worn pathways still remains. Certainly for me it has taken more than just conscious awareness of unhealthy patterns and why they occur to create great shifts.

In fact, one of the things I got real clarity about at the workshop is the top down sequencing I’ve been using all these years. As a child I learned to suppress and deny my own feelings in favour of the things I was told were “right” about pleasing others, which required my head overriding what my body and nervous system were telling me.

I realise that it’s now time to take a more body led approach. There’s a phrase that most learner drivers in the UK learn about sequencing when about to brake or turn the vehicle “Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre”. The workshop facilitator suggested this was an excellent thing to apply in learning to be more body led.

Using my body as a mirror, a reflection of how I truly feel, when I’m considering doing something for myself or others, sounds a smart way to go. I can use it’s signal to tune into whether my body’s response reflects something healthy or unhealthy, and then use my head to determine (on the basis of that answer) which manoeuvre is more healthy for me, more in alignment with my true needs, wants and desires.

If something is going to cause me frustration, pain, resentment or otherwise compromise my wellbeing, I’ll know it’s something to say a firm “no” to. Sometimes that will mean feeling anxious (my body’s wired response to those earlier childhood beliefs about what is “right”), this is when I need to actively practice regulating my nervous system in order to help my body learn some new wiring when I repeat this over time.

And I’m also aware that, in the past, if I had wanted to say “no” to anything it would also require a rational explanation as to why it was the wrong thing to do. This would often involve making others’ wrong for asking in order for me to feel I could legitimately reject their requests.

Learning how to say no without making others wrong is also another skill to learn, because it requires vulnerability, and the ability to express my true feelings (where appropriate) requires a more sophisticated emotional vocabulary than I’ve used to date.

And, finally, a quote I read this week (from an unknown source) also hits on another aspect that is important in getting relationally healthy:

“Ironically, when we start to get better, we also start to get sad – because we realise how much we’ve missed out on, how badly certain people failed us, what the younger version of us actually deserved. Healing involves healthy grieving. No way around it.”

Do you feel relationally healthy? Learning to become healthy is more than just a decision, though it starts there. It’s an ongoing commitment to learning healthier ways of being and doing, and a willingness to practice and repeat putting you first (with grace) over time until it becomes embedded as the “safe” thing in your body. But, as the lady at the beach said, better late than never!

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Expand Your Emotional Vocabulary to Get Your Real Needs Met, Put Mature Parts of You in the Driving Seat for Better Results, How to Break Free of Addictive Relationship Patterns and Ways to Reach for Growth Rather Than Reacting With Old Conditioned Constriction. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

I sit on the other side of the world to many people I care about, and certainly much of my heart is thousands of miles from here.

Here though exists my reason for being, my reason for staying, the little lights that I fought so hard to bring into this world.

There was once a girl who would never have allowed herself to play second fiddle, to be mistreated, to accept anything less than uncompromising love. Yet I have allowed all of that. What became of me I wonder?

I know exactly. I blamed myself for my broken heart, made myself wrong.

And what is uncompromising love? I now know undeniable attraction, sometimes toxic in its calling me back to myself. I know incompatibility. I know pain. I’ve known pain for so long it’s hard to believe that the kind of love I long for exists but I know it does.

I see good people in toxic relationships, people I’d give a lot to be with in my inner world, locked in their own pain. What is that? That is not love, it’s the opposite of love, the denial of self love.

And yet here I am, heart aching, feeling everything deeply as always, longing for the kind of love that feels good, feels like home.

We all go about our lives and I watch people in relationships and wonder – beneath the veneer of going about doing things together - what are they to each other? Are they habits, are they distraction, are they pain, are they duty, are they a trophy of some kind or are they love?

I listen to songs about heartache and I know heartache, it’s a familiar friend. Bittersweet in its calling. Beautiful in its potential.

This time, for my own sanity, I choose to fulfil its potential. It is the gap between who I am and who I can become...

Someone self loving. Someone with clear boundaries and a big heart. Someone who has stepped into the fullness of herself. Someone who is ready for life’s next ride, be it bittersweet or full of sugary goodness.

It is time to be in healthy relationship with myself in order to get done what I came here to do, whatever that may be; which includes a love that feels like home.

Life is played out through our relationships, be it our intimate relationships, or our relationships with parents, children, ancestors, friends, colleagues or just those that are passing through. All change, all growth comes from looking in that mirror. All blame, shame, pain and guilt also comes from looking in that mirror; as does love. I get to choose.

As do you.

Is it time to get savvy with this thing called love? This is the life we are here to live; this one, happening now. The one that is inside our heart, how does it feel? Does it feel like love or does it feel like pain? Take heed either way and plot your course.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy The Inevitable Pain of Returning to Love After Years of Abandoning Yourself, Relationships are Just a Series of Moments – True Love Lies Within, How to Receive More Love, Appreciation and Respect, What Is Holding You Back? Reclaim Your Worth, Your Love, Your Power  and How Does Who You Say I Love You to Heal the World? To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

Many years ago I was fortunate enough to work for an organisation that supported its people really well through a major change. Every single person was losing their job as the organisation merged with several others, with a reduced number of opportunities available for those who wanted to take on larger roles and relocate.

As part of the support we were given guidance on burnout by a counsellor who taught it as quite a simple concept. I like simple concepts, they stick with me. We were being taught the importance of self care, learning that we humans have a certain amount of energy reserves – be it physical, mental or emotional.

It’s like a fuel tank. If we don’t fill up and replenish our stores, there’s not a lot to call on. And by the time the warning light comes on, we’re running into the dregs, which is not optimal for our engine. The advice of manufacturers is not to run on those as it’s not the healthiest fuel. This is same for our bodies.

Self care is our way of filling our tanks, and replenishing our reserves so we don’t reach that tipping point where we stall and burn out because we haven’t taken the time to take care of ourselves along the way.

I know that sometimes that means adjusting my plans. Like this morning, on the one consistent day of the week where someone else holds responsibility for adjusting their plans should either of my kids be unable to attend school, I was asked to adjust mine instead.

Unlike the people pleasing me of the past, my adjustment of plans did not arise because I agreed to this. It arose because of the reaction when I held a healthy boundary and did not. Immediately there was an emotional reaction and a threat.

Like any normal person under threat, my flight or fight centre was activated and – although I remained outwardly calm and stood my ground - I needed to take time to regulate my nervous system before going ahead with my plans for the day.

If I hadn’t, this article may have read quite differently, lacking the added perspective I found on my long walk in nature.
I made a good decision this morning. I’m trying to build a career where I help people step into their potential and I have to do that from a place where I have a healthy amount of fuel in my tank and feel personally empowered. In building a business, a relationship, anything, it has to have healthy solid foundations in order for it to thrive and flourish.

And right now after many years of allowing my boundaries to be overstepped, I’m in recovery and I need time for self care. This is a necessary part of rebuilding my career; it’s part of the foundations upon which I will stand for the rest of my days. The time I have for me is important time, whether it’s a walk on the beach, my head in some study, an appointment with a client, catching up with friends or writing an article.

In the past I would have treated self care as a nice to have, or something that I did only after I’d taken care of everything else. Sure, when I had screaming babies that needed fed, changed or any other need, that was not the time for me to press pause and take a long walk in nature. The best I could do then is take a step outside and breathe deeply, adjusting my perspective in the moment to focus on my baby’s needs.

However, when dealing with other capable adults who do not need suckling, that is no time to put their needs ahead of my own. It’s all shades of grey of course, depending on the person and the situation, but my rule of thumb (again another simple concept, this one from Teal Swan) is that if foregoing my own preference will cause me frustration, pain, resentment or otherwise compromise my wellbeing, then I will not do it.

This morning, very on-topic, this landed in my inbox from Teal.

“The most common causes of nervous breakdowns are: 

• Past traumas
  
• Problems in intimate relationships (such as break ups or divorces)
  
• Experiencing the death of a loved one
  
• Problems relative to occupational pursuits like career or schooling (such as sleep deprivation or a schedule that is too rigorous or interoffice conflicts), health problems (such as injuries or chronic illnesses) and financial problems (such as debt or poverty).
  

All of these boil down to one thing: the emotional pain of feeling unsafe. So, in the midst of a nervous breakdown the only thing we're craving is safety.”

She adds a paragraph that I think is priceless “Unfortunately because of how stress works, we're often unable to see any way out. Fantasy is oftentimes the last resort. Some hope a mystical unicorn will magically rescue them. While others get their hopes up with ideal partners, ideal situations, configurations of the stars and so on…”.

And goes on to say that we all need reminders from time-to-time on how we do have control of the steering wheel of our lives. One suggestion she gives is to brainstorm as long a list as possible of things that make us feel safe. 

Examples could look like: Drinking hot tea, cuddling up under a weighted blanket, listening to music that feels soothing, taking an Epsom salt bath, going on a nature walk, calling a close friend, watching a comedy series online, baking something in the oven which warms up the house, meditating in the backyard, getting sunshine outside, walking barefoot on the earth, asking a loved one for a hug, going on a long drive and holding grounding crystals.

I would concur that, when feeling triggered and unsafe and the thinking part of my brain has shut down, cultivating and retrieving my own version of this list has become a go-to method of self care in tough times when it’s hard to do anything that requires more effort.

Longer term though, a discipline of regular self care – for me it’s things like a short daily meditation, a weekly yoga practice, swimming, beach walks, reading, caching up with friends and so on – are vital to meeting my responsibilities in a healthy way, far less keeping me moving forwards in the direction of my deepest desires and dreams.

What I have also learned through various job changes and separations and so forth, is that people are always more capable than they might appear, both others and me. When I put my self care first with conviction, nothing falls over, quite the contrary, people step up. And that puts me in a better position to give help where it’s really needed and beneficial for all concerned.

Radical self responsibility equals self care, as a friend of mine says. So is there a place in your life where you are putting the needs of others ahead of your own? And what could you do straight away that would help you take better care of yourself?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Are You Willing to Take Your Sovereignty While Allowing Other People Theirs?, Build a Healthy Self Concept, The Quiet Whisperings of Truth That Inspire Our Life, The Ways in Which You Think You Are Being Helpful but You Are Not and What Resentment, Frustration and Pain Have to Do With Your Boundaries. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.