“Mom, what should I do?” “Honey, can you?” “Won’t you?” “Will you?”
Hear those a lot? Are you famous for carrying the load, for bearing the burdens of others? Has it become too much to bear?
Recently I was diagnosed with an illness. The doctor looked me straight in the eye after a long conversation and said, “You need to take this seriously and take care of yourself. Put yourself first.” Okay. Sounds easy enough. I went home, thought about it, and realized I don’t know how. I have spent so long putting everyone else’s needs first, that I no longer know how to put me at the head of the line. It gives me a total case of the guilts. It’s not what you do, go first, because you’re the mom, the wife, the leader, the friend…. you give of yourself. That’s what I was raised to do. However, where is the line? The line that when you cross it, you go from giving to self-sacrificing too much?
The line comes when you realize, as I have, that if you give much more you will totally disappear. The you, you remember will cease to exist and you will only be the drone that does for others, not out of love, but out of habit. At that point, the giving doesn’t mean a darn thing. It routine, no longer generous, and loving.
I heard a phrase yesterday, “Breathe and know you are more than you think you are”. I hope that resonates with you as it did with me. Stop. Take a deep breath and think about who you are, what you need. It really is okay to be someone other than the person that fixes problems. Now is the perfect time to pull your head out of the dirt it’s buried in, look around, and live the life you imagined for yourself.
What will all those people do? Those people that need you, how will they survive? Trust me. They will live. Now, I’m not telling you to go on a spending spree with you last $100, but a walk around Barnes and Noble with a good coffee isn’t going to kill anyone. That couple of hours you take for yourself, may just make you more able to help others, or at least may keep you from banging your head against the wall the next time someone says, “But honey…. I need…….”
You are a hero. Believe it or not, heroes deserve a life. Think big, dream big, and live it. Heroes deserve to be happy, too.
Filed under: daily thoughts Tagged: | burdens, carry the load, putting yourself first, sacrificing
