The great majority of my life has been spent putting others before myself. I’m not saying this to get sympathy. I do believe it is important to honor others and it is important to honor one’s self. The problem lies when I let honoring others take precedence over honoring myself. There are areas of my life where I’ve gotten good at setting and maintaining boundaries. There are areas where I don’t even realize I’m not honoring myself until I find myself angry, irritable, and frustrated but no idea why. As I’ve said before I am dealing with some of those issues at this time and I know I need to figure out what I need. It is hard to set a boundary when I don’t know what boundary I’m not honoring.
This time I seem to be focused on a need to take care of myself. That is a difficult thing for me to do. There are so many reasons to let this slide and never have time for me. It is of course ridiculous and the reasons for the slide are really just excuses to allow me to dishonor myself. So, this recognition has started me thinking about what I can do to honor myself. First, I can start eating throughout the day. I often just forget to eat. I need to make a conscious decision to eat at least 3 times per day. I know this one will be very challenging because I think of myself as fat and, even though I know I need to eat more to lose weight, I don’t eat as a sort of punishment towards myself. Hmmm. Writing that made me realize this may not be about setting boundaries but more about forgiving myself for not knowing things I’ve begun to learn, for allowing the external to drive my life, for getting sick and being ill for so long, for the many things I’ve been unable to do but felt I was supposed to do.
Okay, this feels like I’m more on the right path. So, I need to forgive myself for being human, for not knowing everything, for …. I just need to forgive myself. Wow, this is big! I’ve always felt I was responsible for everything. If something went wrong, I was responsible for not getting it right or for not keeping it from going wrong. I was responsible for people whether I was present or not. Catastrophes? My fault. No, I wasn’t responsible for the good stuff. Not sure why but it was clear to me I wasn’t responsible for those things.
The path I’m on shows me I am not responsible for anything in this world. My only responsibility is to Love and build connections. I am not responsible for whether others connect with me. I am responsible for being available for healthy connections. No wonder I’ve felt so lost lately. My world is turning upside down. I have no basis for understanding a world where I’m no longer responsible for what happens to everyone, for how they feel, for how they live.
I am only responsible for me. I guess that walks me right into the self-care I need to start doing. It’s also the reason I sabotage myself. I don’t really know how to do self-care. Eating throughout the day is a good first step, getting the sleep I need, and searching for where I’d like my life to go are also good steps. It’s interesting that this realization stops me in my tracks. I feel like I am in completely uncharted territory. I felt that way when I started writing this blog. So, that means I’ve just jumped into the deep end of the pool and now my job is to dog paddle until I get to a comfortable place.