When I'm feeling meh or otherwise uninspired, I like to randomly flip to a beloved book page (my favorite for this activity is Glennon Doyle's Untamed) and read the found words as if they are a personal inscription. Just for that day. Just for me. Another tactic I use is to find the same date, but years' past in my own journal writing. Today I'm sharing my inner ('bout to be internet out eek!) dialogue on problematic empathy.
I think I glimpse my empathetic dilemma. I was shown that other people's pain is more important than my own. Calming that pain and helping others with it was more noble, a higher calling than maintaining my own sense of contentment, peace, and self-love. That in order to "help" or to truly FEEL was to feel others emotions deeper than my own. Other people's pain and sorrow is not helped by sacrificing my own inner love, peace, joy, and contentment. I can have empathy without prioritizing that pain over my own calm. Flash forward 3 years and lots of therapy later, I can see the hallmarks of codependency. As I clarify for my coaching clients, I am not a therapist and free example based therapy is not really my point in posting this. Rather I think this message found me today to remind me that anything, even something as well-intentioned as empathy, can be destructive without balance and perspective. A weapon formed when a tool was all that is needed.
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It's that season where goals have been set. Resolutions made and perhaps already broken too. And if that's the case, go easy on yourself. No motivation or goal was ever won fueled by self-hatred, no matter what the weight-loss capitalistic assholes say.
For my part, I resolved a few years ago to not make any resolutions. How very responsible and forward-thinking huh? Not really, don't mistake my unwillingness to get on that hamster wheel as some kind of trendsetting. My commitment is to continue to serve the habits that serve me. Though this commitment still calls for check-in's and reflections. Is X still serving me? Has Y really made me stronger/better? As the questions start to swirl what I notice is that the real examination is between the act of reflecting and comparison. Am I seeing with objectivity or perhaps known perceptions or am I comparing myself to a societal or someone else's expectations? Mind you, neither method is "wrong" per se, it's lacking distinction between the two that can tear you down. I can reflect on my past actions and behaviors but I can't compare my intentions to versions of me that no longer exists. That past me, didn't have the experience, wisdom and self-love of this present me. Hope you can say the same, over and over again if needed, till you believe it. |
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April 2024
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