She was exhausted.
She was a giver.
She loved to give – it was her superpower.
She was good at it. Of course she was, she had been practising assessing other people’s needs and figuring out how to help them for most of her life!
She felt their pain and discomfort and wanted to fix it. Surely that would make her valuable, make her life worthwhile? Yes, she was a problem solver at heart. The problem was…she now realised living this way wasn’t sustainable. It never had been.
She gave and she gave and sometimes she felt resentful that it went unnoticed. Sometimes she simply felt overwhelmed and not good enough – especially when she was with a lot of people – like at parties and events.
She didn’t really understand why it drained her so much. She loved people when she was one of a few. And then a shift happened.
She started wondering what HER needs were.
She had no clue for a while. You see, she hadn’t been practising that.
She started to notice what situations emotionally. triggered her – then she knew what she didn’t want!
She started to notice what lit her up – then she knew what she did want!
She started to purposefully set herself up to have more of what she wanted. And when she felt upset, she learned how to recognise and allow the feeling, to unpack what was underlying it and to nurture her unmet need.
She not only figured out what she wanted, she learned how to ask for help when she needed it, how to set boundaries and to speak up when they felt violated. Over time she felt her power build.
She knew how she wanted to use that power – not OVER others, but first for herself and then FOR others. In this way she could continue to contribute in a sustainable way. And now that she felt more centred, instead of giving from a depleted place, she could be curious about how or even if she could contribute and check that it would be of value first.
She knew that the cycle needed to be open ended: both giving AND receiving. From this space she found balance, love and peace. From this space she knew she was valuable to the world just because she exists. From this space giving became a choice not a sentence. Here she felt more at home in herself than she ever had before. And she could share her learned wisdom with other women who knew that they wanted the same.
She is me. XXXX