I Show Up for Myself First

An affirmation for those of us who tend to lose ourselves trying to “fix” others

I’ve lived many years mistakenly thinking I can — that it is my duty to —  help/heal others, without really considering the costs. I finally became aware of this tendency when I started to lose myself in a relationship with a man who struggled with depression. 

Early on, he told me about his history of mental health challenges and I thought to myself, good thing I’m happy enough for both of us! I planned to just keep spilling my joy over onto him; being the best, most supportive girlfriend; prescribing exactly the right self care practices (and making sure he did them). With ME, his depression won’t stand a chance! 

You can guess how that turned out. 

Since then, it’s been a slow process of becoming aware of the many ways I neglect myself in order to be there for others. And to better comprehend why this is detrimental both to me and the person I’m “helping,” I think of it like composting.

I used to let people bring their smelly, rotting scraps of problems and pain to my pile, where I planned to turn them into this sumptuous fertilizer. By all means, drop your crap here: my steamy heap full of vibrant microorganisms will take care of it. 

But it takes particular conditions to turn shit into gold — the right moisture levels, temperature, air flow. And I’ve learned that an influx of scraps throws my pile way out of balance. It becomes too heavy for me to turn and aerate every week; I can’t supply enough dry leaves to keep things from getting all soppy and my tiny decomposing beings start drowning. 

What really scared me was realizing I was gladly gathering up others’ scraps, even trying to steal them. I was choosing to bury myself and meanwhile, the other person couldn’t see what they needed to deal with. I was destroying my own balance while robbing someone of the opportunity to build their pile, grow their colony of magic microbes and begin to transform. 

The truth is, we each need to go through our own hot and stinky process to get the rich, nourishing rewards that feed the whole garden of a new person becoming.

I’ll need at least a trilogy of posts to share how hard it has been for me to learn this lesson; how in the years since my ex and I broke up, I’ve had to experience over and over again the devastation that comes with giving myself away. How deeply rooted that tendency is in me — it feels like my purpose, my responsibility, who I am. And how, to go against that, has left me lying on a hot concrete driveway, sobbing, asking the blinding sun to please burn this pattern within me and let it be carried up and out through my pores in smoke. 

What’s one lesson from 2023 you’d like to be done learning? 

That was a prompt in my ‘Writing From the Body’ class, taught by my friend and former journalism professor Marin Heinritz, last month. After reflecting on the too many times I was unrealistic — or completely forgot — about my own needs in order to be there for someone else last year, here is the affirmation that spilled forth with desperation. 

I am no longer drawn towards brokenness,
I release the desire to fix,
I stop losing myself in others’ problems and pain.

They are not my responsibility —
they never were.

I no longer need anyone to need me.

Now I see that my energy is precious
it is mine to choose how I spend —
I do not become worthy by giving it away.

Now I see my own value,
I pour back into myself
so my wellspring will flow again.

I am the most powerful force of good
when I come first.

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