Embracing Vulnerability and Accepting Support: You Are Not a Burden

This week we are talking about "Embracing Vulnerability and Accepting Support: You Are Not a Burden"

You, my dear, are NOT a burden.  So many of us grew up being hyperaware of how everyone else around us felt.  I remember growing up being very attuned to the emotions and feelings of the adults in the room, scanning to make sure everyone was okay, that they were happy – whether that was with me or in general.  I was the child that would cry when I saw someone else cry and if I was ever the reason someone was crying, I felt so ashamed, that I’d want to run and hide. 

I distinctly remember being in first grade giving my mother a Mother’s Day card with the lyrics to You are My Sunshine written inside of it.  My mother used to sing that song to me when I was young so I was so excited to give it to her, especially because I had made a daffodil out of construction paper on the outside of the card that was 3-D and stuck out from the front.  Well, when she opened the card, she started crying.  I got so upset and started crying too, saying she didn’t like it and apologizing for making her cry.  I felt so ashamed, that I think I ran away and hide because seeing her upset at something I had given her, made me feel terrible.

My mother quickly dried her eyes and asked why I was so upset, not understanding my reaction to her reaction.  I don’t remember what I said to her but I remember being really confused when she told me she was crying because she was happy because all I felt was her sadness. 

My parents at the time had a lot of things going on in their lives that I was not privy to, until I was much older.  I remember being confused when I later learned about the stressful events in their lives that they had endured because I felt lied to.  I felt like my childhood was a sham. 

It also made me question whether or not I could actually trust my emotions.  When my mom told me that Mother’s Day that she was crying happy tears, a small part of me was relieved to know that I hadn’t done anything “wrong” but another part of me was deeply confused because all I felt was her sadness.  I think that was a defining moment for me.  In that moment, I not only learned to NOT trust my intuition, but I also learned that emotions were not safe.  Mine and other people’s.  It’s possible I also lost a little bit of trust in my mother that day too, where I would constantly question if she was telling me the truth or placating me. 

I also took on this subconscious belief that – IF you are NOT feeling anything other than “okay” or “happy”, then you lie and tell everyone you’re fine because dark, heavy emotions are not safe to be shared.  I thought I had to bottle everything up and that my emotions weren’t safe to feel or express and that lasted all the way until I learned in my very early 40’s, just HOW BAD it is to NOT allow yourself to feel your feelings!   And it wouldn’t be until even more RECENTLY, that I would learn how to FINALLY ask for support when I was struggling with BIG feelings or hard things in my life.  Allowing myself to vulnerably accept help instead of placing all the responsibility on my shoulders to nurture and take care of everyone else without expecting anything in return was a BIG step for me.

This big ah-ha happened and has continued to unfold since Transcend, (among with a bunch of other lessons and ah-has’s!) the retreat we hosted in Harper’s Ferry, West VA earlier this month.  At the beginning of this retreat, Liz and I consciously tried to create a safe space for everyone to feel comfortable, to experience whatever it was that they needed to experience by being there.  We invited them to be open to the journey, to the rituals, experiences and the connections that we were all going to build that weekend.   That last thing I expected was that these incredible women, would ALSO be holding a safe space for us as well.  You see, it was during this retreat that I learned that it was possible to safely share how I was feeling and to ask for support when I needed it WITHOUT feeling guilty.  Yes I had done a LOT of work on myself leading up to this retreat, but it wasn’t until I was in the company of these incredible and amazing women, that I would feel safe enough to finally feel comfortable opening my heart fully and allow myself to accept the support that they offered willingly without expecting anything else in exchange.   

Let me provide a bit more context - During our last night in Harper’s Ferry, we guided the group through a séance. As we were sharing around the circle who we connect with, the messages that we received and the gifts our passed loved ones had given us, I found myself crying along when other shared their experienced.  Then, it was my turn and I did something I NEVER would have allowed myself to do in the past, especially not as one of the quote unquote Leaders of the group …. let myself CRY, and not just as in my eyes welled up and a few tears dropped, but more like snot-nosed, can’t get the words out kind of cry.  And the amazing thing is – no one got uncomfortable.  No one told me I was “fine”.  No one told me to pull it together.  No one walked out of the room and no one made me feel ashamed or guilty for taking up space.  They just held space for me as I cried and tried to share what I experienced while releasing the emotions of that came with it. 

I realized after the weekend ended, that my heart had literally bursted wide open (and I know I’ve said that before but I also find it amusing because each morning Liz and I would meet to discuss the plans and itinerary for the day and she asked me what my intention or word of the day was on our second day.  The word that popped out was Opening – but I had NO idea the many ways in which that was going to unfold that day and in the days, weeks (and I suspect months) that followed, but back to the story - it seriously felt SO LIBERATING to finally feel OK and SAFE being ALL of me AND being loved and accepted in spite of it.  It was something that I hadn’t realized I was deeply craving and missing in my life.  The deep connections we formed, the safe space we created, it all felt so unfamiliar.   And for me, in particular, since I can’t speak on behalf of everyone, because I had been accustomed to feeling UNSAFE emotionally due to so many unhealthy and toxic relationships in my life.  It’s as if there was SAFETY in feeling UNSAFE.  I had NORMALIZED feeling UNSAFE in my body for SO LONG, that feeling SAFE felt foreign, scary, vulnerable and yet at the same time, so ENRICHING, SATISFYING and NOURISHING.   

So, I am wondering if perhaps you’ve found yourself in relationships where maybe you’ve normalized feeling UNSAFE emotionally. Where maybe you're not feeling like it's okay for you to just be yourself, that it's not okay for you to ask for help or for support when you need it, where maybe you're the only one who's giving and giving and giving and everyone else around you is just taking and taking.

Perhaps you’re curious to know how we can begin to create that feeling of safety within yourself so that it can ripple out into the world around you. Well, it comes back to learning how To move out of a constant state of fight or flight or a constant state of feeling the need to protect yourself from subconsciously perceived threats of danger. And the way that we do that is by working somatically with the body, working with our nervous system. Throughout your day, your autonomic nervous system might actually perceive that you “in danger” and keep you stuck in a fight or flight response or keep you shut down in a freeze response. So in order to Connect more deeply with others. You need to know how to bring yourself back into Feeling grounded into feeling calm. Because When we're in a fight or flight nervous system state or we're in our sympathetic nervous system, What happens is is that we end up just reacting emotionally to everything around us, and that can have a really deep impact on the people that we are interacting with throughout our day. You may find that you end up snapping at your Kids more often. You might have less patience for other people in traffic or just in general. You might find yourself judging and criticizing everyone around you as a way to keep yourself feeling safe, validated and in control, when you're really not okay.

If you're constantly in that sympathetic nervous system state or you're in a freeze where you're completely numbed out and dissociated from your feelings, then You're not going to be able to have deep conversations with people. You're not going to be able to respond to others and nurture them, nor are you going to be able to feel comfortable Enough to ask for the support that you need.

So many of us, especially women, I find struggle silently with the things that are hard. So many women Don't  want to burden others with their health problems, issues in their relationships, or things that they're struggling with as a parent or at work.

Because it feels like we are being selfish in some way. It can feel like we're being a burden. We feel like We're taking up too much space, taking up too much time because the natural energetic Flow that we are comfortable with is one in which we are the ones constantly nurturing, nourishing, and supporting everyone else around us. But we have a hard time accepting and receiving that same level of support back. So, the only way in which we can begin to get comfortable with that is by learning how to get out of that fight or flight response, learning how to stop being so reactive and reactionary. AND also let go of our codependent patterns.

As nurturers, we want to jump in and help.   When we see someone struggling, we want to make it better, we want to find the solution or provide a quick fix. And so, we also subconsciously assume that, when we're struggling, that other people will ALSO want to jump in and help and so we avoid that out of a fear of being an imposition. The thing is – as we heal from these codependent patterns, we don’t EXPECT or even WANT someone to fix or rescue us, we just often times want someone to listen to us.  We want someone to say – yeah, that sucks!  I am sorry that happened or that you’re going through that.   We want to be able to process out loud and have someone just hear us out so that we can verbally process and move the energy to transmute it and find our own clarity or to give us something to respond to when they ask us supportive, nonjudgmental, empathetic questions. Sometimes, our emotions feel SO big that we don’t want to express them out loud because they feel too scary and we need someone who can hold that safe space for us so that we CAN safely feel, express and release them WITHOUT getting uncomfortable, walking away or making them feel like they have to say the right thing or that our emotions are TOO much for them in any way.  Sometimes we just want to feel validated in our feelings without judgment or criticism or feeling like we have to minimize our emotions in order to make someone else feel more comfortable.   We become afraid to take up too much space, time or energy. 

So, if you have this underlying belief that a you’re responsible for everyone else's emotions, and you're responsible for supporting people in a way that looks like fixing or rescuing or even sacrificing, then you may not ask for support out of the fear that you are an imposition.

I’m here to tell you to STOP downplaying how you feel or what you're struggling with.  You ARE WORTHY of support, love and validation!

The thing is, and this is the second half of the lesson I’ve learned - is that like I'm also allowed to have boundaries around who it is I ask for that support from because I have people in my life that have proven to me over time that they are not safe people to go to. And part of the reason why they may not be safe is because number one, they have taken what I’ve share vulnerably in the past and used it against me, which only amplifies my fear and guilt in sharing. Or they've proven to me over time, that it's not my feelings that matter but rather their feelings that matter more.

And so, I end up being pulled back into their codependency patterns and into a role of having to fix or rescue them from the emotions that they have around what I am struggling with. Because as always, with unhealthy people, it goes back to them and how they're feeling rather than on someone else’s needs.  And that’s because they have very little to no empathy. Or they've proven to me that they're just not someone that I can rely on for the kind of support Because there's always a cost or a transaction on the other side of that, as though I owe them something in return (could be recognition, feeding their ego, etc), as opposed to just offering unconditional love, acceptance and support.

They might even make me feel guilty for sharing what I've shared or told me not to share with anyone else out of their own fear that it would be too much for someone else or that it would say something about them that would make them look bad, which isn't fair.

So, I really had to spend a lot of time digging deep and understanding who do I need to set more boundaries with around what I share and with whom I share and who are the people in my life that maybe I have not given the opportunity to actually be there for me, who might be very willing. However, I've never ever given them that opportunity out of my own fear of being too much, or because I’ve minimized what I've been through or what I am going through compared to what they're going through.

And I think that that's something to highlight is this idea that we often downplay what we’re experiencing or downplay it because we assume that what someone else is going through is so much worse.  We compare what we're going through relative to what someone else is going through and then deny ourselves of the opportunity to support each other at the same time. I know it’s something I’ve been guilty of, for sure.  Listen, life doesn’t happen in neat little packages.  We get thrown curveballs usually at the most inconvenient time and guess what, you’re not the only one. 

So, if your friend is going through something right now, and so are you – then lean in.  Open up and share vulnerably.  Not with the expectation that either of you have to FIX things for the other or DO anything to make it better.  Just with the hope of growing together through whatever hard times you ae experiencing.  Knowing that you are both showing up the best you can and that you each have someone who understands what’s going on and can listen.  Maybe that looks like you both cry – even if it’s over different things.  Or you both scream and let out the anger and frustration.  Whatever it is, don’t even compare what someone else is going through to what you’re experience and minimize it out of the sake of trying to stay small and NOT be a burden. 

Sometimes all we need is to verbally share what we’re struggling with.  That along can help us feel so much we can feel so much better - like a weight has been lifted, because we're no longer holding it in and bottling it up and stuffing it down, which takes a lot more energy to do than just to move the energy through by speaking it out loud and talking it out with a trusted friend or loved one. 

Sidenote: if you're into human design, this is is essential for anyone who has an un-motorized throat – YOU need to be able to talk things out to release that stagnant energy that is created when we hold it in and bottle it up and stuff it down. So that would be a generator, a projector for reflector for those of you that are into human design

Also, I just want to make it clear that I am not advocating for emotional dumping.  Emotional dumping is complaining, bitching and moaning and I hope you can discern the difference between asking for support and sharing how you feel about something that you’re struggling with right now and complaining about your circumstances.  Reaching out and sharing with a friend that you’re feeling really overwhelmed right now and you are experiencing a lot of fear around a situation and asking if they wouldn’t mind just holding space for you to share what’s coming up for you is very different than calling up a friend and venting about how crappy a situation is and complaining about all the people you are blaming for your circumstances.

Anyway, I hope this helps as you head into this holiday season when women often take on the weight of the responsibility to create the magic while also trying to manage their health, families, a career the home, etc.  Remember to take a step back, observe how you’re feeling, become aware of who in your life you feel emotionally safe with and who can lean on for support. Whether that is asking your partner to pitch in and take some things off your plate or sharing vulnerably with a friend about how hard the holidays are now since you’ve lost a loved one or how you’re feeling angry about a recent healthy diagnosis.  Whatever it might be, know that you are NOT a burden, your emotions are valid, safe to feel AND express, and that you don’t have to minimize whatever hard thing you’re experiencing right now in order to make someone else more comfortable.  And as cheesy as this will sound – I’m also here to support you!  

Also, let me know if you liked this longer-format Blog post for this week's episode.  It's essentially a transcript of the episode.  Leave me a message below to share your feedback, please! 

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