One of the hardest things you will be asked to do is to choose yourself when you are devoted to others.
And by choose yourself, I mean to do what’s best for you. Maybe that’s going to the gym, or eating healthy, or spending time doing something you love.
You have dedicated yourself to your family. Which is important to you.
By doing so, you create energetic ties that continue to get stronger and stronger until you start feeling responsible for what isn’t yours.
You will feel selfish and guilty and you will feel like you are letting them down if you choose what is good for you, especially if it makes things harder for them.
I used to be so afraid of being selfish that I was paralyzed by it. The guilt I would feel was consuming, and it kept me feeling responsible for things that I wasn’t responsible for.
And when you feel you are responsible, then you can’t choose what is best for you because you are energetically and emotionally tied to someone else’s dream, someone else’s choices, and someone else’s mountain.
You think it makes you a bad person because you define yourself as caring and supportive, and you know your role in the family matters.
By choosing yourself, you know it will make things harder for others, and maybe for you too.
I thought choosing me, or doing something I wanted instead of what someone else wanted meant that I was a bad mom, or a bad wife, or a bad person.
It was debilitating, and if I’m honest, that pattern still sneaks up on me.
I still find myself feeling responsible for what is not mine. It happens when I care, and when I have been holding someone else’s things together.
Letting go of that responsibility is easy, you just energetically hand it back to the person who owns it. When you can see it’s not yours, it makes it much easier.
The hard part is stepping back enough to realize what’s happening in first place.