I was trying so hard to make everything ok for the kids.
I was not ok, but I so badly didn’t want them to not be ok… so I overcompensated.
I ran around trying to make everybody and everything ok… except for myself.
I was an acute self sacrificer. I didn’t think I needed to be ok, I thought as long as everyone else was ok I would be fine.
You want to know what happened to the kids?
They were ok in those moments… as a matter of fact my youngest daughter told me once that I’m really good at making her feel like everything is ok, and she relies on me for that.
But I see them now when faced with a situation where the people around them are not ok..they do what I did. They make everyone else ok, and leave their own hearts to break.
I taught them that was what you do. For years I showed them how to put everyone else first and to leave yourself beat up, run ragged and surviving instead of thriving.
I thought I was keeping them happy and doing what was right for them. Instead I was showing them how to deal with life the same way I was.
Our children really do learn by watching us.
They learn our behaviours and our coping mechanisms in life.
The same way patterns of abuse and addiction are handed down through generations, so are patterns of self care and lifestyle.
Seeing this with my own eyes, has made me much more conscious about the choices I make about the life I want for me… and for my children. Slowly we are all rewriting our life as we want it to be.