Don’t stop being a pleaser, hellbent on infusing the world with love.
Commanding love.
Easing the suffering of others.
You’ll be told it’s a disease, all the while knowing it’s just how you were made.
A curse. A poison.
A liability?
Cast down through layers, is it simply embedded in our nature? What if we cut the shame, and removed the pressure?
What if, instead, when a pleaser stood before us, quite small, we took him, or her, by the hand? Gently, what if we said, “Dear child, I see that the world’s comfort is important to you?” and in place of “Stop, it will make you sick.”
“Come closer…you will be needing some tools.”
And then, what if we said:
“First, little heart, you’ll need to know how to treat yourself like a queen (or a king)–not in a noble, narcissistic way, but in the very same way you attempt to ease the suffering of others. Ease it for yourself, first and foremost, for if you are going to live in the work of human suffering, it will take from you.”
“Next, learn to say no; early, and often. Start practicing now, how to take space–to practice calming your anxious eruptions, your jostled nerves, and your certainty that you should have said simply yes, or sure, or no problem. Be still, hold your no, and let the winds of castigation whip past you. They will.”
“Please, come to understand that when another cannot hear your “no,” they have their own grave problems, and that is not about you. You can send them love, and hold your no, and there is no story to make, about good guys, or bad guys, about right, or wrong. We all have places that hurt. You are not the salve for another’s intrusions upon you.”
“And finally, when you are standing alone, and it’s dull and grey outside, or dark, and late at night, understand that I’ve got you. And because I’ve got you, one day you will be able to stand in the truth that you’ve got you, and you can hold yourself up, and when you doubt that you can, the blessed ground can hold you up, and you can sink deeply into the feeling that you are, indeed, held.”
What if?
