Something that has been helping me lately is reminding myself who I’m responsible for—and who I’m not.
I recently made this list in my journal:
My Thinking Brain understands this, of course; it’s my Feeling Brain that needs help. She’s the one who was trained from a young age to take care of everyone else’s feelings instead of her own.
It has been very helpful and clarifying to rehearse this truth: I am not responsible for any other adults, but only for me and my children.
I care very much about those loved ones and other people, and I want to do all I can to help them with their struggles and sufferings. (I wrestled with these feelings in my Serenity Splash poem today, “Our salt-tear waters mingle.”) If that were not the case, there would be no problem; I’d be able to shrug and say, “Duh, of course I’m not responsible for them.”
My trouble is leaning too far in the direction of codependency, caretaking, people-pleasing, and feeling like it’s my existential duty to rescue other people.
When I’m already overwhelmed by the physical and mental load of parenting, it can be hard for my muddled mind to sort out priorities. The feelings of other adults in my life can feel critical, because that’s my nervous system’s old habit-mode.
It takes conscious attention—which I really hope to get better at through practice and rehearsing—to remind myself that I am only responsible for myself and my children. That’s it!
Not my mother-in-law’s feelings of wanting us to visit more than we do.
Not my parents’ feelings about various things, nor my sibling’s.
Not my friends or others who might feel disappointed by me or critical of me.
Not even my husband, who—though we are partners and a team—has to manage his own feelings and take responsibility for his own behavior.
The more I rehearse these truths, the clearer I think and the stronger I feel—and the more I find myself practicing healthy boundaries in my decisions.