Gentle Souls Shed Your Burdens

You feel the weight of your family, friends, and complete strangers pressing down on your back, their thoughtless words clamouring in your head. The muscles of your shoulders and neck bulge with pent up tension. The acid in your belly roils with the anxiety of another day of other people's problems and their treatment of you. Your hard-wired programming demands you to fix them and their problems. 

Your life is in turmoil and treading water under the pressure of self-inflicted pain is unbearable. You plan your exit. But have the sense to not go through with it. You return to the only job you are qualified for, helping those who are incapable of caring for themselves.

We torment ourselves. We take on responsibilities with the best of intentions. All goes swimmingly for years, we are strong and invincible. Our love for our fellow humans overflows. We fall for someone and produce offspring - the true loves of our lives. We are betrayed or we are the betrayers. Intentional or not, the sabotage of relationships has far-reaching tentacles. 

Life has a penchant for punching us in the gut and then further kicking us into a state of overload. We put up a fight or roll over and play dead. There's also the hinterland where we might wallow in the mire of our own sensitivities for years. Heading for self-destruct on a diet of bad carbs in a feeble attempt to feel some delight. Why me? Why did you do this to me? What have I done to deserve this? I love you and you hurt me. How could you ignore me? I'm going to drink/eat/smoke/drug/slash/jump myself to death, then you'll be sorry.

"Always choose yourself first. Women are very socialized to choose other people. If you put yourself first, it's this incredible path you can forge for yourself."

– Rebecca Traister

Take others at face value. Spend time with them if they delight you. Drop them if they don't. Life is too short to dwell on trying to change or fix people. Focus on yourself. Avoid disappointment by embracing yourself and thinking about how you can heal your hurts. When you are mentally and physically healthy, you can help others.

Give yourself permission to be selfish instead of harbouring vitriol and rage against everyone who has behaved abominably towards you. Their actions and words are their burdens, not yours. Why give them the power to bring you down? They are not worth your goodness and love. Your desolation from the way they treated you serves them, feeds their preconceptions and perpetuates the negativity that stems from something in the past that would be better buried. Picking away at unalterable wounds leads to weeping, festering, and poisonous thoughts.

Turn outwards. Focus on your horizons. Choose a course of action to bring you to your potential. Realise your ambitions. Find new friends, new family, beings who love you for you. But first love yourself, because flogging dead horses never gave anyone the opportunity to gallop through meadows with their hair flowing and the promise of freedom and plenty in their sights.

If you want to help others, look to yourself first. You are no help to anyone if you give into blades or pills. Give yourself permission to abandon negative, circular, and life-sapping thoughts. What did they ever do for you?

Release those tense and bulging muscles with movement and dance. Calm your gut with soothing camomile tea and joyful walks in nature. Abandon problems you have no control over. Walk away from toxic relationships. Raise those invisible shields to ward off personal attacks.

If you are unable to give yourself permission to drop those burdens from decades ago, find someone who will. Hell, if it will help, I give you permission to stop digging that pit you are in and I'm throwing you a rope so you can climb out. Take it. Please.

Swim towards positive people who you can learn from and share their optimistism, bask in their unconditional love. Build up your strength, physical and mental. Feed your self superfoods, not sugar. Pack away the memories that have been crushing you all your life.

Look for the light. ​Shine it on what you love to do​.​ Can you train to earn a living from it? Focus on improving your situation. Improve your chances of securing work that gives you pleasure.

Be kind to, value, and love yourself. Love your sister, she loves you. Our stories are entwined.