I touched a little on my last post, but since writing it (a few weeks ago) I felt I needed to get out a little more. See, I have been going through some really interesting tough inner turmoil and working out a lot of things in my life that have done me no good.
I have come to some truly deep realizations that I want to give myself credit for. I am learning to choose ME. While I am sure that It will take multiple times of getting into situations where I might fall back into old habits, I am more aware now.
With out getting into the full situation that happened, I did come into a situation where I was starting to go into Savior mode and mid throttle had to pump the breaks to a halt, take multiple steps back and say to myself some very key things and back out of the path where I was headed.
I started dating an amazing loving caring Man a couple months ago. Long story short, he got himself into trouble with the law for not taking care of some stuff that he had full responsibility to take care of. Simply put he didn't man up, he dropped the ball, and he paid the consequences. My normal response of course was to step in and take control and help "fix" or "help" his problem. I mean I slid into that role so easily it was like second nature.
I spent an entire marriage and a 7 year relationship taking care of two men. At the end of the last relationship I realized I just couldn't take on the demons he was dealing with and had to choose myself and my kid over him. I was beating a dead horse.
So, now here I am with a new guy, jumping into the same situation with out a blink of an eye. Then, one day, I woke up, and realized what I was doing and I can't tell you how quickly I slammed on those breaks. I told him that in order for us to work, I needed to take a step back and he had to take control and fix his life on his own. That while I am still here as a girlfriend, I won't be taking on the roll of "helping" his situation. Saying this to him could have gone two ways. He could have broken up with me and gone his own way, or he was going to understand and do what he needed to do for himself. He chose the latter. That was the easy part. The hard part was figuring out why I choose to step into that roll again.
So why have I spent most of my adult life trying to fix situations or jump into savior mode for others? I surely don't believe its because I am better than they are by any means. I think part of me thinks that I have better coping skills than most. I mean I don't really remember a time in my life where I wasn't in some sort of life teaching situation or survival mode myself. So you learn a thing or two a long the way. I am also an empath which brings all this to a whole different level. By being an empath who is stuck in savior complex.
Here are some tips for you:
1. If you're not in a place to help someone, learn to direct others to resources that can help them. Direct them to tools and resources instead of constantly allowing yourself to be the resource
2. Learn how to give the love and support you give others, back to yourself. Sometimes we give and give to avoid the parts of us we are running away from, and its important to recognize that all of us is deserving of our own love. We can grow out of balance when we are giving so much but don't know how to give that same energy back to ourselves.
3. Strengthen your boundaries! Remember that focusing your energy how you choose to can be much more effective than allowing yourself to get pulled into other people or the worlds problems. Boundaries don't mean that we don't care, they just mean that we have a choice of how much of our energy we want to give to something at any given time. When we value ourselves enough to have those boundaries, we also invite others to value themselves.
4. If people don't want to change, then that's their choice. As Savior empaths, we often see people's potential or who we believe they want to become. And while we can hold that vision for people, we shouldn't get attached to it or think we know best. We can spend way too much time trying to get someone to shift before they're ready. Releasing responsibility for other's emotional wellness is a key way for empaths to have emotional wellness themselves.
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