Feeling burned out?
Life satisfaction is mainly a result of relationship satisfaction. When our relationships feel good, we tend to feel good. We feel like we’re on top of the world! When they are lacking, our colored glasses can quickly turn from rosy to grey, and we can easily lose our lust for living.
One of the main factors of successful relationships (platonic or romantic) is a high level of reciprocity. This looks like a back-and-forth tennis game of giving and receiving where both partners are experiencing generosity, sharing, and gratitude consistently.
If you’ve noticed a pattern in your life of low reciprocity in relationships and a dip in your satisfaction barometer, you might be someone who over-functions or over-gives as a way to add value to the world. Other terms for this coping skill are perfectionism or over-achievement.
I know this role well, and it was a way I identified for most of my life.
The problem with needing to be the superhero in relationships is that just like most movies, there’s usually only room for one. So, as much as I wanted support and high levels of emotional and physical reciprocity, I didn’t attract or choose partners that seemed capable of either. Or at least, not enough to satisfy me, and flip the familiar script I had created to feel valued.
I was the superhero in my world, and because there’s typically only room for one, everyone else eventually became my antagonist. Why? Because all that giving, rescuing, advising, fixing, over-compensating, and taking responsibility for other’s happiness, left me completely drained and exhausted.
The stories “I always have to do everything alone” and “No one cares about me” played daily in a self-defeating loop in my head.
The truth was, I wasn’t caring about me. As tired as I was, and as much as I resented this character I had assigned myself to be, I didn’t know how to stop. My fear was, that if I didn’t make everyone around me happy by over-giving and sacrificing, then I would be alone. I would be a failure, a quitter, selfish, invisible, and a nobody. At the end of the day, it would just be me, my cape, and my inner critic living alone on an island.
When there is a perceived lack of appreciation and reciprocity, there is simultaneously, and usually subconsciously, an unwillingness to actually receive the care and support we desire. Why? We’re afraid.
Receiving feels uncomfortable when you’re always giving.
Instead of focusing on getting the people in our reality to give more, we would benefit from slowing down, hanging up our cape, and permitting ourselves to do less.
This is easier said than done.
This year was the first year I didn’t take my computer on vacation. I left the charger at home by accident, so I was forced to vacation completely void of productivity. While sitting at the airport with my adorable husband, without anything to distract me, I reflected on the life I had created since the unraveling of “Miss Perfect” 6 years ago. I had a courageously motivated client base, love, purpose, financial security, a safe place for my fur babies to be while we were gone, and absolutely NOTHING I had to do for the next 7 days. I felt extremely grateful and extremely anxious.
I looked at my husband, my original relationship lab rat, and told him I felt afraid. I teared up. “I know this doesn’t make logical sense, but I have this irritational fear, that if I’m not contributing to someone or something, something bad will happen.”
Over-achievers don’t realize this irrational fear is buried deep inside them because it’s insulated with accolades, praise, admiration, and promotions. But it’s there.
That day, in the airport, I sat with the shame of having a life that felt easy and happy, and the fear of what happiness and ease might bring. I walked over to the window for a moment of privacy, and I cried. I released my shame and fear in the form of tears. I held the little girl inside of me who learned early on to be whatever is needed to receive attention and value from the world around her. She helped me survive, and we did great things together, but it was time for the rest of it. It was time for us to just be, and watch what unfolds.
I dried my eyes, went back to my table, received a long tight hug from my husband, and I moved forward as Legan. Not the superhero, not the one with all the answers, not the one that will save the day with great advice, but just me.
Take it one step at a time.
If my experience resonates with you, I encourage you to take tiny baby steps each day that move you closer to being someone who gives AND receives. That might look like asking for help with your children, so you can have some time to yourself. It might look like hiring someone to clean your home, so you feel less overwhelmed. It might be as simple as saying no. Start small, and make it an intention to allow more room for receiving in your life. Like anything, it will get easier, the more you practice it.
The biggest difference I notice is that now when I’m feeling burned out, taken for granted, or unappreciated, I know the answer is in the mirror. That’s always where our power lies, within our actions and motivations. And funny enough, as much as I assumed that others expected me to rescue them, I’m discovering every day, that I was wrong. Yes, sometimes people need help, but my expectations for myself were mine, and those around me wanted me to be happy more than anything else. That is difficult to see when you’re always “doing”, but something worth the cost of your cape.
Want to start falling more in love with yourself and the life you live? It’s possible. It just takes a mirror, and the willingness to move towards something new. There’s no better time to start than right now.
