Road to Recovery - Part 4

Getting Your Life Back 

How do we get back on the right track as empaths and people pleasers? Is it possible?

Seems to be quite possible. However, there is a need to educate yourself first, and that can be a tough time. Realizing on both a cognitive and heart level that there are problems and issues in your life isn't much fun. 

I know from hard life experience that calling people out on their blind spots can be next to impossible. I'm thinking back to times when I was warned about certain situations, and I could not see it. I would not see it. The attraction and bond to what I felt I needed was too great - like a mountain in the way, I could not see ahead. 

Trying to warn someone that the path they are on is going to end in a foul swamp of pain and misery is not what they want to hear. We all know this, especially as adults. We've all been in such swamps. Many of us have taken years to get the stench of misery out of our clothes and the dregs of pain off of our minds and hearts. There is always something to blame, some rationale that makes perfect sense at the time. 

So I have grace and kindness for my younger self; where once I would have mentally beaten myself up for mistakes, I now see that for the counter-productive cow manure it is.  

In The Pilgrim's Progess, Christian receives a number of such warnings. He still falls asleep in By-Path Meadow, loses his scroll on the Hill Difficulty, and is persuaded off the path by Worldly-Wiseman. He learns from each mistake, but the suffering and ground lost are real and the consequences sometimes severe. 

At one point Hopeful and Christian almost fall into a deep pit. 

"Who could have thought that this path would lead us astray?"

 Hopeful replied, "I was afraid it might from the very first, and that is why I gave you that gentle caution. I would have spoken more firmly, but you are older than I." 

The Pilgrim's Progress is gold; I purchased a beautiful hard cover copy to read often, and it never fails to set my heart on Christ again. 

I remember participating in a study years ago using the popular book Boundaries by Dr.'s Henry Cloud and John Townsend. I have read it a few times since, and there is such a wealth of wisdom there for everyone, but particularly people like me. The chapter that resonated the most was on "Boundaries and Yourself". Who knew we needed boundaries with ourselves? Oh, but we do.  We can be our own worst enemies. Learning boundaries is a humbling experience, because it involves taking responsibility for ourselves, for our weaknesses, insecurities, and for our own contentment. Empaths often feel stretched and out of touch with their own needs and feelings. As a result, it is a constant temptation to put the responsibility on someone else. 

If other people weren't so obnoxious. 

If my family could just back off. 

If my significant other could read my mind, that would help. 

Empaths (and the rest of the world) need to take responsibility for their own lives. 

This is hard. Really hard. Because spending our lives taking care of or helping others takes the focus off what maybe we could or should be doing. This is the big problem - avoiding one's own needs by seeking out the needs of someone else. 

Always looking after the needs of others also means there is always someone else to blame. 

Practical Stepping Stones 

• Reduce time spent with those who drain your energy, and increase time spent with people who have your best interest at heart.

This step is probably going to be counter-intuitive. It appears at first glance to be logical, but often people-pleasing, agreeable empaths will do the opposite. They will perpetually scan the horizon for empty, disadvantaged individuals, and actually avoid those who care about them the most. 

• Reduce the need to please by realizing and acknowledging your worth. 

Empaths seek to please others and always be highly agreeable partly because of a deep-seated sense of unworthiness. The equation of "I made you happy, and now I feel a sense of worth from doing that" must be inverted to "I have worth, and therefore I am able to give." I give because I have worth, rather than I gain worth through my giving. I am loved and worthy of love whether I give or not. 

• Reduce stress in order to lessen the critical messages coming from within. 

The more stress an empath is experiencing, the harder they are on themselves. The judgmental, critical voice comes out and takes over, pummeling the empath with an internal attack of fear and anger. Predatory and manipulative individuals can set the internal critic going by preying on fears of failure, accompanied with the stress of trying to make it all work out. 

Ways to keep stress manageable are (Captain Obvious) eating well, sleep, and exercise, and also staying clear of people who ask too much of you. Sometimes these situations are unavoidable, but being aware can really help. 

Stay Grounded

I'm learning to stay in a better place. Now that I am more aware of my own tendency toward self-sabotage, it is easier to rise above what used to get me down. 

I don't shrink so much from taking care of myself these days; I know it is necessary. 

Meditating on the gifts and joys in life gives hope and strength to keep going. My family, my kids, my husband, my job, music, nature, and most of all the kindness of a good and loving God are the gifts and joys I hold onto. 

Getting out there, making plans, challenging myself, creating, writing, teaching, worshiping, reveling in beauty and nature, having coffee with a good friend...these are what give living so much LIFE. 

I have a good God. He gives wisdom even when I have spent a lot of time with folly, and I know He will show me the way ahead, even when I can't see around the corners.