Insights from our worlds of caregiving can get started by the funniest things. The idea of healing oneself by helping others has been rattling around in my mind for years, but this social media meme started me pursuing the thought. Maybe it was not just me seeing the connection.
The Quiet Side
Introspection and I are friends of long standing. I get that not everyone spends time and effort in their own heads, but for me this has always been normal.
With any good inquiry into self, one eventually ends up examining not just the people and situations external to us, but what makes up our internal world also.
Without turning this into a crying towel of a post, trauma is a part of living and informs many of our later decisions. As a younger person, I experienced my fair share of abrupt changes. Each experience changed who I was becoming.
They still do.
As help from outside sources did not often materialize, I learned to become my own problem-solver.
I also learned how to find quiet. Quiet of spirit mostly. Finding a quiet of mind is still a challenge for me, though.
With practice, that quiet became one of strength, not of fear. A quality that is sometimes misunderstood by others looking in. (“Really. I’m not mad at you. I’m just thinking.”)
Healing Ourselves
Hard rule: sometimes we could use some rescuing but nobody comes. How we respond to such challenges is up to us.
I am stubborn. I chose to pick myself up and invest in learning to do for myself.
So much social conversation (and argument!) lately revolves around someone not getting what they want.
Been there, done that, have the whole t-shirt collection.
My experience is that the solution to not getting what you want takes time and work. Lots of work. As much as we want rescuing by others, it does not always work out that way. Tribal thinking often helps only the group. As many are finding, individuals are often on their own. Even loyal members.
Sometimes our rescuer shows up. Sometimes the rescuer is just ourselves.
Healing comes from the work we do.
How It Can Work
Healing of wounds (whether physical, emotional, or spiritual) requires action. Something has to change. A status quo does not heal and grow who we will become.
As a caregiver, we are likely initially motivated by an intrinsic desire to help others. Socially accepting and supportive of the group’s needs.
Taking those same supportive skills and applying them to ourselves can be constructive. We know how to get a lot of things done. Asserting rights are the same, whether for another or for ourselves.
Hint: this is not being selfish. The needs of the caregiver are legitimate. While we do tend to subordinate our needs to the needs of others, caregivers still deserve care.
This is how I found myself fixing myself by doing for others. Healing is a shotgun pattern. When helping others, some of that help ends up applying to ourselves.
Pretty cool design, eh?
Healing is in the taking of action to help one another. We get back what we give – and then some.
“The closest thing to being cared for is to care for someone else.”
– Carson McCullers
Dad's Back 