Antidote for Caretaking
The antidote for emotional caretaking and people pleasing is my confidence in how I show up.
When I hold myself to my own highest standard of conduct with others (or hold myself to NO interaction if I'm not resourced enough to show up to my highest standard) I am concerned with the way my behavior aligns with my standard.
I only ask myself if the way I participated in a situation was according to my own standard, aligned with my own values. This is the process of inner integrity.
Cleanup, caretaking, and repair which is related to me correcting my own behavior according to my own perception of my behavior within an interaction is clean and clear. That's called proactive love.
Cleanup, caretaking, and repair which is related to me correcting my perception of *the other person's experience of me* is where I'm off-center, enmeshed, ungrounded—especially if this caretaking comes without any request or impact-sharing from the other person. This is a way I keep myself busy in other people's business rather than attending to my own.
It is comforting to have a problem to solve. It's nice to feel certain there is a reason for my unease, my fear, my anxiety, and the reason is some other person's experience. This feels a lot like my childhood. I'm uneasy because of how my parents are reacting to the emotional experience they're having, and I'm uneasy because they are telling me it's my responsibility, and some part of me is in a panic because I know I cannot correct it.
I burn the energy of my fear trying to control what is out of my control, mostly thinking in circles; it's familiar and it does the job.
In order to concern myself with my own standards, I have to disbelieve my thoughts about "why" I feel how I feel about how they feel, and simply be with how I am feeling.
I feel what I am feeling, and I let it be about me, I don't get confused that it's about them.
However I feel is perfectly right in the moment. I disbelieve my thoughts because they are simultaneously true and not true, rarely relevant to the here and now experience in my body, sometimes directly in the way of true management and resolution of fear's rule.
Cleared of thoughts about how the way I feel is a problem, cleared of thoughts that the world is causing the problem of my feelings, I am clear to show up aligned to my own highest standard.
I have confidence in how I show up, I offer a high standard to others regardless of how I am feeling, and I allow others' feelings to be their own concern.
