As I mentioned in
my old posts about examining values, I have spent a great deal of time thinking
about my values. I think a lot of people share values of care-taking and
self-sacrifice, and I thought I would write about my own journey in examining
this value and realizing the balance that lies in the individual and other
people.
A wave of
exhaustion hits me. Worry. About my friends, family, patients, the stranger
crying on the street, the people I see on the news. Worry that pervades into my
dreams at night, tossing and turning so that I’m never rested enough. Each
human being full of so much value that my heart cries out at their suffering.
Only able to tuck the pain away in my pocket temporarily, and when I step away
and the time passes, it creeps out and expands more and more until it cannot be
ignored. I replay old conversations- what if I hurt that person? Didn’t provide
enough empathy, compassion, didn’t listen well enough, made them more broken? I
analyze their face as they talk, hoping that my words don’t stab and injure
them again and again as they remember, leaving an emotional scar that causes
them to filter everything they say to me. I know the risk it takes in being
vulnerable, the courage in sharing your deepest fears and feelings, only to
have the person in front of you minimize, misunderstand, make you feel like a
bad person, and completely invalidate your emotions. Sometimes we are just
abandoned. I never wanted to be that person for someone else, but there came a
day when I realized that perhaps I have abandoned myself.
I grew up with a
strong sense of responsibility for other people. I’m a Sikh- I’m supposed to
help others- it’s in the essence of my soul, in my blood. There are Sikhs
before me that sacrificed their lives, what small sacrifice is my time and
energy then? And I set out to take care of others. To give up my own needs or
desires for other people.
We all learn the
message “take care of yourself” growing up. But actually it’s more complicated
than that. I think back to when they lectured us on getting enough sleep at the
start of medical school and then made us work 30+ hour shifts. There are
systems in place that enforce the value that you shouldn’t take care of
yourself. And really if you follow that in every aspect of your life, people
quickly use it against you. Plus, you can hear the message “take care of
yourself,” but not understand the deeper ways in which your other values
conflict with that. I read a book recently called Four Agreements, which talks
about the agreements we make with ourselves (about our beliefs). It helped me
ask myself more questions to get at the core of my beliefs. My agreements,
therefore, would be:
“I’m responsible
for other people’s feelings and their lives.”
“I have to sacrifice my needs and desires
because other people’s lives matter more.”
When you write it
out like that, it doesn’t look so good does it?!
The first one I
didn’t realize I was carrying around until recently. But other people choose
their reactions to situations, and they are responsible for their own lives.
It’s a huge weight to be going around feeling responsible for the world! What
other people choose to do, furthermore, is out of my control. Waheguru is our
caretaker. I don’t need to be carrying around that responsibility. I remembered
this from the Sri Guru Granth Sahib (page 10): “For
each and every person, our Lord and Master provides sustenance. Why are you so
afraid, O mind? The flamingos fly hundreds of miles, leaving their young ones
behind. Who feeds them, and who teaches them to feed themselves? Have you ever
thought of this in your mind?” (1,2)
Second- “I have
to sacrifice my needs and desires because other people’s lives matter more.” I
matter, just like each person I meets matters. Asserting your own needs is necessary,
not selfish. How can you continually help other people if you carry around your
own pain? If your own bowl is empty, you cannot feed another. The best thing a
person can do to help other people is to help themselves first. That’s cliché
isn’t it? I’ve hear that a hundred times probably! But to practice it is
actually a lot harder when I was still carrying around the same belief. Putting
ourselves as the first person who matters is difficult when we spend our lives
caring for other people. Setting up a boundary so not ask to make that person’s
problem your own is even harder. But I realized I can still be a kind and
caring person, without sacrificing my own needs including protecting myself
emotionally.
Maybe the
underlying agreements for the value of self-sacrifice will be different for
different people, but using these examples we can see how we can’t change how
we act without examining the underlying reasons why we keep returning to that.
I found myself “learning” that my needs are important temporarily, and then I
would keep going back to putting myself on the bottom of the list of people
that were important. Until I realized the reasons I believed it and “disarmed”
those reasons, I wasn’t able to change anything.
Questions to consider when you are thinking about your agreements (3):
How much do i believe it? (0= not at all, 100= totally)
Where does it come from? (childhood, someone said something, an event)
If I don't change this belief, what are the consequences for me?
What's a better agreement? How much do i believe it? What is the evidence to support it?
Questions to consider when you are thinking about your agreements (3):
How much do i believe it? (0= not at all, 100= totally)
Where does it come from? (childhood, someone said something, an event)
If I don't change this belief, what are the consequences for me?
What's a better agreement? How much do i believe it? What is the evidence to support it?
References:
2 http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.gurbani?Action=Page&Param=10&fb=1&h=0&r=0&english=t&id=466#l466
3 http://www.aliceboyes.com/cognitive-behavior-therapy-blog-straightforward-guide-to-cbt/
3 http://www.aliceboyes.com/cognitive-behavior-therapy-blog-straightforward-guide-to-cbt/
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