I’m going to call her Ellie, but she could very easily be me, or you, or any of us, male or female.

She takes care of everyone.

She gives and gives endlessly, tirelessly. If anyone needs anything, she is right there. If there is a cause to be championed, she will be on the steering committee. If money needs raising, she’ll put herself through hell to raise the most. She will never say no to you. She will never put herself first.

She’ll neglect herself and her family and immediate loved ones in order to be there for a complete stranger. If she could, she’d save the whole world.

But you know what? Deep down, this does not make her happy. She is one of the most deeply unhappy and angry women alive. You’d never know it, because she’d die of shame and be wracked with guilt if you ever suggested it. But this woman, who gives what feels like love to hundreds, struggles to feel loved herself.

Let me tell you a little about the way Ellie grew up and what she learned. About people, about life, about herself.

Ellie’s mum was a “wonderful woman,” who’d do anything for anyone. She was always helping a neighbor out, nursing a sick relative, doing good deeds.

It meant there wasn’t always time enough to talk through the little everyday things her kids needed to tell her, or for lots of hugs and stories, but her kids knew that it would be greedy and ungrateful to mind because their mum was a saint.

The other important thing to say about Ellie’s mum is that she was quite an anxious person. She worried a lot.

Ellie learned this from a young age—that if she troubled her mum with any of her problems, her mum wouldn’t sleep that night. And Ellie also knew that, if she ever did anything naughty or disappointing, then her mum would be upset, and the change she saw in her would make her feel like she didn’t love her any more.

Ellie’s dad was quite emotionally cold, shut down, and would become impatient when Ellie’s mum would worry endlessly about things, and so Ellie knew not to trouble him, either.

And he also had a deep mistrust of the world and other people, and a strict sense of right and wrong. His trust, or approval, or love, once lost was lost forever. However, academic achievements impress him, as do careers, which carry status, so that would get his attention and approval and “love” every time.

So, Ellie grew up developing a “Caretaker Personality.”

She’s in many ways like her mum, in that she’s always there for everyone, she’ll never say no to anyone needing help, champions every cause going—especially any to do with the rights of children or vulnerable adults—and is tireless in her giving of herself and her time.

She’s exhausted and emotionally drained a great deal of the time, spreads herself extremely thin, and deep down is extremely angry. However, she tries hard to put that away, and sublimates it by doing more and more good work, which helps to take some of the guilt away, at least.

Let’s look at what those of us who recognize ourselves in Ellie have learned to believe about life:

>>> You’re loved for what you do, not for who you are.

>>> Other people judge you by what you give them and do for them, and by what status you achieve.

>>> You mustn’t ever mind doing things for people, and you mustn’t ever mind if you don’t get much thanks. Helping is what life is all about, and what gets you loved.

>>> There are rights and wrongs in life, things are black and white, and there are no greys. Especially where other people’s views of you are concerned. One wrong move, one no said to someone, means the loss of love or approval for evermore.

>>> People are fragile. If you upset them, they won’t be able to get over it. If you hurt them, the wound will go so deep it can never be healed. If you trouble them with your problems or worries, they won’t be able to sleep or rest and you’ll have spoiled their peace of mind. Therefore, you must learn to just deal with things on your own. Even big things.

>>> We’ve learned to believe that you earn love by what you do. This love can be lost at any moment, and nothing you ever do will be enough.

>>> We believe our needs are too big, too much, and they are bad, they are selfish, they are ugly, they are shameful. No one must see them, and the moment we get ‘needy’ or cross or unhappy or ‘grumpy’ the thing to do is get busy and get cheerful again.

Recognize any of that? Then you need to know that none of it is true. I know it seems true but it is not.

The reason it seems to be true is because we did a really good job writing the script of the play and the leading role we’ll play when we incarnated here in this lifetime.

And that’s the key to letting it all go. That’s the bit that sets everyone free.

It was all meant to happen. Exactly this way.

People who have felt like your greatest challenges and hurdles in this lifetime are actually members of your closest and most fully known soul family in the non-physical realms.

They’ve incarnated with you lifetime after lifetime, and have been willing to take an infinite variety of roles for you in the stories of those lifetimes, just as you’ve been willing to do for them.

Think about it.

If you want to experience what it’s like to go camping in the pouring rain, get soaked to the skin and cold through to the bone, with no way of getting warm or dry, and with mud up to your knees, you must understand that i’s not a holograph and that, at any moment you choose, you could visualize a blazing fire, warm bubble bath and mug of hot chocolate and feel the feeling of it so completely that your reality would shift and that’s exactly where you’d be.

It has to feel like you’re really going through it. How else are you going to immerse yourself in it and grow? Or give others the opportunity to grow?

But you’ve done that now. This is your point of growth, knowing you can let go of the responsibility.
It never was yours, it just seemed that way.

Feel the relief of it! The joy of it! And let it all go! Someone else can take over now.

Then go splash in some puddles and have some fun!

Haven’t you earned it?

~

Relephant:

The Reality of Life as a Single Mom.

~

Author: Janny Juddly

Editor: Catherine Monkman

Photo: Wikimedia Commons