When Caring Can Feel Like a Tug Of War
Caring for someone who wasn’t always there and / or did not have the capacity to be there for you can bring up a tug of war, especially when there is competing obligations. This topic has come up in sessions I’ve had with people, and also among friends and I have also been in these same chapters in my life – hence the share of what has helped others and myself along the way.
Choosing how to show up for a parent, relative or friend can feel like a tug of war – between wanting to do what’s right and battling your inner feelings of unmet needs – or what you may have wanted from that person and did not get.
And then there’s the guilt. The guilt for not doing more. The guilt for not being there as often. Guilt has a way of arriving uninvited and it’s something that needs to be met with mindfulness so it doesn’t take you down with it. There can be resentment that now you are having to make such choices – having to choose between competing obligations. Possibly even people who have been there for you and those in need of your care who have not.
Resentment Has A Function
Resentment can be an attempt toward self preservation – to prevent further rejection. But does it?
One of the hardest forms of rejection is self-rejection. At the end of the day, you are the most important person in terms of self-acceptance, including accepting the choices you make.
Some researchers see resentment as a kind of psychological buffer. It can keep distance between us and them. It can act as a warning signal, a protective layer, especially if there’s been past hurt. It buffers against further hurt, but it may cause you to go against what you really wanted all along – connection. Mindfulness practice can help us notice how many mixed feelings can co-exist.
The two wings of mindfulness – compassion and discernment can help us first and foremost have compassion for the part of you who has been hurt, discernment to look deeper into the capacity of you and them and enough pause and a deeper breath to take a wider view. We don’t always know what to do. They may not have known either. This is not to discount or by-pass your true feelings. Often there is a feeling deeper than the resentment though.
Mindful Reminders
A few reminders, to help steer your actions toward the ones you won’t look back on with regret:
- Name the tug of war out loud. Wanting to show up for someone, while still allowing yourself to feel what ever it is you are feeling.
- Choose your actions, and feel your feelings. You can act with care. You can love someone. And still handle any hurt that’s there from the past with care. One doesn’t need to wait for the other to resolve, or bypass it.
- Be honest with your capacity
- Let the guilt sit beside you, rather than running the show. It doesn’t need to be obeyed to be acknowledged. Likewise for any feelings of resentment.
- Witness it rather than argue with it. It’s not asking to be solved. It’s asking to be seen.
- In seeing it – there maybe sadness (a grief within the grief – what you longed for and may not have received – and now maybe expecting yourself to give)
- Ask the question – confronting as it is : If this were my last day with this person, how do I want to be with them?
It’s okay if feeling hurt gets the better of you sometimes. That’s exactly why this question matters. It’s a contemplation and an invitation of accepting all of the different parts of yourself – to be present in the room with yourself as you are and your loved one who is needing your care.
For those who maybe in this chapter right now – quality over quantity. One real moment of presence can carry more than one hundred obligatory visits. You don’t have to get it right every time. There’s always something you can do. Holding there hand or pouring them a tea. Or just sitting quietly.
For those on the other side of this, wising you’d done things differently – that wish itself shows the sort of person you are – loving. Guilt and regret can soften into something more useful when we let them point us toward who we want to be now, rather than evidence of who we were’t then. It’s never too late to make peace with your own heart.
There is always something you can do. The most important thing – although there maybe a barrier to it in my experience – is to be a little kinder to yourself about what you couldn’t – but because of what you have been through – can now.
The saying ‘Don’t get bitter – get better’ may be taken to mean many things – in this sense (better is intended to be well-being)
I’ll finish with some words of wisdom from a little wall hanging that use to hang right above the phone at my Grans place – from Desiderata –
“Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself”
Namaste
Tammy
Tammy Williams | My Mindful Love Notes .
