weeding and armpit shaving

In my post last week, I said I don’t want to help everyone.  That’s a recent revelation for me.  Almost every job that I’ve ever had is about helping others.  As long as I can remember, I wanted to make a positive difference in the lives of others in some way. Genuinely.  Sincerely.
 
Getting to this point has been hard for me.  For so much of my life, I earned visibility by being the helper or what I thought was the helper.  In actuality, I wasn’t the helper.  I was the dragger of dead weight, and I did it, so I could feel seen and virtuous…heroic.
 
But really, I was just the unappreciated doer of all the laundry, the chopper of piles of wood, because this is Montana, the midnight shoveler of snow, and the person who’d sit for hours and hours listening to “friends” who wanted an audience of at least one to talk about themselves but who had no interest in doing anything different.
 
I had to admit that part of why I wanted was to save people was because I so desperately, for so many years, wanted to be saved.  Part of me thought if I could save someone, then I’d be worth something.
 
This is one of the external ways I’ve tried to earn my worth.  Other times, I tried to feel worthy by looking a particular way or having a certain job.
 
What I’ve learned is that realizing I was trying to prove my worth by something outside myself was not a sudden epiphany that “cured” of my insecurities.  
 
It’s more like a constant weeding, a vigilance.  It’s more like how I have to continually shave my armpits if I want to look a certain way in a sleeveless dress.  It’s continual effort.  But in putting forth continual effort, your hands will grow stronger and it's easier to rid yourself of something small rather than an infestation. You’ll spot the weeds earlier. It’s easier to pull some weeds as soon as you see their annoying little face sprout up rather than when you are on a phone call at 2 am with someone who would never pick up the phone to help you.
 
But here’s the thing, helping people is different from trying to save someone.  Helping someone is more like being a guide and saving someone generally means doing more and caring more than the person you’re trying to save.  I only want to help people interested in doing the work it takes to be different.
 
I recently started offering yoga & writing workshops, and I LOVE coming up with writing prompts to help people with self-exploration.  Here are some questions you can answer in a journal or just some questions for you to think about.
 

• Make a list of the people in your life who you help.  Then make a list of the people you can count on and rely on to help you.

 

• Are same people on these two lists?  

 

• Think of someone in your life, either alive or not alive, who has helped you, who has loved you and encouraged you.  Write a letter to yourself from that person telling you how worthy you are of receiving goodness and joy.