It’s exhausting feeling responsible for everyone’s feelings

This came up for me this weekend with an aromatic to-go lunch I brought in during a training. I was so worried about offending the larger group’s nostrils that I rushed to eat outside the conference room before it restarted. I joked with a friend, “it’s hard being responsible for everyone else’s feelings,” and then I went “ohhhhhh…..” Not a shame-y ohhhhhhh, just a very interested observation ohhhhhhh. 😉

Many of us have been trained or conditioned to make sure others around us are emotionally and physically comfortable- at the expense of our own comfort. And yikes does that get exhausting over time. The hyper vigilance of everyone’s comfort and needs over our own squeezes and minimizes what matters to us. And then the flip side is we feel guilty for asking or doing what we need or want because it feels to much or we don’t feel our needs matter. When the reality is they 💯 do.

This can be a hard one to unlearn. One of the things I tell my clients (and myself) is to simply imagine what it would feel like to put down that responsibility. Just imagine, nothing more. That can start shifting our brains toward the possibility of choice and the thought that we also matter.

If this all resonates with you, try it and see if anything shifts. If it feels too big, back away and come back another time. It’s ok. The bottom line is slowly giving yourself permission to set it down.💛