There’s a Danger in Abandoning Ourselves
My greatest strength became my greatest weakness
I could see self-doubt on the face of my typically confident son. Adolescence can be stressful and I sensed he was losing sight of himself. My support fell on deaf ears.
So I adopted a mantra.
“I will be the person in the room standing next to you — reminding you who you are until you remember again,” I said.
I recognized the signs of temporary self-abandonment.
I had let hit happen myself.
Like me, my son had given his power away by caring too much. Not in a relationship but towards a goal that meant everything to him. And as my marriage counselor often says, “Our greatest strength can become our greatest weakness.”
When my son was little, I would have all three boys in the backseat of the car. Two of my guys would finish the cookie I had given them and ask for another. I would gaze in the rearview and watch him split his own cookie in half, giving one side to each of his brothers.
“Sometimes you have to keep your own cookie,” I would say.
As a mother, I was urging him to periodically self-protect.
I realized he was willing to do without if it meant making another happy.
It’s a glorious thing to be extremely caring but at times we need boundaries, or we risk depletion. Our own survival mandates the necessity to occasionally not care and put ourselves first.
But it’s a hard lesson for some.
We give our power away to a person, a goal, a job, or some other life force.
We slowly walk away from ourselves unable to see the distance between who we are and what consumes our attention. Until the road back nearly can’t be found.
But here’s the thing.
A person, a goal, a job, or anything else should accentuate who we are.
Not threaten it.
The minute we begin to abandon ourselves, lose what defines us, what differentiates us from the crowd, and what makes us special — an internal alarm needs to sound. The very moment our greatest strength becomes our…
