I have been counseling a friend on how to take care of herself instead of everyone else as she deals with a serious illness.  I learned this lesson the hard way a few years back.  I burned out so badly I had to go on disability for a three months to regain my health.  The day I went to the doctor’s office my blood pressure was 200/110 and I couldn’t stop sobbing.  Al took me to the office and I sat in the car until a room was ready for me – I  couldn’t sit in the waiting room because I couldn’t stop crying – crying hard, full body crying.  It was frightening and sobering for us both.

I took three months off work.  I joked towards the end of it that I used the time to determine whether I would need to get NO tattooed across my forehead in flowery script or if I could actually speak the word through my lips.  Recent photos will show that I ended up choosing the latter.  There were many aspects to consider when settling into the introspection as to how I got into that desperate situation.   Here are but a few:

1)  “You like me, right now, you like me!” Most folks have heard of this classic Sally Field acceptance speech when she won an Oscar for Best Actress for  Places in the Heart.  Sally Field, America’s sweetheart of the late sixties, early seventies.  Who would NOT like her?  Cute, sweet, strong, universally accepted as a hard working and excellent technical actress.  You get the impression she’s a really nice person.  Her insecurity was peeking through at that moment though – she just hadn’t been sure, even after the Best Actress Oscar for Norma Rae, that her peers respected her and liked her. 

We all want to be liked.  At work, I want to be known as the gal who will always step forward in a pinch, who will do the job right, who will not make my supervisor tell me the same damn thing over and over.  I want to make everyone’s job easier.  I want to do it with a smile.  This is one of the things that backfired on me two years ago.  By making everyone else’s job easier, by always saying ‘yes’ so they could get the problem off their plate, my plate got piled higher and higher until it toppled onto the table, the floor, flew onto everyone else’s plate after all when I had to just stay home. 

2) The sense of undue duty.  Undue is the key word there.  Is it really my duty to make everyone else’s life easier?  Is it really my responsibility to ease the burden of everyone even when they have gotten themselves in their own pickle?  Interestingly enough when I am overburdened I don’t see people coming out of the woodwork to ease my burden.  I am oversensitive to the needs of others and tend to attract such needy people in my life.  The meltdown two years ago made me take a good hard look at that tendency and I have “culled” my acquaintances, if you will.  Even as I write that, it sounds harsh, but now I find myself interacting with people, and especially women, who can stand on their own two feet, who even in their darkest moments take responsibility for their predicaments, who don’t need me to constantly rescue them or, like a supervisor at work, tell them the same damn thing over and over.  It has been quite refreshing for me and has eased my stress.  You gals who are reading this don’t have to wonder if it’s you – if you’re reading this, you ARE a life giving influence in my life.  Let me know if I get too needy!  

My sense of duty remains, but it is not skewed, not overlapping with the “like me” syndrome or the “guilty if I don’t” syndrome that an overwrought sense of duty engenders until the original atruistic purpose of doing unto others is lost in a haystack of “shoulds.”

3) I don’t deserve/need any help.  On the other hand, have I said “no thanks” even when I am in need of assistance, out of a sense of pride?  Absolutely.  In my line of work, I am often in a situation where the people I am serving in their homes need help.  There are many reasons why they might not want to accept help – money issues, not wanting someone strange in their home, not wanting to trouble anyone.  This last one is the only one I have the power to change.  This is my stock line:

“Have you every helped anyone in your life?”

“Oh my, yes, I used to do blah blah blah and blah blah blah and…”

“Did it make you feel good?”

“Oh yes.”

“Well,  why not let other people experience the joyful rewards of giving?” 

“I never thought of that.”

Sometimes the money issues or the stranger issues still must be dealt with, but when we suffer from the “I don’t want to trouble anyone” syndrome we are indeed depriving givers the joy of doing just that.  It is the opposite sin, as I see it, from taking more than your share. 

Long ago I remember being burned out as a young mother and I called a mother’s “help hotline” in San Francisco to talk to someone.  I can still hear the voice of the woman telling me this, and it was news to me, but so obvious: You can’t be any good for anyone else if you don’t take care of yourself.  You have to recharge your batteries to be available to your family.

It ultimately took me years to fully internalize that advice.  I went from being the mom who had to remind herself to take a hot bath once in awhile to a physical therapist who had to remind herself to just say no.

And now, for anyone who suffers from my overly-do-good affliction, here is a little trick I learned watching local cable TV years back, to help with little everyday decisions about whether to do or not to do.  This especially works when you are so overwhelmed by little piddly tasks that you can’t even think anymore.  Take a piece of paper and draw a two by two table – two columns and two rows.  

Label the first column Have To.  

Label the second column Don’t Have To. 

Label the first row Want To.

Label the second row Don’t Want To.

Now, let’s say you have to decide whether to bake cookies for the bake sale – again.  

1)You love to bake and promised you would – that goes in the first row, first column – you want to and you have to.

2) Let’s say you aren’t really busy and you didn’t promise to bake for the bake sale, so you don’t really HAVE to,  but you have a little extra time and would like to.  That goes in the first row, second column. 

3) Now, you promised you would bring gluten-free cookies to the bake sale and people are counting on that, or there will be no gluten-free cookies.  It’s not earthshaking, but you are busy and don’t want to, but since you promised, under most circumstances that would be a have to (and a lesson to not to make promises you don’t really want to make.) So that would go under row two, column one. 

4) Finally, you don’t have to, it was just something you thought maybe you’d get around to and no one is counting on it, nor did you promise to do it, and because you are exhausted from work, you don’t want to.  That goes in the second row, second column.

So, we have two no-brainers here:

Want to and have to? Well, no skin off your nose.  Happy baking!

 Don’t want to, don’t have to? Put your feet up and watch Survivor. 

The next categories are where the decisions come in:

You want to, but you don’t have to.  Time to reconsider whether that ‘want to’ must be done immediately, or whether you can put it off til another day.  Even though you enjoy baking cookies, will staying up to midnight make seeing that new client tomorrow make you look like you haven’t had enough sleep and have you mumbling like an incomptenent boob at your first meeting?  Will it make it more difficult to finish packing for the trip this weekend?  Maybe time to leave the generous cookie baking for another time.  People will still like you.

You don’t want to, but you have to.  Fill in the blanks for your most relevant don’t want to but have to.  I’ve already confessed I’m The World’s Laziest Physical Therapist.  I don’t want to go to the gym.  I have to to control many aspects of my health.  Sometimes ya just gotta.  Discerning what other things i your life can make the don’t want to/but have to obligations  a little less stressful.

Off to work.  Don’t want to.  Have to.  Writing this blog – don’t have to, want to, and did it just because I want to.  Pure bliss as I head off to that new client!