I see you, swirling your cape like the superhero you love to be…it’s a pretty cool look, and I KNOW it feels good. But it’s time to put it away. You can do it. Just back away from the cape….you’ve got this!
I feel you because I LOVE dressing up and channeling your favourite superhero IS cool!
(On a wee aside…who’s your fav? Me? I’m a She-ra gal…I mean c’mon…look at this gal rock!!😎💪🏼)
SO ….’It’s all good fun to PLAY at super heroes (yes even when you’re a grown up!) but are you playing the rescuer in real life too?
- Do you watch out for people to help?
- Do you run in and offer support at every opportunity?
- Being supportive is a wonderful trait, but like anything it can be overplayed and when it is, it can be experienced as suffocating, patronising and disabling to the other people. And I bet that’s a million miles away from your intention.
Here’s the thing,
ALL meaningful change comes from within.
Think about it…you cut your skin and you might put a plaster over it…sometimes that plaster can be useful and sometimes not so much. Yet 100% of the healing of your skin came from you and NONE from the plaster.
You didn’t need the plaster for your skin to mend. In fact, depending on the depth & type of cut, it healed faster with absolutely no intervention. A plaster is often just a visual reminder to take care of yourself as your body heals.
And fess up, when you see someone with a plaster you’re curious, right? A little bit of you wonders what lies beneath…what happened. And…are they…ok?
‘My what a big plaster you have’..as your salacious rescuer juices begin to flow…
I love the metaphor of the birth. When a butterfly is ready to come into the world it struggles to chew through the threads of its’ cocoon. Well meaning people can see this struggle and feel they ‘should help’, and cut a larger hole for the butterfly to escape with greater ease. Yet without the struggle of the squeeze the butterflies wings don’t grow strong and ultimately is unable to fly.
Much like human birth, it’s a struggle for both mum & baby yet that struggle is needed for the baby to clear it’s lungs and the mum to heal and trigger the next stage of parenthood.
Struggle is part of life, yet we struggle seeing other people struggle…and so we put our capes on, ‘to help’.
Learned helplessness has also been associated with several different psychological disorders. Depression, anxiety, phobias, shyness, and loneliness can all be exacerbated by learned helplessness….
So, I wonder how taking your cape off could help you and the people around you thrive from the inside out?
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