The Burden of Responsibility

This topic has been bouncing around in my head for a few weeks. I missed my self-imposed deadline of writing every 2 weeks because I’ve been trying, oh so hard, trying to be kinder to myself. To recognise all the rules I have made for myself. And to give myself permission to break them, or at least let them slide. The food program I’m doing has me looking at my emotions around food. I have a great blog on that but it’s a bit raw, and coloured with angry profanity at the moment so I may have to let that settle down and go back with a calmer eye when I’m less furious with the world of food. And less hangry. Food is a great example of the “rules” I have and the program (Wild Fit from Mind Valley) is supposed to help me let go of my rules. Only it seems to have introduced more rules, not less, giving me even less choice in my already spartan hair-shirt food list. Hence the anger and frustration. The looking at emotion is always good, I’m quite aware of my emotions around food, and it never hurts to suffer a bit more does it?

Where does my rule-making come from? Why do I need this structure in everything I do? Well it’s not everything, it’s in the areas I don’t feel safe. Like around food. But I digress, allowing myself the rule-breaking meant I didn’t write last week. The irony is, that in letting some things go because I’m so overwhelmed at the moment, I’m letting go of the things I want to be doing, instead of letting go of the things I don’t want to be doing in order to give myself the time to do the things I want to do. Like writing. And that’s a whole other subject.

The subject I’ve been trying to address is responsibility. Because ultimately I find it impossible to choose the things I want to do over the things that I think I should be doing because of this rigid responsibility I have. Somehow I’m seeing it everywhere, as is always the case when you turn you attention to it, and it makes me mad. I feel so much anger and disappointment in myself that I was so beholden to so many people and constructs for nearly all of my life, and that even now, fully aware of it and determined to change, I realise with surprise that I am still. What’s worse is that those to whom I feel duty-bound these days are probably completely unaware of my obligation. For example, you, dear reader. I have let you down by missing my 2 week deadline. I feel obliged to stick to my 2-week rule for reasons I can’t quite remember but that invariably includes: proving to you that I’m serious about my business, proving to you and the world that I’m working hard at it, proving to everyone that I’m reliable, proving to anyone and everyone in earshot how hard I work and therefore how worthy I am. Then there are all the commitments I feel towards Gary, who bumbles along in his life, enjoying the fruits of my obligation, but with no conscious acknowledgement of or demand for it. I have assumed responsibility for most things in the home, and of course now that I don’t have a full time job, who am I not to continue? The house, the bills, the garden and the chickens are my responsibility and the default position on the cat is that I have to check with Gary if her usual care-taking ritual is to be interrupted, to ensure he is around to deliver a seamless service.

Why?

At risk of perpetuating a sexual bias, I do think this is a problem for women more than men. Not exclusively, but I’ve only met one man who assumed total responsibility for his elderly mother, and he didn’t have a sister, so I’m happy to stand by the declaration that typically women pick up all the responsibility for just about everything unless she’s deemed incapable somehow (of choosing car for example, or getting the right insurance) or it was something the man did for himself before they met, and even then I suspect it would slowly slide over to her side of the plate. And for any same sex couples I would dearly, dearly love to know how that dynamic works. I do appreciate it’s a personality thing too, but the carer vs provider generally falls to female and male respectively. Gary used to do the car insurance. Other than cleaning (and painting, he insists I add), and before all you women applaud that Gary does the cleaning, it’s not like I walk away from the dishes, laundry, etc that’s literally all he does, running a duster and a hoover around whilst listening to loud rock. Then because he’s “working” and I’m not, because obviously running a guesthouse and building a business doesn’t qualify as work, that snuck back into my remit. Now whilst I do get mega fucked off about these things, it’s only fair to point out that Gary is simply taking advantage of the burdens I impose upon myself. When I try to point out the inequity it usually ends in a squabble but I’m fully aware that it’s because I’m usually FURIOUS by that point, and I address it in a sarky, confrontational manner rather than just NOT doing it, which is what I should do. I have spent my entire adulthood caring for people and resenting it. All my own work. I have spent my entire, sensitive adulthood feeling the discomfort of other peoples wants and needs and insinuating myself into the situation to soothe it, carefully strapping another little load securely onto my back.

When I met Gary, his mother was already an invalid. My mother was already consuming much of my time. I didn’t realise I was a people pleaser because I actually have a pretty good radar and a natural avoidance of high maintenance people. Unknowingly I’ve somewhat sidestepped these people and they’ve never got a foothold. I have no high maintenance friends. Not surprising said my counsellor, when your mother has consumed every spare minute you have. I did, however, worry that Gary did not see his mother enough. I somehow, miraculously, spared myself the hardship of taking on the role of trying to fix that myself, I think only because I was well on the way to being completely fried by then. But I saw Gary as selfish. I pondered how he was able to stay so distant. He got on well with his Mum and Dad, and he was obviously extremely fond of his mother. She absolutely doted on him. She literally lit up when he walked in, something that made both Debs and I gag, but it was touching to me: he wasn’t my sibling. Yet he walked away and didn’t worry between visits. If he didn’t feel like going to see them he didn’t. There was no wringing of hands and convincing himself his absence was justified. He just didn’t go. Or he did. Depending on how he felt. He SHOULD be taking more responsibility, my inner judge raged, parading out of all the sacrifices I had made for my Mum. Yet oddly, as I unpack the things that have held me hostage all my life I realise that Gary was right and I was wrong.

Abraham Hicks says people who call you selfish usually do so because they want you to do something for them, instead of you doing something for yourself. They also point out that we are unnecessarily in servitude to everyone around us all the time. Abraham says it’s lovely to want to get on. That is wonderful to love, and absolute love for all living beings is the ultimate goal, but meanwhile, here on earth, we are here for our own experiences. To enjoy and interact with other people, yes. To take responsibility for their care and their happiness, no. And never, ever at our own expense. That’s actually quite hard for us to process. It instinctively feels wrong.

Why?

Because we’ve been taught from an early age to please others and our society and every single mechanism in the family, at school, at church, at work, in politics, in every area of life, we are taught to obey, to fit in. To strive to please. To be accepted. Not to speak out. Not to rock to boat. To be good. To win approval from our parents, our teachers, our bosses, our friends and our society. And even when we speak out, it is usually to form alliance with another group with its own rules and viewpoints, different from the mainstream perhaps, but rules all the same and another, different, obligation to garner approval. It’s so insidious we don’t even know we’re doing it. And it’s all somehow tied up with our worthiness. That in order to be worthy we must be “good”, as determined by someone else’s standards, opinions, whims. Some people manage to balance their own needs with this desire to please, but a lot of us don’t, and for that we are doomed to eternal unhappiness as we strain, impossibly, to please everyone around us.

We all know that I worship RuPaul. And if we don’t then let me state, categorically for the record, that I worship RuPaul and RuPaul’s Drag Race is a constant source of entertainment, information, education and pure enjoyment for me. Sprinkled throughout out all episodes is a light touch of profound spiritual advice, though not advertised as such, it’s just fabulous teaching – about how the only way to be happy is to please yourself, to be true to yourself, to be who and what and how you are. To celebrate yourself exactly as you are. To not care what others think. Ru is always advising that all the queens are simply beautiful, talented, gifted beyond measure, and that the only thing that stands in the way of success is their own belief in themselves. It’s the teaching I only wish we had all had at school. All our lives in fact. I’d pay Ru to pop out of my bathroom cabinet each day to remind me.

However a little dark smudge in even this amazing series, is when the queens talk to the camera after elimination or after a performance that aren’t proud of. It’s only happened a few times, and it’s only ever said in private, but the last time I heard it I almost wept. “I’m only sorry that I let Ru down. That I have disappointed her”. In my version, Ru would appear out of the shadows and bitch-slap her hard and tell her to wash her mouth out. That she could NEVER be disappointed in them or anyone, that the ONLY thing that matters is that you did your best, it’s just a competition and failure is no reflection on your worthiness.

I might write to Ru about that. There’s enough of us trying so desperately to pointlessly please others, that to defile this wonderful series with any element of disappointment or responsibility to please Ru is deeply off message and should be corrected.

Meanwhile as I struggle to let go of my rules, I have a newfound respect for Gary. That everything that I thought made him selfish, somehow less than than me, actually makes him more than, a more balanced human being than me. I do so hate it when he’s right.