I’m sitting with something new in the last few days. Not sitting with them mentally, but emotionally. I really don’t know what happened for them to appear in my body, I was simply sitting, minding my own business, when the following phrases presented themselves in my being:
I don’t want to be someone’s savior.
I don’t want to prove that I can help.
I would rather disappoint people than do something I don’t want to do.
To me, those are big sentences. As someone who has spent her entire life abandoning herself for the sake of connection, a 10/10 codependent, a people pleaser, a good person and a nice girl… I don’t want to save you. I don’t want to save you from your experience. I don’t want to save you from your feelings. I don’t want to save you from yourself. I want to witness you, I want to be there with you, I want to take your hand, if you want to, and lead you through and out.
I don’t want to prove myself. I don’t want to prove that I can help. I know I can help. For those who want it; if YOU want it. It’s weird, feeling like I don’t want to meddle. It’s weird feeling like I might not choose to be around if being around feels bad and there’s no desire to change. I have always expected myself to accept, unconditionally. I never dared to acknowledge that I might want someone to create change for me, until now.
If someone doesn’t want to find a third option, a way for both of us to feel good, I would rather disappoint them than do something I don’t want to do. I would rather stand in the discomfort of letting them down than abandon myself. I would rather face their projections, their judgement, their disapproval; I would rather feel the rupture in the connection than to deny the reality of who I am.
Gunhild Archer, counselor 