It's 7:15 in the morning, as I write this. Outside my living-room windows, the sky is pale stripes of pink and blue, like the trans flag!
(I've never lived in an apartment primarily facing west, so it's new sky/light for me... )
Now we're in October, I've been going to bed early again, and getting up early.
When it's dark at 6 in the evening, I have a hard time staying up for many hours past that, especially since I rarely watch media (which does keep me awake).
I kind of like getting up in the dark mornings, and seeing the sky gradually lighten.
I never wrote here what helped me with my question I'd taken to the useless therapist:
How can I show up for the suffering of others, especially the people I see at work?
As I did write about, after the therapist suggested Buddhism and therapy books from the 1990s, I went looking again in the bloody mess of the Christian story.
I found the answer I needed in a youTube video by Fr. Mike Schmitz (the Catholic chaplain at--funnily enough--UM-Duluth),
Is Self-Care Selfish? Why Self-Care Is Important for Loving Others.
Most of what he says is solid and familiar:
Take care of yourself so you can help others. If oxygen levels fall, put on your own air mask before helping others put theirs on.
And, You are worth taking care of. In Christian terms, you are a beloved child of God. "Love your neighbor as yourself" presumes you, commands you to, love yourself.
But also––this was it for me––he looks into the camera at min. 8:55 and says,
"You're not the savior."
Wow. That hit me. I watched him say it a dozen or more times.
"You're not the savior. So you get to establish boundaries. You get to actually say, No."
But I knew that. Even if you don't believe in "a Savior," I, you, we know we are not it, right?
Well, yeah.
But, no.
My parents were non-religious, but my mother taught me since babyhood that it was my job was to save her.
I was her little soul mate. I was her savior.
Or, I was supposed to be.
NOT THAT IT WORKED.
I always say, sort of jokingly? that I did all I could, and she killed herself anyway.
That's the thing: We can help; but no matter how much we knock ourselves out, we can't save. Not because we're a failure, but because we are not supernatural. (Whatever we do, however super, is in our nature.)
After our mother's death, my sister said,
"We can't live without love. But love is not enough."
"You are not the savior":
THAT is what I needed to hear. I need to know and remember that I'm not failing to be the savior of the people dying on the sidewalk---I actually am not the savior.
If I hadn't seen that deficient therapist, I wouldn't have gone looking to that wacky religion for help.
So––ha! therapy worked, via negativa.
(Also, the Not-a-Savior story was free, not $185/hour.)
That phrase, "I am not the savior", which I say to myself, is such a comfort... and a charge. I wasn't looking for help to say No; I wanted help saying Yes.
It makes me MORE able to do whatever tiny, little thing I can (should/ want to) do as a tiny, little human, same as they are––tiny, little humans.
If all I can do is ask some desperate person (or non-desperate one) what their name is, then I want to DO THAT.
It's not enough, but I don't have to put that expectation on myself. It's so freeing to know I am not-enough.
I can be a steward, but I am not a savior.
That's the way it is.
Maybe, with that perspective, I can feel freer to ask for help for myself too.
I always felt I was overburdening people, but asking for help is NOT asking for salvation, it's just asking someone to do a tiny, little human thing. As we do.
The other day, a coworker was telling me about a desperately needy friend, and how she feels bad that she can't show up for this friend at all the times the friend wants (needs?).
"It's okay you can't give your friend everything," I said. Feeling a little presumptuous, I added, "You are not the savior."
It was like administering anti-toxin. Her face literally relaxed at the words, "You are not the savior".
"I needed to hear that," she said.
So did I.
______________
for me, i learned that years ago at a methodist youth group meeting that i used to go to while in high school. we were talking about saving people and the world and the speaker at that meeting said "you can't save everybody. you do what you can but you need to realize that you can't save the world" or something along that line.
ReplyDeletethat statement really opened my eyes to the whole "saving" thing that we have all been taught in our religious classes that we (the royal we) have to save the world and everyone in it. no we can't and to put that burden on us (the royal us) is so wrong. since then i do what i can --i select who i donate money to and who i support with my time. and hopefully that action no matter how small will reach and touch someone else and maybe it "saves" them.
kirsten
ps Odo looks so at home. yes bears wait patiently
Yes, that's it, Kirsten--you can't save everybody.
ReplyDeleteI heard that, I knew that, but since it was my mother who was saying "Save me", her voice stuck the most.
20 years after her death, I can really take in the other message, I am not a savior.