How to Handle Yourself When You Really Have a Problem With Someone
I had really been struggling with a person in my life for a while. I had the hardest time with this person, more than anyone I had ever had in my past, it has seemed to me. I had tried everything that I knew to help myself with this person, but the weight had just gotten heavier no matter what I tried.
I wrote before in a previous writing that I realized that it was okay not to like someone, but in this situation that realization did not help me get past the problem at all.
I finally got so overwhelmed that I pretty much crashed and burned. It didn’t seem possible that this could have happened but it did. Then I had a realization. I realized that I was carrying something that wasn’t mine.
I remembered reading something about this issue in books about Codependency.
I didn’t really understand it though at the time. I knew I had a big tendency to feel responsible for others peoples pain but I didn’t realize that I could actually start to carry someone else’s shame and pain.
I realized that I was seeing this person’s inadequacy, insecurity, rejection, awkwardness and lack and I was taking it on as my own. How could this be?
I started to read a Codependency book that I have and I was reminded about internal boundaries or the lack thereof.
If we have weak or nonexistent internal boundaries we don’t know where we end and the other person begins.
I realized that when I see someone I feel really sorry for, because I perceive their awkwardness and lack, it reminded me of myself. I spent so much of my life feeling so many negative things that I didn’t want anyone else to go through what I did, especially I didn’t want them to experience negative feelings because of me.
I find it easier to deal with someone making me feel insignificant than to deal with the feelings of me causing someone else to feel insignificant.
If I feel insignificant next to someone else I can go to my hiding place with the Lord and get myself straightened out, but how do I deal with the sense that I might be causing someone else to feel insignificant? I remembered that I haven’t dealt with it very well in the past.
I realized that I have sacrificed parts of my life because someone around me might be jealous or envious of me.
If that happened I would feel so uncomfortable causing them pain that I would take myself out of the equation, even if it was a job that I liked or something else I was involved in.
I would feel so much pressure that I just had to excuse myself from involvement, so I could escape the pressure I was causing them.
I thought it was a caring thing to do, even though it didn’t feel caring to be running away.
I have made some decisions in my life and some of them were really detrimental to what I really cared about, because I was trying to save someone else from pain that I might be causing them.
Of course, this never works. We cannot carry someone else’s pain nor can we relieve it for them. This is something that the person has to do for themselves. Of course we can be a comfort to others by just being there for them, but this is definitely not what I am speaking of.
Instead, I realized that I was carrying their shame, pain, inadequacy, rejection and lack like a yoke and that yoke is not mine to carry. I can’t make it better for someone else.
There are so many things I neglected to do in my life because I believed I would make someone else feel bad if I did it, and I never wanted anyone else to feel the horrible way that I did for so long, so I would sacrifice myself for them.
This heavy yoke being carried by me for someone else, would eventually get so heavy that I couldn’t stand up anymore.
So my recent crashing and burning came about by carrying this heavy yoke which wasn’t mine. Jesus said that “His yoke was easy and His burden was light” and I realized I was carrying the yoke that only He had the strength to carry. I had to take that yoke off of my shoulders and put it on His shoulders.
I am not responsible to make sure no one else experiences pain or rejection.
That is not my job. I can’t allow those thoughts. I didn’t even realize I was doing it though. Now that I do know, I also know that I can’t allow myself to think about or put the attention or focus on this persons negative stuff any more. To do so puts me in danger of letting that yoke get back on my shoulders again.
I don’t ever want to experience that discomfort again like I just went through. It was so much pressure that I cracked and I don’t want to do that ever again.
If you have someone in your life that you really struggle with? It might be that your internal boundaries are down and you are letting them get into your inner space.
You might be trying to carry a load that you can’t and that can only be carried by the one who has the shoulders strong enough to carry another’s load.
I realized that I would never be free to help someone else if I take on their load. I have to be free myself to be able to bring freedom to others. If I start to carry their load then I cannot be free to be strong for them and be a support for them.
Only Jesus is the yoke bearer!
Take that yoke off of your shoulders and put it on His. If you have been carrying that yoke you probably already have some splinters in your shoulders from the heavy weight. Take that weight off and put it where it belongs.
Take the focus off of the other person and don’t allow the thoughts of responsibility or judgment for or against them to hold you down any longer. It is not a weight we can ever bear!