No one expected me to be the super woman I was trying to be. I was doing it to myself. There are many reasons I put that kind of pressure on myself and it came out of the challenges and traumas of my childhood. Having a mother who was sick a great deal of the time Being the oldest of six kids with younger ones to care for Living with expectations to overachieve Believing it was better to give than to receive Avoiding feeling shamed or dismissed by anticipating others' needs Staying busy to keep from reliving the pain of my traumatic experiences And more
As young adult, I hadn’t yet learned how to recognize or change the super-woman complex I had developed in order to survive. So, the pattern drove my life. With everything and everyone else coming first, my essential self was getting lost.
What I discovered as I began to heal is that overwhelm happens when we feel defeated. When a big part of you is feeling defeated (sometimes before you even really get started), it’s difficult to see what is important, like putting yourself first. |