THE HAVE-IT-ALL/DO-IT-ALL TRAP
One of the most damaging myths we've been led to believe is that we can have it all and do it all, in all ways, all the time. It's true, we can have it all on occasion and do it all for stretches at a time. We can even be it all for hours or days. But when we fall into the trap of trying to have, do, and be everything on a consistent basis, we run the risk of draining our energy reserves to a dangerous low.
One of my clients, Sarah, raised three children alone. Then she remarried and raised four more children—her stepson and three emotionally disturbed siblings whom she and her husband adopted. She made nearly all their clothes, cooked all the family meals from scratch, balanced a budget that would send chills up a contortionist's spine, and remained extremely active in her church. It upset her greatly when she occasionally felt unloving.
Sarah came from a background of trauma and deprivation that left her saturated with fear and struggling with deep emotional scars. Although she's one of the sweetest women I've ever known, fear of failure, abandonment, and not being lovable ruled her life. When she came to see me, she was desperately unhappy due to continually giving herself away, terrorizing herself with expectations only angels could live up to, and berating herself for a bewildering variety of real and imagined small inadequacies. To me, sainthood would have been appropriate for her, but she could only see herself through the lens of her abusive, neglectful, and frightening upbringing.
Little by little, with dedicated hard work, Sarah was able to fashion a small sign to hang over her soul, at least some of the time:
SUPERWOMAN DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE!
An important question to ask if we find we have chained ourselves to uncomfortable expectations is, “Who is defining what is meaningful to me?” Are you responding to your own or someone else's urgings? If you're following your own, are they kind and realistic nudges toward fulfillment or demanding kicks in the direction of perfection?
THE ART OF AVOIDANCE
When I was younger, I felt like an eager-to-please gerbil trapped on a wheel with no control over how fast it went. Now that I'm older and happier, life has settled into a more comfortable pace. But as I listen to the familiar ring in conversations among women who are compulsively juggling impossible tasks, obligations, and expectations, I feel exhausted. That was once me.
How and why did I allow myself to get so hopelessly trapped in the Have-It-All/Do-It-All syndrome? Two main reasons contributed to my frantic pace. First, my self-esteem had diminished to a record low and I was trying to convince myself that I was okay by doing a lot of different things and attempting to be wonderful and scintillating at all times. Second, I didn't feel I had what I wanted and needed, nor was what was wanted and needed to make life joyful and worthwhile. Busyness and overcommitment were my ways to avoid facing how unhappy I was with myself, my marriage, my parenting skills, my very life.
But avoidance doesn't work forever. Even though I had pretty much mastered the art, finally a very exhausted, depleted, weak, and vulnerable me had to acknowledge the truth about my unhappiness and the failure of my marriage. With a lot of help from friends and family, I slowly and laboriously found the courage to make several much needed changes.
What is your Have-It-All/Do-It-All trap baited with? Avoidance, guilt, and fear, as mine was? Please give yourself a life-saving gift and examine your motives if you are busier than you want to be. When we fear that we won't live up to others' expectations, and suffer guilt when we don't (or think we don't), we may be defining ourselves as a superwoman who can be everything to everyone. Such a definition pretty much guarantees that our expectations will rarely be met, and even when they are, we'll likely replace them with higher and ever-unattainable new ones.
Of course, women who are caught in the stranglehold of the Have-It-All/Do-It-All trap are often driven by economic necessity, as well as personal desire, to hold down a full-time job outside the home and a full-time job inside as well. Whether we're married or single, career women or at-home women, or both, we are often prodded mercilessly by an inner dragon to be perfect. As we find the courage to allow ourselves to be who we are—imperfect, but committed to growth— we begin to untie the ropes that bind us to emotional dependence.
Although we may embrace the paradigm of partnership and believe in our equality with deep conviction, it takes a great deal of courage and hard work to name and overcome the fears that block us from experiencing our emotional strength. As we learn to honor our limits and boundaries and free ourselves from the terror of unrealistic expectations, we will be well on the road to expressing who we authentically are.
CHAPTER FOUR
ALLOWING OURSELVES TO BE INVADED
My problem is that I forget what I know.
ESTHER HEFFRON JOHNSON
It's so important to break the pattern of looking outside ourselves for self-esteem. Asking others to mirror our value back to us inevitably leaves us feeling used and invaded. We also allow ourselves to be invaded if we constantly do for others and often resent that our own needs are not met; we doubt our decisions and beliefs and therefore acquiesce whenever someone disagrees; our children, mate, coworkers, and friends borrow from us without asking; we accept responsibility for other people's feelings and try to “fix” things; or people feel free to use our time thoughtlessly.
We become vulnerable to invasion through fear and lack of education: fear of rejection, imperfection, or confrontation and a lack of education about how to stand up for ourselves. Because we fear other people's reactions and don't know how to respond, we allow them to violate our limits and boundaries. Fortunately, our physical and emotional responses tell us when someone has trespassed on our private selves. We can learn how to tune into those feelings and use them as valuable clues for maintaining reasonable limits.
Invasion brings feelings of being taken advantage of, of having to give up something. If one of your children goes into your bathroom and borrows your hairbrush without asking, do you feel invaded, as if you've given up the right to have your things where and when you want them? If a hairbrush boundary has been clearly spelled out, the child has stepped past it, and you may well feel angry and resentful.
When you've just settled into a warm bath after a hard day at work and the kids bang on the door for you to settle a disagreement, whether you'll be invaded or not will depend upon your reaction. If, because of a false sense of responsibility for their happiness, you leap out of the tub and rush to solve their problems, you've allowed them to invade you. I know women who say they never have a moment to themselves because of the demands of their jobs and families. One woman told me she constantly feels as if she's being “nibbled to death by ducks.”
Routinely doing for others what they are perfectly capable of doing for themselves invites invasion. Because doing too much has been an ingrained habit of mine for most of my adult life, especially with my kids, I was tickled with myself recently when I gave my adult son the name and number of a woman to call who has some medical referrals for him instead of making the call myself. A tiny triumph, one might think, but he had asked me to get the referrals for him and my knee-jerk reaction was to do so. Normally, calling her would be fine with me, but I am busier than my son is right now and probably would have felt resentful if I'd followed my habitual pattern of doing simply because asked.
In my mind I earn a gold star for honoring how I really felt and setting a limit. My son actually won also, because a resentful mother is neither a fun nor loving mother.
But it's not always outer circumstances that allow invasion and keep women going at a killing pace. Often invasion comes via requirements we impose on ourselves through adhering to the Have- It-All/Do-It-All syndrome. While it's true that the demands on a woman to play many roles are stressful, we do have the right to make choices that put