The Moment I Realized I Was Leaving Myself Behind

The Hardest Person I've Ever Learned To Care For Is Myself.

I can spend hours doing something I love and feel energized afterward.

I can also spend ten minutes in the wrong conversation and think about it for three days.

That used to confuse me.

I'd leave an interaction feeling completely drained and have no idea why.

Nothing dramatic had happened.

Nobody had been rude.

Most of the time, the other person probably forgot the conversation before they got home.

Meanwhile, I'd be replaying it while making dinner.

Or brushing my teeth.

Or lying in bed trying to fall asleep.

I've always been a little embarrassed to admit that.

The truth is, I've never moved through the world lightly.

I notice things.

I remember things.

I pick up on shifts in people's energy, changes in their tone, the look on their face when they say they're "fine."

I've always cared deeply about people.

Not because I think it's the right thing to do.

I genuinely enjoy people.

I love hearing someone's story.

I love those conversations where you walk away feeling more connected to another human being than you did an hour earlier.

I've always wanted the world to be a kind place.

Maybe that's why it took me so long to notice how much energy I was giving away.

At the time, it didn't feel like giving.

It felt normal.

I've always paid attention to people.

If someone was hurting, I noticed.

If something felt off, I usually picked up on it.

Helping felt natural to me.

What I didn't notice was how much of that followed me home.

A conversation could be over, but I'd still be having it in my head hours later.

Someone else's problem could quietly become part of my day.

I'd spend far more time worrying about certain situations than the people involved ever did.

For the longest time, I blamed my calendar.

It seemed like the obvious explanation.

I was busy, after all.

It took me years to realize that some of my most exhausting days weren't the busiest ones.

Some days I could teach a class, answer emails, run errands, and feel perfectly fine.

Other days, a single interaction would stay with me for hours.

Looking back, that should have been a clue.

I'd spend far more time worrying about certain situations than the people involved ever did.

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The exhaustion had very little to do with how much I was doing.

It had more to do with how much of myself I was giving away.

I didn't see it at the time.

I just knew that every so often I wanted to escape the world for a little while.

I'd crawl into bed.

Put on something mindless.

Ignore my phone.

And wait until I felt like myself again.

The strange part was that I felt guilty the entire time.

Even while I was trying to recharge, there was a voice in the back of my head telling me I should be doing something more productive.

It never occurred to me that the person who needed my attention most was me.

Back then, being alone felt like something I needed to justify.

Now it feels more like maintenance.

The same way I wouldn't expect my phone battery to stay charged forever, I've stopped expecting myself to run on empty.

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"The strange part was that I felt guilty the entire time."

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There was another piece of this that took me even longer to understand.

I've always been someone who leads with trust.

If I meet someone new, my instinct is to assume the best about them.

Most of the time, that's one of my favorite things about myself.

Every now and then, though, I'd walk away from an interaction feeling surprisingly hurt.

Not because anything awful happened.

Just because I had shown up with openness and found myself standing across from someone who wasn't meeting me in the same place.

For a long time, I took that personally.

I assumed there was something wrong with me for caring so much.

Now I see it a little differently.

I think I was giving people access to my energy before they had earned it.

There's a difference between being open-hearted and being wide open.

I'm still learning where that line is.

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"There's a difference between being open-hearted and being wide open."

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I've spent a lot of time thinking about where some of this came from.

The answer isn't what most people would assume.

I had wonderful parents.

I was loved deeply.

I grew up in a family that valued kindness, respect, and treating people well.

One of the messages I absorbed growing up was that not every disagreement was worth the fight.

We didn't need to prove our worth to other people because we already knew who we were.

There's a lot of wisdom in that.

The problem wasn't the lesson.

The problem was what I did with it.

Somewhere along the way, I started confusing keeping the peace with taking care of myself.

I became very good at making other people comfortable.

Much less skilled at asking whether I was comfortable.

If something bothered me, I'd often let it go.

If someone was railroading me, I might stay quiet and deal with it later.

Sometimes much later.

Years later, I can see how those moments accumulated.

At the time, I didn't notice it happening.

I just knew that every so often my body would let me know it was carrying more than it wanted to.

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"The problem wasn't the lesson. The problem was what I did with it"

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One of the things that gives me hope is watching my daughters move through the world.

They're very different from me in some ways.

Not because they care less.

If anything, they're incredibly compassionate.

What strikes me is how naturally they seem to include themselves in the equation.

I spent years assuming that being a good person meant accommodating everyone around me.

They don't seem to carry that same belief.

When something feels off, they trust themselves enough to pay attention.

There's a confidence there that I admire.

Sometimes I wonder what my life would have looked like if I had learned that lesson earlier.

Then again, maybe this is simply my lesson to learn.

I'm still working on it.

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"What strikes me is how naturally they seem to include themselves in the equation."

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The thing that surprises me most is how long it took me to see it.

I spent so much time worrying about everyone else that I rarely stopped to ask how I was doing.

Looking back, it seems obvious.

At the time, it wasn't.

Maybe that's why this still feels like a practice instead of a lesson.

Every now and then, I still feel that urge to crawl into bed, put on something mindless, and disappear for a few hours.

The difference is that I don't immediately assume something is wrong.

I'm more likely to pay attention.

Usually there's a reason.

I've stretched myself too thin.

I've spent too much time focusing outward and not enough time checking in with myself.

That's information I pay attention to now.

And maybe that's what protecting my energy really means.

Remembering that I belong in that equation too.