Can We Care Too Much? Podcast 188

Caring for others is part of being human. We have concern. We wish people well. We want to help. Caring feelings and actions are acts of love and kindness. But there can be a shadow side of caring when we slip into control, criticism or worry. When we care too much about what others are doing or feeling, we may lose sight of ourselves and do more harm than good.

Transcript

Hey there.

Welcome to Spiritual Psychology.

My name is Renee LaVallee McKenna and I bring my 30 plus years as a recovering addict and ex-crazy person turned therapist and shamanic healer to bring you snackable teachings on spirituality,

Psychology,

And all things personal growth.

And today I'm going to talk about caring too much.

And I believe there's healthy care and unhealthy care,

Both for ourselves and others.

And healthy care is when we provide what's needed for the protection or the wellbeing of others and ourselves.

Care as a feeling or attitude is an aspect of love or friendship and a connection that we feel with other humans,

Whether we know them personally or not.

When I have feelings or take actions of care for another person,

I want them to be happy,

Healthy,

Safe,

And fulfilled in their life.

So care can be a feeling.

I care deeply about my friends,

My students,

My clients,

My family.

It's a heart centered connection of wanting the best for someone else.

Care can be an action.

My daughter got pink eye on top of having a sinus infection and living in Manhattan now we have to walk everywhere.

So I've walked up to CVS five times in the last three days.

In fact,

Lots of things are open 24 hours in New York.

And one of my trips to CVS was a total bust because there was literally like 35 people in line at the prescription counter.

And while I was in line,

I decided to double check the prescription on my phone and it wasn't even ready for pickup yet.

So I grabbed a city bike late last night on my way home from this awesome music event with this amazing Australian world music artist Daya Dova.

She was born in the Australian desert and she channels music from the earth.

She travels to sacred sites all over the world and communes with the elements and makes amazing music.

A lot of her singing isn't actually in words,

Although it sounds like a foreign language.

It was this stunningly intimate and beautiful sacred ceremony.

The whole thing,

I expected it to be more like a techno rave because she's big in the ecstatic dance world,

Which is something I've started to get interested in.

And they started the evening with a sacred cacao ceremony for about 200 people and handed us all cups of cacao.

So the whole thing was just a beautiful,

Nourishing,

Kind of mind-blowing experience for me.

I texted a friend.

It was like going to Burning Man in Brooklyn,

This gorgeous healing space called Gaia Nomaia.

So I want to put a plug in for them if anybody's in the New York area.

In fact,

I connected with one of the managers there last night and I'm going to look into doing some live events there myself.

So anyway,

So on the way home on the subway,

Stopped at CVS at 2.

30 in the morning because I knew there'd be no line at the pharmacy.

That is an act of healthy care.

There's a lot of compulsive hand-washing going on over here because conjunctivitis is super contagious.

And the last time my kids got it,

I got it too.

My daughter said,

I remember the last time we did this and he put the eyedrop.

Every time he'd give me an eyedrop,

He'd give me a jelly bean.

I don't remember that,

But hopefully that's a happy childhood memory.

So optimally when we're caring for people,

We're giving them our best self.

We're extending our life energy to connect,

To help nourish,

Support,

Or even heal the people,

Places,

Animals,

And things that we care about and care for.

We're offering them positive,

Constructive,

Helpful,

And even nourishing words,

Actions,

And substances.

So parents care for their children by feeding them,

Providing healthy activities,

Balance of play,

Learning,

Rest,

Social interaction.

We care for our friends by checking in on them,

Seeing how they're doing,

Offering them love,

Companionship,

Support,

And even courage or joy.

We may care for the elderly or less fortunate by sharing generously of our own resources,

Even if that's just our own abilities,

To offer our caring in assistance for things that they couldn't do by themselves.

I was on the bus the other day.

One of the amazing things about living in New York is that everybody's out on the street,

The poor and the affluent,

The very young and the very old,

Because nobody drives.

So we're all out there in this big village and certainly you can take taxis and Ubers,

But lots of people take the bus and the subway.

So I was coming back from Trader Joe's with all my food for the week.

The woman in the seat across from me had a couple of big plants and a big bag of pillows,

And she had a cane,

And the bus was really crowded.

And as we approached her bus stop,

There were these two nannies that both had children in strollers taking up the whole aisle,

And we all talked about how we were going to organize ourselves to help this woman get her stuff off the bus.

So one of the strollers moved this way,

And the other one moved that way,

And we helped her get her bags.

And one of the nannies said,

It's one of the things I love about New York.

People help each other.

And I have to say,

It's one of the things that I'm really loving about New York myself,

Because there is this sense of communal caring for each other out on the street.

And we can care for those we don't even know or may not ever meet.

When there's violence or tragedy in the world,

We can feel great care for the suffering or experience of people experiencing war,

Upheaval,

Natural disasters.

And that care may move us to send money or goods,

Or join Doctors Without Borders and go right on the front lines.

Or we may send them our prayers for peace,

For hope,

For comfort,

And healing.

And healthy care,

Or from my perspective,

Really helpful care,

Is about offering these high resonances of positive energy,

Of love,

Compassion,

Courage,

Serenity,

Hope,

To send light into the darkness or fill up empty spaces with goodness and with care.

And I believe that on the deepest levels,

Everything is energy.

And so the energy that we put out has an effect on the larger system.

And adding positive energy,

Whether it's in our thoughts and prayers or in our actions and behaviors,

Is always positive and helpful for everyone involved,

Including us.

But it's very easy and extremely common to care for people by worrying about them,

By judging them,

Or even by guilting or shaming them to get them to change or do the things that we believe will get them out of the circumstances they are in.

Now,

The motive may be to alleviate their suffering or to help them.

But when we look deeply at it,

Sending people our fear,

Our anger,

Our judgment,

Or our hopelessness often doesn't feel very caring as they receive it and can leave a really kind of almost toxic residue within us as well.

Even though there is authentic love,

Concern,

And care underneath it,

When we serve up our little care snacks with guilt or worry or criticism,

They have a really bitter taste and they're often not well received.

So even though we're really trying to be helpful,

People can feel that other more negative energy that's wrapped up in the care and they defend themselves against it and don't want to take what we're offering.

And there's information in those dynamics about us,

Our own deeper motives,

Ways that we might learn to care in a healthier way that's even more productive.

Because what often happens when we care for people is we think we know what's best for them and try to make them do that thing or behave that way.

And people resist being forced or asked to change.

So we'll either double down our efforts and try to control them even more,

Or we may remove ourself with bitterness,

Resentment,

Or feeling rejected.

And one of the great principles in Al-Anon,

The 12-step fellowship for friends and families of alcoholics,

Addicts,

And dysfunctional families,

Because many addicts and dysfunctional people have a codependent caring for them,

And that's often a really dysfunctional pattern for everybody involved.

And so in Al-Anon,

The principle of letting go with love or detaching with love doesn't mean to not care for the person,

It just means to extract our claws from them.

And when we learn to care for others without attachment to the outcome,

When we can love without conditions,

It certainly elevates us and frees us up from a lot of the suffering that comes with caring too much about someone else's problems,

And allows us to love and accept them as they are,

Still trying to be present and helpful,

But free from the need for them to be different in order for us to be okay.

And that space often allows the other person to hear us and surprisingly often make the changes that we actually hope that they'll make,

Because they're free of us imposing our will upon them.

I've been desperately codependent many times in my life,

And the very easy way for me to see if I'm getting sucked into my codependency,

And it is my codependency,

Is if I'm spending more time thinking about other people's problems than I am about my own life circumstances.

Gotta yank myself back to my own side of the street and free you up to live your own life.

Come back to center and remember there is a higher power,

And I am not it.

And when I'm caring in a healthy way,

I'm aligning with this force for higher good,

But I'm not trying to drive the bus or sit in the back smoking a cigarette out the back window.

There's an optimal participation that we can do to offer our care,

And when we're doing that,

It generally feels good for us as well.

So I had a client this week who has a lifelong friend she cares deeply about,

And the friend we'll call Andy,

Has three children including a special needs teenager,

And Andy is also a deeply caring person,

Very active in her community,

And always going the extra mile for the kids.

And they live a little bit out in the country,

And Andy has to drive the kids to all these different sporting events,

And a special needs kid has special care things,

So she's always driving long distances in between caring for the household and working.

And Andy's been talking a lot about how exhausted she is all the time.

My client suggested maybe Andy get a medical checkup,

Maybe even do a sleep study,

See if she has sleep apnea.

Andy was super resistant,

I'm not wearing a mask to bed,

Everything's fine.

And a few weeks ago,

Andy was driving one of the kids back from a weekend basketball tournament,

And they both fell asleep in the car and had a terrible car accident.

And although everybody's okay now,

Both Andy and the child needed surgery.

My client went up and spent the week with them,

When they get out of the hospital,

To help as best she could.

And when she came home,

She was really angry and judgmental,

And she didn't want to be.

She loves this person.

And when we looked deeply at my client's anger at her friend,

She said,

Andy's just not taking care of herself.

She's dismissing herself and making everybody more important than she is in her life.

And it turned into a tragedy.

And I was able to point out to my client that that's exactly what she has done in her own life,

Is to put everyone else first,

And to not deeply care for herself.

And she's putting tremendous effort into self-care in a healthy way,

To great effect.

And so she was able to see that the thing that she was judging and resenting in her friend is actually a thing she's been upset with herself about,

Which is very common.

There's a saying,

If you spot it,

You got it.

Meaning it's often what we see in other people that bugs us,

The things that we don't want to see in ourself.

And so we did some meditation on aligning with love and compassion and acceptance in relation to her friend,

Elevating that energy of judgment,

Anger,

And resentment,

Especially where she could kind of see where it was sticky with her own stuff.

And coincidentally or not,

A few hours after that session,

My client texted me that she had a call with Andy.

And Andy said,

I just want to let you know I'm getting tested for sleep apnea and looking into the deeper issues of what happened with the car accident.

And so part of care is sharing our thoughts,

Feelings,

Concerns with those we care about.

And sometimes caring for others is about keeping our mouth shut.

Knowing when to tell the difference is our own personal growth work.

And sometimes we need a lot of help to figure out which one is right in any given situation.

So if you are distressed for the suffering of others,

Whether they are in the next room or halfway around the world,

You might consider,

Are you offering them fear,

Hopelessness,

Criticism,

Or guilt?

Or are you offering love,

Empathy,

Compassion,

Kindness,

And peace?

And what we send out comes back to us.

And what we put out is our offering of care to others.

Blessings on your path until we meet again.

This is Renee LaVallee McKenna for Spiritual Psychology.

Reviews

So incredibly brilliant and reassuring❤️🫂very timely for me as well; I am recovering from codependency and it's been so difficult to NOT care about/hyperfocus on others, because that was the entire dynamic of the toxic household I grew up in. The idea of taking care of myself is still such a foreign concept to me in so many ways, yet I'm always focused on how others are doing. Thank you for this gift, I will be listening to it DAILY ❤️🙏

Super helpful & valuable info! Thanks for sharing!!

I loved the message🙏🏽It spoke well to the current state. Thank you

Always a joy to listen and ponder too 💙❤️🙏

Thank you!