gifting others the happy hit of helping you out
butter from my morning pages to soothe a hyperindependence rash
Affirmations for the receiving wound, and for your inner feminine. For those cute humans who say “I can do it all myself,” but were still born a social animal, designed by DNA to need love, community, connection, support and the fun of not having to do it all themselves.
I love receiving, and I am so comfortable with receiving.
(Yes, I started with the one that may feel ickier to say the stronger your receiving wound. For me, affirmations that really stretch me far and feel whacko to even say out loud are the most medicinal).
People love to feel needed by me.
People love to help me.
People love to make life easier for me.
People love to witness me feeling easier about something, or enjoy something more, because of their help (verified by psychology, btw).
People love to help me because it literally boosts serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin in their brains when they help me - just as it does for me when I help someone.
I give people the gift of helping me. People feel good when they help me, with big things and little.
My relationships are nourished when I receive help from them.
My relationships are made stronger, deeper and closer when I allow someone to help me and invest into me (in any way).
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You may notice that in phrasing those affirmations, I’ve refrained from engaging with any sort of tally of “Oh I do so much, I give so much, I did this or I did that and therefore I too ‘deserve to’ receive.”
Yes, it’s a reality for most of us to be aware of things like that, and protect our boundaries in situations where we are pouring to the point of depletion without receiving anything back. And yet, the reason these affirmations came through for me is that they’re a reminder that my value, worth and eligibility for help isn’t a negotiation.
Sometimes, it’s important to be reminded of the ways in which we are inherently worthy and valuable just because we exist, in a world thats constantly telling you that how much you do/give is your only parameter of how much you can be allowed to have. We were supposed to keep that to matters of money and economics. Not bring it in to love, support, connection.
There is medicine in allowing safe microdoses of kindness and love, just for the sake of kindness and love.
I’m not going to tell you to ‘transcend’ worldly barters and become a spiritual ideal of unconditional love and forgiveness towards all. I have too much Scorpio in me. I value being observant and discerning, I see sense in noticing how much the people in my life invest into me, and protecting my Pisces Sun and Cancer Moon from their default of overgiving.
But I am going to always encourage you to allow yourself to receive help. Ask for support. Ask for help with one tiny thing everyday as a spiritual challenge, if you need to. Doing it all by yourself, and making hyper-independence your badge of honour perennially will burn you out and dry you up.
It’s beautiful how we can all summon the inner strength, grit and resilience to summon up the capacity to do it all by ourselves and not need anybody (almost) in seasons of our life that leave us no choice but to learn this lesson.
It’s also beautiful to put it down when the season has softened, and to look for opportunities to put it down. It’s beautiful to refuse to make a home there.
To refuse to tie your identity with being she who can do it all, all by herself, and never need anyone. To stop clenching on to it long after it’s expiration date.
Did you know that the surest way to make a new friend is to allow them to help you or do you a favour? That humans form closeness with you from helping you? And your allowing them to help you in any way causes significantly more bonding towards you, from a neuroscience perspective, than how much bonding is caused by how much you do for them.
Of course you can do everything by yourself. Of course you didn’t even have a choice but to do it all yourself in so many seasons of your life. Of course so many of us grew up in conditions where doing it all by ourselves was survival. But, do we need to carry that forever? You’ve mastered survival mode, but now, it’s time to thrive.
I like my affirmations written down everyday, but I love to speak them to myself in a mirror the most (it’s like casting a spell in the shower). Whatever feels the best for you, I hope that this little share from my morning pages brings you to an interesting moment of reflection about your own relationship with hyperindependence, and cultivating community as adults in a digital, WFH, online courses, no-time-for-gardens and increasingly isolated world where people speak of suffering from anxiety, depression, loneliness and poor sleep even more prevalently and normally than the common cold.
What are you going to allow yourself to receive?
Sharing a beautiful piece from Emmie’s Substack that I was reading in bed right before I slept last night, and I am quite certain that this is the energetic thread that snaked its way into my pages today <3
That summer, watching the cosmos grow tall as tiny trees before they finally spat flowers all over each other, I also learned how crippling my over-giving, my I can do it all myself affliction had become.