Losing to Find

My mother should have named me Pander.

Let me explain. I have spent a lifetime worrying about other people. Worrying about hurting their feelings, worrying about saying or doing the wrong thing, worrying about social situations for fear or doing or say something that may insult or ridicule another.

Somewhere in all that worrying, I lost myself.

I pandered to others. I pandered to their needs, their desires, their hurts, their goals. All the while, I believed I was being a "good person" because I was soooo sensitive to others. You wanted a doormat? At your service. This worry-fuelled tendency to cater to others' sensitivities (which, by the way, were never stated but always assumed on my part) prevented me from ever developing a true sense of self. I had no idea who I was, because I was always being who other people need me to be. This played out in relationship after relationship, friendship after friendship. I wasn't myself. I was Pander.

Call it co-dependency, call it insanity, call it what you will, but it shelled me. I am the adult child of an alcoholic (gloriously sober for THIRTY YEARS - amazing!) so these codependent behaviours were part and parcel of my family of origin. I read all the books, went to some Al-Anon meetings, spent hours on Google trying to make sense of codependency. I learned some things, but I was still living the life of making sure others knew how much I cared by walking on eggshells around them.

Then, BAM, my thirties hit. That niggly little voice in the back of my head telling me it was finally time to figure out who I actually was got louder and louder. I began listening.

Here I am, thirty four, and the past few years have taught me some hard lessons - lessons that have begun freeing me from codependency. I began learning how to construct boundaries to protect myself instead of allowing others to walk all over me. But the most important things that I have learned?

That I am not perfect; I am going to mess up. I may say or do something that hurts someone else, but essentially, it's not my responsibility to make sure that person feels a certain way. That doesn't mean that I go out of my way to be hurtful; it just means that I do my best, and if someone feels hurt by my actions or words, that's their hurt for them to manage. They can talk about it with me, and I'll listen and acknowledge their hurt. But others' feelings are not my responsibility.

And my feelings are not anyone else's responsibility.

I truly feel that the more people grasp this, the less "politically correct" we'll have to worry about being in the presence of others; the more we'll be able to slough off insensitive or hurtful comments from people who are just making small talk. What prompted this was actually an article about aiming to be more sensitive to others' experiences (read: here), which is beautifully written, but left me feeling a little bit perplexed. The old me, Pander, would have allowed that article to shift my view of thinking for fear that disagreeing with the author would be wrong or bad. It's freeing to be able to disagree with someone's stance, all the while respecting it.

Don't think for a minute that I have this totally figured out; I still have to pray my way daily out of trying to make my husband feel crummy for not getting me a Mother's Day present (because as all married women know, that just doesn't work, no matter how hard we try, and seriously? He's not my kid; he doesn't need to get me a gift!) I am gifted every minute of every day with moments during which I can choose to pander, or choose to be my "authentic" self (to be cliché, of course.) I still fail. I still nod and smile and agree with people when they're saying something that doesn't make any sense to me, all the while seething underneath. I'm learning how to balance sensitivity to others with respect for my autonomy, my ideas, my beliefs.

I'll admit that a huge part of this comes from an ever-developing faith life, and learning how to serve God first. I try (and fail miserably much of the time) to honour my God in everything that I do and say. I'm learning who I am by His grace, and being released of the weight of codependency that rested on my shoulders for thirty-some-odd years. I have no doubt that God blessed me with a husband who is definitely not codependent (I can't wait until I hear from the bathroom: "WHAT'S CODEPENDENT MEAN?") so I had to learn how to interact with others like "normal" people do.

Now that I'm finding myself amidst this mess of former pandering, I'll admit that I am finding myself in more conflict with others - nothing major, but I've had a few run-ins with people I consider friends during which I shakily stood up for myself - sometimes everything turned out okay, but in some instances, friendships were strained. I don't enjoy confrontation and I don't seek it out, but my knees are a lot less jittery these days when it happens. To be honest, I'm nervous right now as I think about publishing this piece, but it's what I believe and I'm willing to put it out there.

Ultimately, my prayer is that women can begin recognizing how much they pander to others' sensitivities at the risk of losing any sense of self-worth. I say this from a place of experience and love. "Take in it what sense thou wilt." I know there will be those reading this who will begin to form not-so-favourable impressions of me; that's none of my business. Just know that pandering Liv is fading away.