So, having recognized that I do, in small ways in daily life, need to be saved, and having acknowledged that I am, in fact, worth saving, how does one go about it?
I started small. It started with acknowledging that I am, in fact, human and as such, do have limitations.
I learned that most of my guilt is pointless.
I have excessive amounts of guilt. I don’t know if it’s a born or a learned trait, but if left to my own devices, I could easily feel guilty for virtually everything that’s gone wrong anywhere near me. I had to learn to counteract this. Largely it helped to acknowledge I am not special, and that every adult in my life is also in possession of a brain and agency. Therefore, most of what I feel guilty for cannot be my fault unless I also blame everyone else around me. Which I generally find ridiculous to consider. Therefore, I can argue to myself, it’s not worth blaming myself either.
I learned to say no.
The guilt over saying no was, of course, inevitable. I learned to coax myself out of it by repeatedly reminding myself that I am of far more use to everyone if I am happy, functional, and capable of generating enthusiasm.
I learned to set more realistic expectations of myself.
There was guilt over this too, but I learned to manage that. It did, in fact, help that I had pushed myself to the limit so often in the past that I had a sense of where my limits truly lay and what would happen if I pushed myself beyond them.
I learned to push back.
One of the cornerstones of my former way of life involved caving to any and all needs of those I cared about. I thought this was what caring and loving was all about. But the fact was, the more I caved the higher expectations became until I could no longer fulfill them despite my best efforts, and ultimately it almost always headed into a nasty terrain filled with anger and tears.
Since it was a change, there was a lot of resistance when I first started pushing back. But once I overcame that bit, it turned out that a lot of things were a lot better when I defended myself. I respected myself in a way that I hadn’t been able to envision before, and it seemed that other people grew to respect me more as well.
I learned not to take other people’s emotions or words personally.
Once I respected myself more, it became patently obvious to me that I’d been largely concerned with the opinions of people who most likely didn’t think much about what they said to me, or how I felt. And it became easier to overcome any criticism tossed my way. Even when it is something intended personally, even when I can empathize that I did in some way unintentionally hurt a person emotionally, it helps to be able to take a step back and recognize that I am not entirely at fault, because emotions tend to be a function of a variety of circumstances, rather than one solitary event. Obviously this isn’t always so clear, but it helps me to keep it in mind.
I learned to find courage.
Saving myself still takes courage. It sometimes requires conflict, and it always requires me to face something unpleasant head-on and keep going. When I feel intimidated, I remind myself that ultimately, I am one tiny person in a gigantic, unimaginably huge universe. I am one of six billion people on the planet. My mistakes and failures are not the end of the world, and I am not alone.
It’s all about finding the right angle to manipulate myself, to put it cynically. But so far, it’s worked to keep me moving from day to day.