When you’re used to helping, fixing, caring, or doing, having something, or someone, simply show up ready to meet you can feel destabilizing, almost like a quiet loss of identity.

Because if you’re not the one holding everything together, then who are you now?

When you’re used to helping, fixing, caring, or doing, having something, or someone, simply show up ready to meet you can feel destabilizing, almost like a quiet loss of identity.

Because if you’re not the one holding everything together…

who are you now?

There’s a particular kind of shame that hides in the most capable people.

The ones who always show up, who make it look easy, who rarely, if ever, ask for anything in return.

It’s the shame of needing, of wanting, of being seen as “too much.”

Can you remember the moment you internalized that you were a burden?

Because so often, it was many small moments that started when we were young. And it’s not necessarily that we were surrounded by “bad” people, but rather, it was small moments that we internalized, moments when our parents or caretakers may have been too busy, too overwhelmed, too broken themselves to give what we were asking for.

In those moments, they were simply limited, and our child mind didn’t understand. Instead, it made a decision that felt like safety:
If I don’t ask for anything, I can’t be disappointed and they won’t be upset.
If I give instead of ask, maybe they’ll stay, and maybe they’ll even be happy.

And just like that, the pattern of over giving begins.

Every cycle in nature depends on balance. The tide moves in and out. The heartbeat contracts and expands. The breath flows both ways. And yet somewhere along the way, many of us learned that receiving wasn’t safe. That it came with a price, a hook, or a hidden expectation.

Maybe you learned that when someone gave to you, they later used it against you. Maybe “help” came with control. Maybe “love” meant debt. And so, you became the strong one. The giver. The one who never asks, who never needs, who never inconveniences anyone.

But cutting yourself off from receiving doesn’t make you strong; it makes you disconnected from life’s rhythm.

She was exhausted. Always caring for others, always giving more than she had, always managing every detail because she thought “no one else could.”

And yet, she longed for someone to show up for her. To support her. To let her lean back and rest.

The unfortunate truth is that when you give and give without balance, you don’t actually attract more generosity back. You often attract the opposite: people who take. And no matter how much you give, your own needs remain unmet.

I didn’t see it for years, because like so many givers, I told myself, “It’s fine, I don’t need anything back.”