Practical Spirituality
Join this fascinating discussion between Kim, a behavioral specialist with a deep curiosity about spirituality, and Gareth, a spiritual channel of Michael, as they address and explore the biggest and most meaningful questions we face in our day-to-day lives. Featuring direct, open and informed conversations about the things that impact us the most - from self-love and self-acceptance through to channeling and spiritual understandings. Discover new ways to connect to the deeper meaning of the world around you and understand the one within you. Become a Supporter at https://www.garethmichael.com/ to join our community and get early access to new episodes, answers to your personal questions and so much more.
Practical Spirituality
Can We Care Too Much?
In this episode of the Practical Spirituality Podcast, Gareth and Kim explore the emotional struggle many people face—the pendulum swing between caring too much and shutting down completely. They reflect on how this imbalance can lead to emotional exhaustion, isolation, and burnout.
Kim shares her personal experience with over-caring and the frustration of trying to stop herself from feeling so deeply. Gareth offers insight into how even well-meaning care can sometimes act as a distraction from facing one’s own healing. Together, they explore how cultural expectations often place unrealistic pressure on people to care endlessly, leading to guilt and resentment when boundaries are finally set.
Our hosts offer practical tools for finding a healthy balance—emphasizing that this is not about becoming less caring, but about learning to care in a way that doesn’t deplete our own wellbeing.
For anyone who has ever felt drained by their own empathy, this episode provides honest reflection, gentle guidance, and a reminder that caring for others starts with caring for ourselves.
Become a Community Member at https://community.garethmichael.com/ to join our community and get early access to new episodes, answers to your personal questions and so much more.
Welcome back to the Practical Spirituality Podcast. We are so excited to have you on this journey with us, where we explore all elements of mind, body, emotions and soul through the lens of everyday life.
Speaker 2:Hello Kim.
Speaker 1:Hello Gareth.
Speaker 2:How are you doing this evening?
Speaker 1:I'm good this evening, thank you. How are you?
Speaker 2:Well, the laugh before the recording helped lighten the mood a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yes, it did, yes, it did.
Speaker 2:I think for this week's episode.
Speaker 2:I want to talk about an interesting topic of when we find ourselves, or found ourselves in the past, caring too much about people, the world around us, life in general.
Speaker 2:And I think it's another interesting angle to take out of it because, especially with what's going on in the world, especially if you would deem yourself or deem someone else as a caring person, and that continuously becomes challenged on an ongoing basis, it can be very hard to keep that hope, to want to be an ongoing caring person towards others or towards the world around us, or any of us around us or any of us, if it constantly feels like it's being taken advantage of or it's not being seen or heard or and it's not even about it being reciprocated back always.
Speaker 2:Because I think if you're a caring person, you just want the best outcome, the best situation for people in general. But if you look at the world around us now, it doesn't seem as if a lot of the people in the world care about one another or care about really anything. So I just think it's a very interesting if you're a person who does care, but now it feels like you have to be forced not to care in order to, so to speak, survive. That's an interesting dynamic that I feel like a lot of people, or a lot of people, are being put in those positions at the moment.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, this is one that hits very close to home, and especially the angle you've chosen with it, and so I think it is going to be a very interesting topic, and it's interesting in the fact that, even as a very caring person, it is one of the struggles I've had my entire life, and no matter how many times I go. That's it. I've had my entire life, and no matter how many times I go. That's it, I'm done. I'm not caring about anybody anymore. Two seconds, goodbye, that's it Back in. It's very frustrating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, and I think we're in a world now. It's like I'm allowed to care only if I also have leverage that I can use if needed.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what it seems like.
Speaker 2:Yes, caring is becoming a lot more conditioned that you actually, because I feel like people feel like it's not safe anymore to actually care fully or authentically because we've just been all maybe burned in a lot of different ways and this is just one angle, of course, because I do think so. We're going beyond talking about caring then. It's more than just being nice or being polite and saying please and thank you. We're having my deep caring of actually wanting the best for individuals, even if it means you going the extra mile in order to help that person. And so that's where it's an interesting conversation, because I think it's it's harder and harder to justify that those behaviors or actions anymore, especially if it's been long, over an extended period of time, where we don't feel it has been reciprocated or it's just been taken for granted or people have actually abused that part of us.
Speaker 2:And I think there is a natural instinct in human beings overall to want to care about one another. But just the way the world is and the patterns and behaviors that we all have been running now for such a long time, it does seem to become less and less present, and what I mean by presence that I do believe it still lives on within people, but especially our quality. That's being suppressed more than ever because people just don't see the value in it being the primary protocol when it comes to human interaction well, I think I agree with that, but I think it more like the cost of it.
Speaker 1:It's becoming too high because it does come at a high price if you don't know how to protect yourself from that, because most people that are really caring people like you said, and especially caring in the sense that you just genuinely care about somebody else's well-being and that you would just naturally step in and do things that other people might not You're going to get burned a few times and as sad as that is to say in today's world, that is the truth, is the truth, and I think we're finding fewer and fewer people that are like that only because they have to protect themselves, so they put that shell up around themselves and pretend that they don't care.
Speaker 2:Which makes sense. You know, you can't blame people for wanting to protect themselves or putting those walls up, and I think it's that. How can we get that balance, though? Because I think caring is such a natural instinct, whereas actually learning, as you're saying, how to protect ourselves under circumstances and how to heal those wounds doesn't come necessarily natural in our day-to-day culture. So, therefore, you want to find a space where you don't have to be so full caring mode all the time that you're going to expose yourself to so much more hurt, but that you don't also go to the other extreme of shutting ourselves down completely, where we're like I'm just not going to care anymore, as you've tried many times, but feel still trying but you know, because I think that's such a pendulum swing that actually really affects our belief, our understanding about ourselves and it does affect our relationships then, because it feels like we're swinging from caring to then shutting ourselves off and it does have consequences to how we interact with the people we love the most.
Speaker 2:So I think trying to understand how do we get that balance right in this life and I think a lot of the time, like most of the things we talk about, is about having an awareness and building a certain level of skill sets that we didn't know we needed, but we do have the wounds to show from our past of why these skill sets and healing is needed.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what I can say from my own personal experience, and the minute you brought this topic up, all I could see is a UNICEF commercial from when I was five years of age and the little boy standing there in Africa with his swollen belly and me just wanting to die and physically feeling sick because how could the world let somebody starve like that.
Speaker 1:And that was the beginning of me becoming aware of the depths that I did care. And it didn't stop with a commercial. It went on in many areas. So, like you said, there was so many wounds by the time I got to the point of really being able to understand that this is a. It's a very positive thing in me that I care, but also, at the same time, I spent so much time caring for everything outside of me instead of caring for me. And I think that is where the balance has to start, because often you'll find, with people who care, as it's often said to me you know all you got to do is pick up the phone and Kim will be right there Not necessarily a good thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, I mean, it's nice that people think that about me, but I need to have those boundaries as well and I need to be able to take care of myself as well. And if I can't find that balance, if I'm swinging from that pendulum, you know it does create all kinds of problems, not just emotional but physical. It affects your health, it affects your, you know. You do get to the point where you're like, no, I don't want to go around people, I'll be presented with something and I don't want to be around that. Thank you very much. So the balance for me came, you know, and I know people listening to our podcast might think you know, do they ever stop going on about this? But the only thing that made sense to me is when I discovered Sacred Contracts, because that was the only way I could find the balance, because I thought all the pain in the world was just because not enough people were caring and that if I cared enough, that I would make a difference and then, therefore, people would just naturally be nicer to each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, a few hard knocks against the wall and I found out that's not necessarily the way it works.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But it is. It's the balance, and when I started to understand that, that was the first time that I was able to go wait. I have no clue how to care for me, and I knew that because that was right around the time I got pregnant with my oldest child and that was my greatest fear. How do I take care of a baby when I can't even manage me at that point in my life, and so you know I had to grow up fast.
Speaker 2:But I think that's why it's such an interesting conversation, because it's so layered, because you said it is caring for ourselves, just caring for our family members, and then there's actually caring for the greater good of people and nature. And so, depending on which angle you're talking about, I think we can all. It brings up a lot emotionally and even in memories, different times in our lives. And just before we start I was even saying to you about where I struggle with how much I do care with people at times, because with anyone listening to the podcast or any of the clients I work with, of course I naturally care and somewhat even feel protective of them when I'm working with them at times. But I know how hard hitting as we even talked about in some recent episodes the spiritual contracts of mind design messaging can be, especially when you look out at the world and what people have to go through and to say that that's all a part of a contract that any of us, so to speak, signed up for at some level within us.
Speaker 2:The caring part of me really dislikes saying that, because I know how much pain and hurt people have actually gone through.
Speaker 2:So even though I 100 believe in the messaging, the part of me that doesn't want people to hurt more and the fact that I know this messaging actually brings up more hurt in them, I feel the caring part of me feels responsible. I don't I want to be that guy that brings up that pain and then etc, etc, etc. Even though I know it's 100 correct with michael's messaging and the messaging that's actually led to a lot of healing in my journey, your journey, other people's journey. But the point is that, even with all that logic there of understanding, as we both know the emotional part of it though, of the cost of the messaging and what that can bring up, so to speak, because the caring part of me doesn't want anyone to hurt more than what they have to, even though I know I'm not responsible for their hurt to start with. So it'd be easier for me to say, oh, I'll just not care over how people are going to respond to the messaging. But it's not that simple, as we both know.
Speaker 1:You just can't turn off that part of you like a switch you can't, you absolutely can't, and if anybody could, it would be me, because I've spent a lifetime trying, because I thought that was the number one problem with me is that I cared too much, and many people told me that, but it is the essence of who I am on so many different levels, so I can't just switch it off. I can't just switch it off but, as you so kindly tell me, when I sit with me and love me, then I can see the benefit somebody else has going through the journey that they're going through. And, of course, right at this moment I have, as I always do, quite a few people in my life that are going through quite a few things that I would much rather they'd not have to go, and if I could take their pain away from them, I would.
Speaker 1:Yep, absolutely it's just not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. So the most caring thing I can do is be present, sit in that strength to remind them that they have what it takes to move through this.
Speaker 2:And I think sometimes it's only that when we're exposed to how over-caring at times ends up hurting or burning us throughout life, that we actually begin to understand where there hasn't been boundaries, as you mentioned earlier, as we go through life.
Speaker 2:And I think the different ways in which that can appear is that when there is just that resentment that can often build and let that be with our partners, with our family and with our kids, with colleagues, friends, and even just a generalized burnout that we actually don't know how to be present with ourselves in mind, body emotions, and I think it's that this definition of self-care. So if we don't have that self-care, it's that how can those parts of us actually begin to heal and revive themselves as we go throughout life? Because we're just giving too much and then we can get into those patterns of that. That's what then people expect of us, because that's all they've ever known but you've talked about that often, even in your experience over the years is that when you give so much and then suddenly, when you start to put in those boundaries, it's like either I'm a caring person or a horrible person.
Speaker 2:It's like there's no in between yeah yeah, because it feels like black and white. Because we've never been shown or taught of how to find the correct boundaries that suits everyone's needs.
Speaker 1:Because when you're trying to figure that out it feels like an impossible task I'm going to throw a spanner in works here because I think this is an important part to bring up this subject and you're going to remember this as soon as I start to speak about it. A few years ago, I spoke to you about something I cared deeply about, that was probably more on a global scale, and you just kind of laughed at me and said, oh, you're just distracting yourself.
Speaker 1:And I was like you just kind of laughed at me and said oh, you're just distracting yourself, and I was like I really care about this, I am really genuinely worried about what is happening here and you know I can sit here a couple years later and go. Okay, I see where you were telling me. I was distracting myself, but I genuinely felt that I could see how many people on the planet were hurting because of the general overall thing that was happening.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I felt so powerless and helpless in it, but again I was able. After you said it, as with most things that you say to me, I go away kicking and screaming and going. You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong, you're right.
Speaker 2:I hate it when he's right.
Speaker 1:You know, because what?
Speaker 2:a fun dynamic we have.
Speaker 1:It's crazy, but it was very powerful for me because I did. That was the first time and I can honestly say it's the first time that I realized, oh, I can see where. I do this with a lot of things Because it feels so important, because so many people are involved, that we should care, but I have no power over that. So me caring and worrying does nothing but harm me and anyone that is around me and it's counterproductive to what I'm saying I care about.
Speaker 1:And that was a very huge lesson in self-care that you taught me around this subject, because I just didn't think I had any control over that, because it just felt so real to me at the time and so important as they do when they're in your face and it's a lesson for you to learn. But then, once I got it and I was able to go, I see my job is to take care of me and if I'm taking care of me and I am still being that loving, kind person to every single person around me, that's where I affect the change, not worrying about what's happening on the globe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's take a step back from this week's episode and share with everyone what we've been up to behind the scenes.
Speaker 1:We're really excited to be able to finally offer the Gareth Michael community to each of you. The community offers a range of benefits, including access to our live events, weekly podcast episodes, articles, self-checking questions, as well as a community of individuals you can connect with and interact with along the way. It's designed to offer you support, guidance and a safe space on a day-to-day basis. We'd love to have you join our global community of like-minded individuals. That website address, again, is wwwgarethmichaelcom. Now let's get back to that episode, shall we?
Speaker 2:And, as we talked about in the previous episode, it's like worrying is worshipping the problem, and I think it's that we never think that being too caring can be a problem. I want to, especially in the examples you're using there on a global scale, that we never think we can care too much as a way to escape ourselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was not happy with you when you told me I don't know if you remember, but I wasn't.
Speaker 2:And when I got it I like oh okay because it's not saying that these things aren't actually happening in the world or they don't. Of course it matters, and of course if other people are going through matters, but I think sometimes we it's a warped perspective at times of how much impact we can actually have to create the change that we expect to see in the world, and it's that we like. At most things, it always starts with self, as you mentioned, as we often talk about, and the impact that we can create around the people around us. But when we're starting to project it out to millions or billions of people and the governments and things that we actually do not have any sorts of control of, as you're saying, then you actually have to start questioning what is this really about?
Speaker 2:And no one ever likes that line of questioning, because, of course, the point is valid, but when it's pumped with a lot of emotion, I think that's what it's always very telling about. Where is that coming from?
Speaker 1:Well, it's like you said to me back then and can say now, because we're talking about self-care, you know the mind gets creative and how it brings things up, and I'm a runner from way back, and so it was just another way of running, from the fear that I was feeling at that time, of feeling out of control about what was happening, and so how many people think caring can become a way of running and avoiding?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Which it does in a lot of people's lives. Yeah, and I think that's an aspect that we don't talk about very much, about how it comes at that cost, if we're using it to avoid ourselves and what.
Speaker 2:what's happening for us so I think that's where it's an important conversation to understand what are the dynamics with our relationship with caring too little or too much and what, what are the different events in our lives that has actually dictated where we currently are on that scale, because, like anything we didn't, there's a history that comes along with this and a lot of it dealt and a lot of it very much undealt with, because we're just so unaware of all of these patterns, behaviors that come with it. So I think, in diving into that, what are some of the tips or ways in which we can start exploring our relationship with those parts of us that we find ourselves either caring too little or caring too much?
Speaker 1:So I think just even those words and we talked about the pendulum before caring too little or caring too much are the extremes of either end, and if we're at either end of those, there's usually something that we don't want to look at and so it's like, okay, so how do I start to explore why I care too much?
Speaker 1:Or how do I look at why do I not care at all? And so there's some questions that we can ask ourselves and, of course, as you and I always say, getting professional help or someone that's objective to help you look at it and see, because many times the word that gets used with caring too much is codependent, because you are caring about something outside of you more than you are caring about yourself and your own well-being, your immediate family's well-being, and everything is about outside of you. So the more you can turn it in and go okay. So what is this reflecting about me and becoming present to why it is you're caring and what's behind it? And caring too little is just like the caring too much is. Am I trying to avoid? What am I trying to avoid in that? And I don't think these are questions that we can answer on our own.
Speaker 1:I think, like we've often said, we can start to write about it and get an idea, but usually it just brings up a lot of the unexplored and unresolved emotions that might be driving some of that caring behavior. But we need that outside source to be able to really understand it and decipher it.
Speaker 2:And I think this was interesting when we do start to explore it or have the opportunity to, when you start to to realize, as we were talking a little briefly about earlier was that the elements of caring that have been taught to us and then the elements of it that are due to experience. What I mean by that is that, say, when it comes to family dynamics or within friends, there's an expectation that you should have a certain level of care, or if you don't go to certain birthdays or certain events, you don't care about us, so therefore you have to turn up in order to show that you care. So this, so there is conditioned elements of caring for ourselves or caring for others. That is kind of built into a lot of the different cultures globally.
Speaker 2:And then there's certain experiences that we were kind of more talking about at the start of this episode is that when we were caring too much emotionally about a person, a partner, a sibling, a friend or whatever it might be, then it being taken advantage of and we experienced that head on, with the emotional part of it versus, say, the former was the logically we've been trained or taught to have to care mentally about because of who they are in society, of what's expected from us. So it is actually quite layered in the different ways in which we approach this of what has been taught to us to expect in the black and white, or that pendulum swing and caring when it comes to cultural standards and social norms, and then it comes to our experiences. That tend to be that light switch of I have to turn it on or no, I have to turn it off, and it seems to sit back and forward and so experience dictates the emotional decisions on that versus the cultural elements of what we've been taught, of what we should or shouldn't care about.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and you know we talk about. The impact of that is that resentment and the burnout, because if you're out there caring too much, you're usually not taking care of yourself, you usually don't have the boundaries, so of course you hit the burnout and the resentment. So if you have hit burnout and resentment, you're on one end of those pendulums. Or if you're like me I'm not going out of the house this week you're probably at the other end of the pendulum.
Speaker 1:It's not necessarily a healthy place to be.
Speaker 1:So it's finding that middle ground again, you know, and that is what is so hard to navigate on our own, and I think this is an important fact that none of us like to face is that human beings are a pack animal.
Speaker 1:We are meant to be in community, and the reason we are meant to be in community and the reason we are meant to be in community, is because the community can help us understand ourself better than we understand ourself and can see where we are running on a program or not, and so we have that or not, and so we have that. And then, once we start to turn that reflection inward and we start to take care of ourselves, of course there's going to be a healthier level of caring. It becomes natural, but it is hard, like a life for me, and I'm going to say it like this it becomes hard to do the self-care when you've spent a good portion of your life caring for somebody outside of yourself. And finding that fine line of balance can take a little bit of practice and a lot of input can take a little bit of practice and a lot of input.
Speaker 2:I couldn't agree more, and I think it's that, regardless of where we are in that pendulum swing, in either extreme, both sides create very unique wounds as we go through life and those experiences. So I think when we actually start becoming aware that we need to explore caring more, caring less, and finding that middle ground of what care should mean for us present day, it does mean healing the wounds from the past that were created on either side of that pendulum swing, depending on who it was with and especially if we're going throughout our entire lives, there can be a lot of different memories or experiences of individuals involved in that. That has us continuing to swing from side to side. So, and to get that middle ground that's where setting the boundaries becomes so important, as well as healing the wounds that continue to, as I mentioned, have us go from one side to the other, and we can't do that on our own, but we have to begin opening up, to begin exploring and learning from those experiences.
Speaker 2:As you said is that we are, by nature, caring individuals, so if we ever think we're going to be able to completely switch that off, I don't believe that's actually the end goal here. It's not, but it's actually learning from the experience of how do I get that balance in life where I can still care for myself, care for other individuals, share my experiences, share my wisdom, want to understand what other people are going through, but, if not, constantly taking a mental, emotional or physical toll on myself present day to the point of where I feel like I have to go hide, or else I have to throw myself more into something else in order to prove what to who. Well, that's what everyone has to go explore, to understand what's driving any of this. To start with, that's exactly it.
Speaker 1:And then, once we start to have the awareness that our caring too much is actually hindering somebody. So if you look at a parent that's over caring for their child, they think that they're helping their child, but they're disabling their child because the child is not learning how to work through certain things on their own and they're always looking for someone else to solve that problem.
Speaker 1:And that's just a small example, but that's a huge example when it comes to trying to find that balance. Whether you're a parent, or whether you're a friend, or whether you're a lover, or whether you're in a work situation, if your caring is getting in the way of somebody else being able to explore their own growth, then it's no longer healthy caring, and that's a good guideline to be looking for. Am I caring too much about what somebody else's outcome is going to be, because we think that we're going to help them but it's not actually helping them grow? And I think that's an important point to bring up when we talk about these boundaries and starting to do this self-reflection, because you know, I would have gathered the 8 billion people on the planet and just given them a great big hug and said you know, we're all going to be okay, it's okay. How is?
Speaker 2:that going? That's not how it works.
Speaker 1:Not working so well for me at the moment. Yeah, I was just gonna say it goes back to recognizing the limits.
Speaker 2:It's beautiful to care, but you can care too much and you can actually hinder the people you love if you're doing that codependency or that over caring and disabling people and, like most things, it's very easy to continue to focus just on the external responses or people externally, of which is, in ways in which we have examples of we've been caring too little or caring too much, and so, like most things, I think in doing this journey of understanding our relationship with any of these components is turning back to self, and I think if we look back on our own lives in the past and today and present day, we can, if we begin exploring it, find examples of ways in which what ways am I caring for myself too little and what ways am I actually caring for myself a little too much, actually caring for myself a little too much?
Speaker 2:And I think it's that that's where you can see of how we actually starve ourselves of certain things or certain things that we actually need in mind, body, emotions or in connection and in other ways you can actually see in caring too much means it's actually maybe feeding certain addictions in our life where we actually feel that's part of what's maybe going to help or heal the situation that we often find doesn't and keeps that imbalance going from one extreme to the other. So it's only when we actually understand of what does caring for ourself actually look like. Will that be in ways in which is too little or too much? It can actually be a great indicator to understand why our relationship is the way it is with other people outside of us externally, because we only ever project outwardly what's already within us internally.
Speaker 1:And we often don't want to see that reflection, and so therefore, we hide from it or bury it or numb it or whatever it is we're doing with whatever addictions that might be there at that time.
Speaker 1:So I guess the other thing that I would say is really important is learning how to communicate what's happening inside of you you and communicating with somebody else, because I know in my journey and learning how to pull back that over caring too much, I had to learn how to set the boundaries, state the boundaries say.
Speaker 1:The no, which I know you can attest to, was not the easiest journey for me to do, and in the very beginning it felt like I would die. But the more I communicated it, the easier it became, and the more I got practice of it, the easier it is to stay to a healthy boundary and not have the guilt and the shame and all the self-doubt come flooding in with it. But that also goes to healing the wounds that you spoke about earlier, and so when you put all of that together, you can see why it gets set up the way it gets set up, because there's so many layers that we're working on at any given time as we're doing this journey with the caring or anything else that we're working on at that moment, but I think it's important not to kid ourselves and to learn how to communicate, even within ourself, about what's happening, because we're not always the kindest people to ourselves.
Speaker 2:No, and it's also that fact that other people are also not the kindest people to ourselves either, depending on the circumstance. And I think if we're being real about this, especially if you're trying to find that balance for yourself and for the people around you, the reality is a lot of people may not be that supportive in you finding that balance, because they've been benefiting from the fact of the imbalance for so long.
Speaker 2:And that's where talking to a professional to understand what that looks like and how to do that with time becomes so important, because that's when people can begin to gaslight us or say, get into our head in other ways because, as I mentioned, they've been benefiting the fact that we couldn't, that we have been caring too much. So even though in theory it sounds great that everyone should want balance and everyone should want a self-care for every person equally, that's just not always the reality or the case. Especially if you're trying to find that balance with your boss at work. They're not going to want that balance because they were getting more out of you for their money beforehand when you were working overtime and not getting paid for it. So this is where it does bring up a lot of interesting imbalances in our day-to-day life, and we do have to learn the skill sets to be equipped of how to deal with those individuals who actually have been helping fund that imbalance out of their own self-interest. But would they ever admit that?
Speaker 1:of course not of course they're not going to admit it in on level, whether it be your boss, but also, of course, the boss is going to enable it. But even if you're starting to work on this and you look at it, why are you working so hard and caring about somebody else's business more than you're caring about yourself and your own well-being? And that's a very big question to ask yourself, very confronting question to ask, and we don't always have the answer straight away. But that's a great place to start and quite often we can't do that on our own. We just think that we want to be good employees, but it's never just about being a good employee.
Speaker 2:I think this has been a very important conversation for us to explore, because reality is is that whether we find ourselves caring too little or caring too much about ourselves, about the world around us, about family, about friends the list goes on it's our responsibility to actually explore what is the emotional response to something that is actually driving either side of it, because it's our we're responding in a way that we think is the solution went off and it's not.
Speaker 2:It actually finds ourselves being exposed to more experiences that just adds to this imbalanced pendulum swing that we continue to find ourselves in.
Speaker 2:So it's only when we actually go through enough of it throughout life and we have and the awareness with that has come from all of these different experiences, can we find ourselves actually seeing it is the right time now to begin exploring this and questioning it, and you can't do that, as we often talk about, until it is the time is right to do that. It can be a tough adjustment to find that balance while also continuing to engage with the real world when people do have busy jobs, busy lives maybe kids in the house, grandkids, like life can be so busy at times, especially when we are running those people pleasing tendencies at times and we're running. It's just. It's very hard sometimes, as you said, to find that balance on your own, and even when we are trying something new, we don't actually know is it the right thing to do, or did we do that right, or it's just something that constantly needs communication and be talked out. So I loved when you'd mentioned that earlier, though it's that we really can't do it on our own.
Speaker 1:Like most, like most things, it's something that we need to take baby steps with, to understand how it, what it means for us present day and what that means for us moving forward well, I couldn't have said it better, and I think the other thing that I would just leave everybody on, especially having lived this life of dealing with this same sort of thing, is that it's not something that I'm going to go in and work on and it's going to be solved, and I never have to have that problem ever again, because that is not the way it works. That is not the nature of who you are. You've got ingrained programs that have been there for most of your life and there's different levels of awareness when it comes to working on these things. So, even though I might have been really bad at it at the beginning or really deeply into the caring too much, it doesn't mean it got switched off and I don't care. I still care. I just have more emotional maturity around how I care. Do I still get caught out in it sometimes? I absolutely do, and so I just I like to put that little disclaimer in there for everybody, because so many people think they're going to get there. It's going to be done, and we know that this is an ongoing process.
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