“I don’t want to be a burden to anyone.”
You don’t have to look too hard or far to hear it. People back-peddling from their needs saying, “Oh, but don’t go through too much trouble” or “It’s not that big of a deal, I’ll be fine.”
It’s a funny thing when you think about it. In reality, we are all burdens. None are free from being dependent. One of the greatest lies we tell ourselves is that we don’t need people.
The idea of being ruggedly individualistic is a romanticized, appealing, and unrealistic version of humanity. If you were to be so individualistic, you would be cut off from the very thing that gives you life. Being needy is not what is wrong with you. It is what makes you available to love and be loved. It opens you up to sharing burdens with others in community in order to make life a little lighter. Rather than engaging in an imaginary competition about how little you need from them.
Here is the truth:
“We desperately want to be loved by someone that is willing to be burdened because they believe we are worth it.”
I don’t remember the first time I heard this, but I know it was during one of my many encounters with Dr. Chip Dodd and Jeff Schulte.
What an epiphany!
Who doesn’t want that? To be loved by someone outside of themselves that is willing to see a need and meet it if they are in a position to do so.
Unfortunately, many use their ability to meet the needs of others as a means of amassing power, authority, leverage, and control, which couldn’t be further from the nature of benevolent love.
Somewhere along the way in aligning our lives with Jesus’s teaching that it is “more blessed to give than to receive,” we came to believe that if you are on the receiving end of the giving, something must be wrong with you.
Why on earth do we resist being cared for and loved by other responsible human beings when they are in a position to offer us what we need most?
That is the nature of toxic shame.
Toxic shame poisons the love and care you receive and turns it into a weakness. It changes the message “giving is better than receiving” to “you are a better person if you give and a lesser person if you receive.”
Again, this couldn’t be further from the truth!
Shame is the feeling you get when you are aware of your limitations. Those limitations can be mental, financial, physical, spiritual, emotional. You are not God and you were not designed to be. You are a human being with limits. You can only reach so far.
Now, if what you are hoping for or reaching toward is beyond your limitation, you need help. All of your hopes are dependent on the help and support of someone else. Accepting that help in simple terms is what we would call humility: a willingness to join the human race and participate with other limited humans.
Toxic shame is the voice that belittles you needing help and is most commonly heard by saying something to the effect of:
“you should be able to do that by now”
“you shouldn’t need help with that”
“you should know better”, or “you should have done that differently.”
Toxic shame is intolerant of your humanity and it stands in contempt of your own limits, denying the idea of needing anything from anyone. And so, when someone else expends time, energy, and money on my behalf, I feel shame.
This can either lead me to humility and gratitude that recognizes the beauty and care that is being demonstrated on my behalf or lead to toxic shame which internalizes the self-condemnation and judgment needing help. Humility is incredibly healthy. It opens you up to receive, which is a blessing to both you and the giver. It also makes you more likely to share what you can for someone else in need. If it is done in love, then there is no debt to pay or obligation for one who has received. Toxic shame closes you off from being able to receive love and care because when you do it only makes you feel worse about yourself for receiving help.
The challenges this creates has no limits. The exhausting dance that ensues when we try “not to be a burden” is pointless at best because it short circuits all that is good and right about us. It is an incredibly awkward, draining, and uncomfortable thing to watch when someone who is in need is trying to ask for help without admitting they need it.
To those who find it very difficult to receive love from others close to them because of their commitment to “not be a burden,” I want to encourage you. It is okay to let others love you. Give them the freedom to do so and celebrate the fact that you have people in your life who are willing to be burdened by you because you matter to them.
If they love you, they will delight in helping you and when they need you, they will ask.
If you or someone you know struggles with toxic shame and accepting help, talking with a professional therapist can be a great way to begin healing. Contact Kardia Collective today to find out what a person is capable of when they have the right support.