Nurturing is the need to take care of others, not wanting harm to come to them.
“I have always had the gift of ‘nurturing’ people, but they saw it as treating them like a child or suffocating them. I guess I am guilty of trying to wrap them up in cotton wall.”
I made my decision many years ago to never have children because of my past trauma’s and I knew that I would never have been emotionally available for them.
Instead, I found myself concentrating on the safety of my family.
My late Father was my main focus, he is my world, and I would do anything for him that was in his best interests. I worried about his safety when he was travelling to and from work and I was obsessed with wanting to see him happy and healthy. I showered him with all the love of which I was capable.
My Father did find it stifling when I fussed over him, but he understood why I was like that. He was the only person in my family that I believed loved me and I trusted him with all my heart. He believed in me.
I did not ever think that the time would come when he would get sick, and I would lose him. I was so emotionally dependent on him that I never really dealt with myself.
If something went wrong in my life, he was my medicine and just by speaking with him I always felt safe. He was loving, encouraging, and never ever put me down or humiliated me.
Loving him was not hard and a lot of my friends were envious of him, in a nice way, they never had a close relationship with their fathers.
When I fondly speak of him my face lights up and I am taken up with him. He never believed in his greatness, and he was a very humble and righteous man.
After my Father passed away from cancer my focus shifted to my mother.
I suffer from a lot of anxiety and if I go out for the day with my mother, I order her to message me when she arrives at her home. I am a worrier and would not be able to rest until I have messaged her.
My mind plays tricks on me, and I can imagine scenarios of dread and doom and the question of if only I had ….
This obsession of looking out for the safety of everyone is by no means an easy task as I get too involved. I am very safety aware when I am on the streets as I know that we are human and capable of making careless mistakes.
I find myself, not only looking out for myself when crossing roads or walking crowded streets I am constantly aware of everyone else around me, or who is in my company. My mind works overtime, and I have already calculated the hazards that could cause a problem.
I have witnessed careless drivers, slip hazards, suspicious individuals that I would not want to approach I look after myself in that way. Call me paranoid, but I am not a trusting person.
I always tell my tribe that they should never cross the road close to a car when the engine is running sometimes, they reverse before they pull out. I worry they are going to crush a person’s feet.
You can’t even trust Zebra crossings as some cars never stop. There have been many accidents on these crossings.
We now have to be mindful of bicycle lanes as there are so many of them and I find that cyclist behave as if they have the right of way.
On ringing my mother’s mobile and if she is out, I will ring her later. Mobile phones distract people, and they also are attractive to criminals.
The only way I see myself unhealthily nurturing is when it’s having a big impact on my mental and emotional health, and I know then that I have to back off.
I MUST REMEMBER WHAT EVER IN LIFE IS GOING TO HAPPEN WILL HAPPEN AND THAT I AM NOT IN CONTROL OF SOMEONE ELSES DEMISE!!
I CANNOT SAVE EVERYONE FROM THEIR OWN CARELESS ACTIONS!!
As unhealthy as it all sounds, I am not planning to change my safety awareness, but I will learn to balance it out.
The healthy way to nurture is to allow the person to think for themselves and make their own mistakes along the way.
In everything there must be a balance.
Natalie Bleau
The Scripture of Balance.
