SoftalkWithPhil

If I am being completely honest, I think women abandon themselves far more often than we realize. Matter fact, some of us have gotten so good at abandoning ourselves that we mistake it for being kind, loving, patient, understanding, or selfless. We wear it like a badge of honor and tell ourselves we are just “showing up for people” when truthfully we are slowly disappearing in the process. I know God is looking at us like: “My child… who told you to do all of that?”

Now before we go any further, let us define what it actually means to abandon yourself because I think alot of people hear that phrase and immediately think it only applies to romantic relationships. It doesn’t.

Abandoning yourself is when you consistently ignore your own needs, boundaries, convictions, values, feelings, and limits or desires in order to keep other people comfortable. It’s choosing everybody else repeatedly while quietly neglecting yourself. It’s saying yes when your entire spirit is screaming no. It is tolerating behavior you know is not okay because you are afraid of disappointing someone. It’s shrinking yourself to fit into spaces, relationships, jobs, churches, friendships, and environments God never asked you to shrink for.

And honestly, when I finally understood that definition, I realized I had been doing it alot more than I wanted to admit.

The crazy thing is I have met some of the strongest, most no-nonsense women on the planet and even they were abandoning themselves in ways they did not recognize. Sometimes it is not some huge life-changing sacrifice. Sometimes it is agreeing to attend something you genuinely do not have the energy for. Sometimes it is volunteering for one more responsibility when you are already exhausted. Sometimes it is answering every call, solving every problem, carrying every burden, and then wondering why you feel emotionally drained all the time.

If I could sit every woman down over coffee or whatever it is they drink and tell her one thing, it would simply be this: stop doing that.

At work.
At church.
At school.
At home.

Just STOP!

Stop saying yes out of guilt. Stop overextending yourself to prove your worth. Stop shortening your rest so other people can enjoy your labor. Stop volunteering your peace every time somebody presents you with a problem because somewhere deep down, you think your value comes from being useful. That lesson humbled me realll badd!!

Let me say this before somebody starts saying, “But Phil, aren’t we supposed to help people?” Absolutely. We are called to love people. We are called to serve. We are called to be generous. But somewhere along the way many of us started confusing servanthood with self-neglect, and those two things are not the same.

I think one of the biggest reasons people abandon themselves is because we automatically connect disappointing someone with losing them. We assume if we say no, people will suddenly stop liking us. They will become distant. They will think we are selfish. They will act funny. And honestly? Sometimes they might. But so what? Because people who only appreciate you when you are overextending yourself are not appreciating YOU. They appreciate your usefulness. That realization changed my life.

I had to learn something that changed my perspective completely. God has been teaching me lately that not every request requires my immediate response, my immediate availability, or my immediate sacrifice. Just because something feels urgent to somebody else doesn’t mean it automatically becomes urgent for me. I know that sentence might make some people uncomfortable, but it is true. That does not make me selfish. It makes me aware of my limits.

When I first realized that, I felt guilty. Really guilty. Because I have always been the type of person who likes helping. I like being dependable. I like being useful. I like being the person people can call. But eventually I had to ask myself a hard question: was I helping because God was leading me to help, or was I helping because I needed people to see me as valuable?

When I tell you that question stepped on my toes badly.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that a lot of my overextending came from fear. Fear of disappointing people. Fear of letting people down. Fear of being misunderstood. Fear of being seen as selfish. So I kept saying yes while my spirit was quietly begging for rest.

And honestly, God started dealing with me about that.

I think about Jairus in the Bible when it comes to this. His daughter was literally dying. If there was ever a legitimate emergency, that was one. Yet on the way to Jairus’ house, Jesus still stopped for the woman with the issue of blood. Now imagine being Jairus for a second. Your daughter is dying. Jesus is finally coming. Then He stops. Ummmm hellooo???

To everybody else, that probably looked inconvenient, irresponsible, maybe even inappropriate, given the circumstances. But Jesus understood something we often forget: everything is not measured by urgency alone. Some things are measured by purpose, priority, and God’s timing.

Jesus was never rushed by pressure. He understood priorities. He understood purpose. He understood timing. I used to think every request needed an immediate answer and every problem required my involvement.

Naaaa.

Life has taught me and still is that not every situation requires my energy, my attention, my sacrifice, or my emotional labor. Some things genuinely belong to other people. Some problems are not mine to solve. Some responsibilities were never assigned to me by God in the first place; definitely not every relationship deserves unlimited access to me or you.

And if I am being really honest, I learned this lesson the hard way in relationships, too.

If I am being honest, there were seasons of my life where I tolerated things I should not have tolerated because I wanted to keep the peace. There were red flags I explained away. There were situations where I knew something felt wrong, but I convinced myself I was overreacting. There were moments I silenced my own discomfort because I did not want to seem difficult. I gave people the benefit of the doubt so many times that eventually I started doubting myself instead.

The older I get, the more I realize that every time you betray your own convictions to keep somebody else comfortable, you abandon yourself a little. Every time you ignore your intuition, you abandon yourself a little. Every time you tolerate disrespect that God is clearly showing you, you abandon yourself a little. The more you do that, the further away you move from the person God is calling you to be.

Then one day, you wake up emotionally exhausted and wonder why.

The answer is usually not that you have been giving too much to others. The answer is that you have stopped giving anything to yourself.

That realization was hard for me because I genuinely thought self-sacrifice was always the godly thing to do. But the more I study scripture, the more I realize that God Himself has boundaries. He says yes. He says no. He gives instructions. He allows consequences. He does not force Himself where He is not welcomed. Boundaries are not unloving.

If the Creator of Heaven and Earth can have boundaries, then why do we feel guilty for having healthy boundaries? Be so for real!

Why do we feel guilty for resting?

Why do we feel guilty for protecting our peace?

Why do we feel guilty for saying no?

Learning to stop abandoning myself has not turned me into a mean person. It has not made me selfish. It has not made me cold. If anything, it has made me more honest. Honest about my capacity. Honest about my limits. Honest about what I can realistically carry without resentment. That honesty has brought me more peace than people-pleasing ever did.

To be honest, there is something very freeing about realizing that God never asked you to be everybody’s savior. That position was already filled a long time ago.

These days, I am still learning. Some days, I still overextend myself. Some days I still say yes too quickly. Some days, I still struggle with disappointing people. But I am getting better at asking myself a simple question before committing to something:

“Am I doing this because God wants me to, or am I doing this because I am afraid of how people will react if I don’t?”

Honestly? That question has saved me from abandoning myself more times than I can count. He created us to walk with Him, and sometimes walking with Him means disappointing people in order to remain obedient to Him.

Love, Phil xoxo