Releasing the need to protect everyone around us and discovering that we are worthy of being cared for, supported, and held.
There is something I have been thinking about lately.
We often talk about letting go of the need to protect ourselves. Releasing the walls, the armor, and the constant feeling that we have to be the ones holding everything together so that we can finally open ourselves to receive.
But what if the protection doesn’t stop with us?
What if we have also spent years protecting the people around us?
Not because we believe they are weak.
Not because we think they are incapable.
But because somewhere along the way, we learned that love meant making sure everyone else was okay.
And perhaps, without even realizing it, we became the ones who made sure everyone felt safe.
Where did we learn this?
I have been asking myself this question.
I can see pieces of this pattern in my own life, and I can see similarities in the generations before me.
Maybe some of it was modeled by my parents.
Maybe some of it was influenced by the faith and teachings we were raised with.
Maybe some of it was passed down through generations of families who had to survive difficult circumstances.
I think about the women whose husbands went off to war, leaving them to care for the home, raise the children, and somehow make everything work. The women who had to be strong because there was no other option.
I think about the generations before us who learned to anticipate danger, prepare for the worst, and carry the weight of an entire family on their shoulders.
Perhaps some of those survival patterns continued long after the circumstances that created them had changed.
Or maybe the roots are much more personal.
Maybe we learned that being needed was a way to feel loved.
Maybe we learned to watch the people around us closely so we could prevent their pain.
Maybe we simply became really good at being the strong one.
I don’t know that any of these things are the root cause of this pattern.
And perhaps we don’t need to know exactly where it began to recognize that it exists.
The protector I became
When I look back at my own life, I can see how naturally I stepped into the role of protector.
My business partners.
My family.
My friends.
Even people I didn’t personally know.
I wanted the people around me to feel supported. I wanted them to know they weren’t alone. I wanted to help create an environment where they could breathe, feel safe, and move through life with a little less weight on their shoulders.
If someone was struggling, I wanted to help.
If someone needed support, I wanted to show up.
If someone was facing a difficult season, I wanted to find a way to make it a little easier.
Sometimes that meant attending a benefit for someone facing an illness. Sometimes it meant supporting a nonprofit event or contributing to a cause that was helping someone else.
Their stories touched me.
Their struggles mattered to me.
And if there was something I could do to help, I often did it.
This wasn’t something I had to think about.
It was simply who I was.
Or at least, who I had learned to be.
I don’t believe I did these things because I thought other people were incapable of taking care of themselves.
I did them because I cared.
Because I loved.
Because I could see the humanity in someone else’s experience and wanted to help carry a little of the weight.
There is nothing wrong with caring deeply.
There is nothing wrong with showing up.
There is nothing wrong with wanting the people you love to feel safe.
But recently, I have begun to see something I hadn’t fully recognized before.
I could protect everyone but myself
I could spend so much energy making sure other people felt supported, cared for, and safe.
But when it came to me?
That was different.
If someone wanted to help me, I often found a way to manage things myself.
If someone offered support, I might have convinced myself they didn’t need to worry.
If someone wanted to show up for me, I might have found a reason to keep the door partially closed.
I could easily recognize when someone else needed help.
But recognizing that I needed help?
That was another story.
I could create safety for others.
But I didn’t always know how to let someone create safety for me.
And there is something deeply humbling about seeing that.
Because the very thing I wanted so freely for everyone else—the feeling of being supported, protected, and cared for—was something I had not always allowed myself to receive.
When protection becomes a pattern
I want to be careful with this part because I don’t believe that caring for others is something we need to stop doing.
We don’t need to become less compassionate.
We don’t need to stop showing up for our families, our friends, our communities, or the causes that matter to us.
But perhaps we can begin to ask ourselves a different question:
Am I supporting this person, or am I taking responsibility for making sure they never experience discomfort, disappointment, or pain?
There is a difference.
Sometimes love means standing beside someone.
Sometimes it means offering a helping hand.
Sometimes it means creating a safe space where someone can find their own strength.
And sometimes, love means allowing another person to experience their own journey without stepping in to manage every outcome.
We can care without carrying everything.
We can support without taking over.
We can love someone deeply without believing that their safety, happiness, or success depends entirely on us.
And perhaps most importantly, we can stop assuming that everyone needs us to be their protector.
Maybe they are stronger than we realize.
Maybe they are more capable than we have allowed ourselves to see.
Maybe they don’t need us to prevent every difficult experience.
Maybe they simply need us to trust them, stand beside them, and let them know we are here.
What if we allowed ourselves to be protected?
This is where the realization becomes personal.
Because releasing the need to protect everyone else isn’t just about giving other people more freedom.
It is also about giving ourselves permission to receive.
To let someone else make the plans.
To let someone else carry the weight.
To accept help without immediately looking for a way to return the favor.
To allow someone to care for us without feeling guilty.
To say, “I don’t have this today,” without believing that we have failed.
To let someone see that we are tired.
To let someone show up for us.
To let someone love us in ways that don’t require us to be the strong one.
And perhaps this is where the deeper healing begins.
Because when we are always the ones creating safety, we may never discover what it feels like to be held in someone else’s care.
We may never experience the relief of knowing that we don’t have to anticipate every need.
We may never allow ourselves to soften enough to recognize that support can exist without us earning it.
The generational pattern we can begin to change
Maybe our parents did this because they had to.
Maybe their parents did it because they had no choice.
Maybe generations of people learned that love meant sacrifice, strength meant endurance, and safety meant being prepared for everything that could go wrong.
Maybe those lessons were necessary once.
But not every pattern that helped us survive is required for us to thrive.
We can honor the people who came before us without continuing every pattern they carried.
We can acknowledge the strength it took to hold families together while also recognizing that we deserve a different experience.
One where care moves in both directions.
One where protection isn’t a responsibility placed on one person.
One where everyone gets to be supported.
One where we don’t have to prove our worth through how much we can carry.
And one where receiving isn’t something we have to learn only after we have completely exhausted ourselves.
You are allowed to put the armor down
Perhaps the next step isn’t to stop being the person who cares.
Perhaps it is to stop believing that caring requires us to carry everyone.
Perhaps it is to release the invisible responsibility of making sure everyone around us is okay.
Perhaps it is to trust that the people we love can have their own strength, their own experiences, and their own capacity to navigate life.
And perhaps it is to turn some of that beautiful attention inward.
To ask:
What do I need today?
Who could I allow to support me?
Where am I making something harder than it needs to be because I don’t want to burden anyone?
What would it feel like to let someone else take care of this?
What if I didn’t have to be the strong one right now?
These questions may feel uncomfortable at first.
Especially if we have spent years being the person everyone else could count on.
But discomfort doesn’t always mean we are doing something wrong.
Sometimes it means we are learning something new.
We are learning that receiving is not weakness.
That asking for help is not failure.
That allowing others to show up for us is not selfish.
And that we are worthy of the same compassion we have so freely offered to the world.
A new way of loving
I don’t want to stop being someone who shows up.
I don’t want to stop caring.
I don’t want to stop supporting the people, causes, and communities that matter to me.
But I do want to learn how to love without losing myself in the process.
I want to learn how to stand beside people without feeling responsible for protecting them from every challenge.
I want to trust the strength of the people I love.
I want to allow them to support me, too.
I want to recognize that I don’t have to earn care by constantly giving it away.
And I want to remember that my own safety matters just as much as everyone else’s.
Maybe this is the next layer of letting go.
Not just releasing the armor we have built around ourselves.
But releasing the belief that we must be the armor for everyone else.
Because we were never meant to carry the entire world.
We were meant to live in it.
To love in it.
To receive in it.
To be supported in it.
And sometimes, the most healing thing we can do for ourselves and the people we love is to finally allow the protection to move in both directions.
You can be the safe place for others without forgetting that you deserve a safe place, too.
You can love deeply without carrying everything.
You can show up without taking responsibility for every outcome.
You can let go without abandoning anyone.
And you can finally open the door and allow someone else to show up for you.
Because you are worthy of being cared for.
Not because of everything you do.
Not because of everything you give.
Not because of how strong you have been.
But simply because you are you.
And perhaps this is what it means to begin Remembering Me.
To remember that you are not only the one who gives.
You are also the one who receives.
You are not only the one who protects.
You are also the one who deserves protection.
You are not only the one who holds space for everyone else.
You deserve to have space held for you.
And you don’t have to do it all alone.