You may have been taught to accommodate mom and help with chores. You may have been groomed by dad to respect your teachers and don’t make waves. You may have been told over and over to share and accommodate siblings, friends, or partners – keep the peace is another way of defining accommodate.
The truth is, if you get into a habit of accommodating, you sacrifice your dreams for others – onto the rest of your life if you don’t catch it!
Here’s an example. Being the oldest of 4 in 5 years, my parents begged me to accommodate my desires for theirs! Mom begged me to stay quiet and help her handle the others. Dad begged me to be a good girl in school because they certainly didn’t need to have to go to school and deal with teachers or discipline.
You might be thinking that, that sounds like being controlled. Not quite.
The difference is, if you’re being controlled, you may resent the implications, but you continue to do what you want whenever you are not in their presence.
If you are accommodating, in addition to resenting the implications, you do not do what you want even when on your own.
Accommodating is an internal dis-ease that if over activated will cause harm.
For example, I was taught that women served their husbands. That meant they had to stay home, be available whenever the man wanted or needed anything – and they couldn’t limit their availability in event of emergency.
I watched and learned.
What I perceived was that could be interpreted as a kind of freedom. So every time I tried to get a job or advance my career, I would literally sabotage the advancement because I would not be available for trips, emergencies appointments, company or whatever could occur.
So I sat and sat and waited.
The other way accommodating worked itself into my life was, each time we moved and my spouse was without a job in the moment, I seemed to attract lucrative projects and opportunities to cover the expenses until he was back on a pay cheque. Then my opportunities literally dried up!
We could never both bring in solid income – it was one or the other.
I decided to investigate and found the culprit – my mindset about accommodating!
I challenge you to take a closer look at how you sacrifice yourself to accommodate someone else. If you hold any resentment when aging parents ask you to handle life things for them, or drop everything for your spouse or change your plans for family or friends, you accommodate. Are you jeopardizing your self-esteem in the process?
Take time to look inside and decide if you are taking care of yourself or harming your chances.
And great job today!
Patricia Ogilvie
P.S. “Do you want to get clear of the mindset that keeps your self-esteem pinned down by raging, aging parents or dependent spouses or children?”
When people (especially women) are wanting to seek out their self-esteem and self-worth in amongst all the rant and raving from frustrated, aging parents, or ailing spouses, or ill children, there’s a lot of emotion expended.
Emotional expense has a huge cost in lost sleep, esteem, calm and grace!
It’s tough to have our self-esteem wounded in that way and then go out into the world and save face.
Contact me today for a complementary consultation to learn more about how you can benefit from esteem coaching – especially if you are in the role of a caregiver.
