The Emotional Backpacker

Hi. I am Paige and today I realized that I am an emotional backpacker.

An emotional backpacker? Yep, I made it up and this is what it means:

A person conditioned from a young age as a helper.

A person who is always known to be the first hand to help and the first voice to offer help.

A person to throw someone on their back the second they need help.

A person to throw all of someones troubles into their backpack and carry them.

You know when you’re young and everyone is always saying “they are such good helpers"? Yeah...Those people, I am one of those people.

Being a helper can be tricky though.

As we grow up, the umbrella of being a helper expands and gets bigger.

-I can help them feel this way.

-I can help them make this decision.

-I can help change ____.

Etc, etc.

All while still managing to help yourself.

Growing up is complicated but that's a whole other blog.

Us backpackers load up everything into our backpacks and carry on.

I am Dora and everyone else’s stuff is the iconic purple backpack I carry on my back.

I walk along the path of life as I scoop up peoples stuff and load it into my backpack.

No questions asks, I see it, I scoop it up.

Not knowing if I have knowledge or wisdom on that situation or topic, no back story, just see and scoop.

I feel it as an obligation because, after all, I am a helper right?

I can't just leave them in the uncomfortableness of hurt, confusion, etc.

Like I assume there is this handbook of life that magically gives me all the answers for helping my people just because I am a helper.

Like the spark notes for life.

Proving myself in some way to the people that I love, that I in fact, will always be their helper and guide them to where they want to end up.

Let’s go back to where it began for a second, when we were young and “the helpers.”

Not all, but certainly most helpers are proactive, we like to help before being asked.

Without being asked we give ourselves this task of helping and seeing it through. It just seems more rewarding that way. So, we try and go out of our way to help someone as if it proves to them we are true and genuine. Our people most times don’t ask, we just jump at the opportunity to help. We see people we care about hurt, question or anything along the lines of being uncomfortable and we automatically want to change it. We want to read off of the spark notes of life and tell them all will be okay. What we fail to realize is that taking their situation from them (especially without our help being asked of) and storing it in our backpack is not doing them any good or us any good. No matter how much we know a person, they are the only person who can feel and understand 100% what they are going through. We can’t read minds, we don’t have the perfect advice. We don’t have the spark notes for life, there is no magical handbook. Us helpers certainly don’t carry the handbook for someone else’s life. But yet, as helpers, we expect that of ourselves. We sometimes expect that if someone reaches out for help, that now you and that person are in the binding contract. That once you share your advice, they must move forward with it. How silly, to think we know what is 100% right for someone else’s life. But, that is just how we were conditioned to think a true helper was, problem solving and it all ending up great. Silly, but haven’t we all been there?

I am not saying we must sit in silence and distance ourselves from our people when they are going through things. I am saying we can reshape what helping them truly looks like.

We can still share our relevant knowledge and wisdom but speak it, then let it go.

Don’t write it down in your handbook and throw it into your backpack to later pull out and read like instructions.

In 2020, no more backpackers, no more backpacks.

I love being a helper.

I love being there for my people.

I love when they feel comfortable and safe enough to share their hardship and ask my advice, to ask what to do. But I am here to say, we can still be helpers, we can be there for the people we love without snatching there problems out of there hand and saying “I’ll be back in 3 business days with a magical formula that you need to follow."

Hardships and helpers don’t have a binding contract. All hardships are not required by you, the helper, to take on.

As a helper, your job is this:

-Hold space for them

-Let them be truly heard

-Let them know you are there for them

-Speak your truth and let it go

No more heavy backpacks.

Not for you and not for your people.

Both need to put the weight down, how can either move forward with the weight of the backpack?

As you stroll down your path of life, there will be troubles.

Little buckets of trouble, don't pick them up to bare the weight.

Sift through them, once they serve their purpose, leave the bucket and keep moving forward.

When you get to those trouble buckets, you will have people who can help you sift through it, so that you or them don't have to carry it alone.

Don't have to carry it at all.

Hold your people’s hands, help them go through their buckets, help them stay strong and help them be confident in themselves. Love them, hear them, hold space for them, speak up and let go.

You can put the backpack down, you deserve it.

You can put the backpack down, the people you want to help deserve it.