When the Gears Don’t Line Up: Choosing Integrity Over Peacekeeping
When the Gears Don’t Line Up is a series for those seasons when life feels out of sync. These reflections explore misalignment, internal healing, and the quiet practice of listening to yourself especially when the external world feels confusing or tense.
My heart has gone through it this week!
I have a couple people in my life, who are very close to me and they are struggling. With different things but it’s not easy.
My old self would’ve dropped everything to, not just help, but fix or solve the problems. I’ve been really good at anticipating needs and tuning into the emotional climate of others.
I can almost become super human to fill in gaps for those I love. Meeting needs before they are voiced, strategizing how to turn down the emotional climate, and predicting future experiences to prevent the uncomfortable.
Why have I done that? Because it’s more comfortable for me if they are happy and comfortable.
Watching someone I love carry stress, tension and overwhelm leaves me feeling useless. I don’t like feeling useless. When I’m out of alignment inside myself, useless is a feeling I cannot make space for.
But something really beautiful is happening as I heal, I can make space for those uncomfortable feelings. I don’t have to fix everything for everyone. I can actually stay in my own lane, focusing on my thing because I’m not putting out fires for others.
I’m learning this is a new layer of integrity; being true to myself and what I’m called to do. I step out of integrity when I take on someone else’s problems, try to do what they are called to do, or spend energy figuring out how to make them feel happy.
I stay in integrity when I am in charge of me. Some would call this self-control. And when I have self-control, I don’t reach to control others.
I had a picture of this in my precious little mind one time, it was an umbrella. Everything under the umbrella (that I’m holding) is mine to take care of, manage, steward, and own. Everything and everyone outside of that umbrella, I can influence and guide but cannot control or change.
The umbrella picture has helped me to determine what is mine and what isn’t.
And honestly, it’s kept me in integrity and out of peacekeeping.
Peacekeeping for me has looked like, no one around me can feel bad or sad or mad…ever.
This week has been good practice in staying in integrity. It’s meant watching those I love move through hard things and difficult emotions, all while I stay under my own proverbial umbrella, trusting they have one too.
