It's hard to be the one everyone leans on. While we love our people, sometimes it's hard to always be the listening ear. We love our people, we want them to know someone is there for them, but sometimes it's hard to carry everyone's weight and have no help carrying your own.
We are the type who are always one call away. The type that would drop anything we are doing, in that instance, in order to help our loved ones. The type that would lose sleep if it meant staying up and making sure a friend is okay. The type to always extend a helping hand to others, even if we aren't necessarily close friends with them.
Sometimes, I think we as people want to be compassionate. We want to be that ear for others because we have empathy for how others are feeling. We want others to feel better, even if in the process it puts ourselves down. It's hard to continuously listen to other people and not get the same in return, or feel as though we cannot confide in others the way they confide in us.
We just want someone to lean on in return. We want someone who will sometimes just listen without talking. We want someone who we can hug, who can wipe away our tears, or even call at three in the morning when we are having an issue.
It can be scary to know that you are the one that everyone leans on, yet not knowing if you needed to lean on someone if you would get the same in return. That's especially hard if we often just listen, rather than speak, or if we tried to speak before and lost our voice because we got shut down.
Sometimes that may not be easy to obtain. While we are really good at listening to others, we may not be the best and telling others how we feel. My advice would be to put yourself out there. Try to confide in someone. Sit someone down, get a cup of coffee, and try to lean on someone for support. I think it's hard to grasp sometimes that just because we listen to others constantly, doesn't mean they wouldn't listen back. Try taking a turn being a speaker while your loved one just listens. While it may be scary, it feels good to know others can lean on you and you can lean on them.
