Do you wear a cape?

Wearing a cape, being a superhero, and coming to the rescue are all overly glamorized in society. Who rescues the rescuer?

Learning to say no and setting boundaries is a challenge when all you know is how to be the helper or come to the rescue. When you start to feel spread thin, overbooked, or exhausted by all your “responsibilities,” you take on another task- learning to say no and setting boundaries.

Maybe you don’t need to wear a cape. The weight of the world and all its responsibilities are not yours to shoulder.

Often responsibility is taken on because the rescuer or the helper has experienced an unbalanced give and take throughout their life. They’re always there to help or come to the rescue of others, but very rarely will they ask for help or leave room to be rescued. Self-reliance is all they’ve ever known.

This is not to say that independence and self-reliance are bad things; quite the opposite. However, your responsibility should first and foremost lie with yourself, and sometimes that means asking for help or leaving room for others to act.

We are guilty of wearing a cape in some way, shape, or form. But the true act of heroism is knowing when to take the cape off.