Where to start looking
I feel responsible for everyone in my family
You are the one people ring, and you are tired of the ringing.
You resent it and you would not hand it to anybody else.
Nobody has ever asked whether you wanted the job.
Responsibility accumulates without being agreed
It usually starts with competence during a difficult period and then never gets reviewed. Ten years later it is simply how the family works, and the person carrying it is the last to be asked about it.
Some of it is genuinely yours and some of it is not
The useful distinction is between what somebody has actually asked you for, what you have taken on because nobody else would, and what you do because it is unbearable to watch it not be done. They need different responses.
Doing less is not the only available change
Sometimes the change is being asked rather than assumed. Sometimes it is being thanked. Sometimes it is choosing it deliberately, which is a different experience from being conscripted.
What this usually connects to
- What would actually happen if you did less of one specific thing.
- Who else could do part of it, and what stops that.
A question worth sitting with
- Which part of this would you keep even if you could put all of it down?
The session separates what your family needs from what has simply become your job.
What does my family need from meIt is a conversation, not a questionnaire. You can stop at any point, and finishing it does not mean anything has to change.
If the question turns out to be a different one