The Blueprint

Your first job is taking care of yourself.

with JODY LAMB

Reader, have you ever looked up and realized you have no idea who you are outside of someone else’s crisis?

That happened to me.

I had no time or energy left for anything other than coping with my mom’s drinking. My entire life had quietly organized itself around her problem — one cancelled plan at a time, one sleep-free night of worrying at a time, one “I’m fine” at a time — until I wasn’t fine at all.

And I didn’t even notice it happening.

That’s what I’m talking about in my newest video, and I hope you'll watch it.

I spent years — we’re talking decades — trying to save my mom from her alcoholism. I researched treatment centers. I poured out bottles. I had tearful conversations. I bargained, I begged, I rearranged my life.

And nothing changed.

Not one single thing.

Because here’s the truth that took me forever to accept:

You cannot love someone into sobriety.

You can love them with everything you have and they will still make their own choices. That’s not a failure of your love. That’s just the reality of being human.

But nobody tells you that. So you just keep trying. And trying. And slowly, without realizing it, you disappear.

That’s what this video is about — three things, specifically:

Why we try to fix people (it’s actually because you love them, and for a lot of us, it became our identity)
What it costs you (your sleep, your joy, your health, your sense of who you are outside of someone else’s crisis)
What letting go actually looks like (hint: it’s not giving up. It’s not abandoning them. It’s something harder and also something better.)

This video was hard to make, Reader.

Emotionally hard. Because talking about this stuff means admitting how long I stayed in it. How much of my life I handed over. How many times I tried something that didn’t work and went back for more.

But I also know that somewhere in your inbox right now, there’s someone who is doing exactly what I did — running on empty for someone who can’t or won’t change — and they need to hear that it’s okay to stop.

Maybe that’s you.

Maybe it’s someone you know.

Either way — this video is for them.

One more thing:

This video is part of the bigger story I’m telling in my memoir, My Job Is Me, which comes out this September.

The whole book is about this — the years I spent convinced that my job was to save my mom, and what happened when I finally learned that my actual job was to take care of myself.

If the video hits home, I think the book might help you.

More on that soon. For now — go watch.

→ How to Stop Trying to Fix Someone You Love

And if someone in your life needs to hear this? Send it to them. Seriously. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is put the right words in someone’s hands at the right time.

I’d love to hear from you, Reader.

Hit reply and tell me: is there something you’d add to this? A piece of advice you wish someone had given you when you were in the middle of it? Or just, what resonated? What hit closest to home?

I read every reply.

Take care of yourself. That’s your job.

-Jody