Someone recently offered me a challenge. Not just someone. A mentor. A guide. She asked me to participate in an experiment. She asked me to shift my focus to how much I am valued and appreciated by friends, family, strangers, and even INCLUDE work (gasp). She asked me to start each day focused on ‘catching’ people loving/appreciating/valuing me and my greatness.
I know you want to roll your eyes right now or maybe you are already sighing and throwing your hands in the air. Normally I’d be right with you on that one except that I happen to be extraordinarily close to this human. I trust her. I trust her advice and guidance and I even place trust in these ‘exercises’ she gives me.
I want to tell you what came before this suggested exercise. If you think you were having difficulty with what I just shared….just you wait little one. Ready? I was telling her that I was riding the struggle bus with a few things (work in particular). I was explaining that I was having difficulty feeling my value in any true sense of the word and I was also feeling pretty burned out. I was literally spent emotionally and physically. I’ve been working tremendous hours and having not the best interactions with certain co-workers and I felt, I feel, deflated.
You know how she responded?
She posed to me what I am doing to welcome that energy into my life and asked why I wasn’t able to make a shift. Are you pissed? Maybe not. I wasn’t. At all. I used to be though. I used to hear shit like that and it would make me incredibly ornery for several reasons. First of all, fuck all y’all for thinking that this shit I’m being subject to is somehow MY fault or MY responsibility. Second of all, the notion that I could just genie blink my eyes and shift the landscape felt laughable for a long time. Last, but certainly not least, and most definitely tied to the first point, how dare you not assign responsibility for the people treating me like shit?!
Let’s break this down, as I am so apt to do, shall we? I actually want to start by explaining when a shift was made and why I made the shift. I’ve talked about this concept a few times in a few different ways, but I want to really dig in for the purpose of this point, this story. When my last long-term relationship ended, I was devastated. I felt shitty and sorry for myself and angry at the world. I’ve never ever thought all men are shit, but it’s the closest I ever came to feeling that way. I was 100% on the ‘I’m never dating again’ bandwagon. Oh yes. Firmly entrenched in the notion that I was, I am, destined to be with someone awful and thus, there is literally no point to any of it.
The first person to really give me tough love was the person I’ve been referencing in this post thus far. Just as she did today, she asked me what I thought I had done to attract someone like that into my life. More than that, she asked me what within me permitted the situation, as toxic as it was, to stay, to remain, to linger. She asked why I didn’t think to walk away before I was massacred and then left. That was the time that I lost my unholy shit. Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?! How is this MY fault? I was treated like garbage. I was emotionally maligned and abused. I was lied to and cheated on. I was strung along for months. I was left. He married someone else months after he lied and left. What the fuck are you actually suggesting? That it was MY fault. Why yes, yes indeedy. Not entirely my fault. Not 100% my fault. Just 50%. I was exactly half accountable for everything that had happened to me. Actually, that was part of the problem right there, that language. I was exactly half accountable for everything that transpired in my relationship. See what I did there? Okay, let’s move on.
I was angry. Self-righteous. I wasn’t ready to take responsibility for anything. I just wanted to be a victim. Before you judge me, look long and hard in the mirror. We all play the victim sometimes. Some of us spend our whole damn lives playing victims. You know what that looks like? Let me help you because I wore victimhood like the perfect LBD for fucking years.
You can acknowledge and speak to the harm that you cause yourself or that others cause you with your permission but you never ever do anything to change it. You complain about certain things in your life that some part of you knows you have no control over, and you never seek to accept that reality. You feel strongly that the universe owes you a do-over, an apology, a kindness. You will often say things like ‘I just need a break’ or ‘I just deserve something good happening to me for once.’
Dude, I totally get it. I do. I am not trying to break your heart here. I am also not judging you. That was me for most of my 40 years. I was that way until at least 37-38ish, and I still dabble in that realm sometimes when I lose grip with the life I want to have or the person I really want to be.
This is where some more tough love comes in. I’m going to wrap up today with some soul scraping shit so buckle up. If you aren’t ready, then take a break and come back when you are, as no one is forcing you to do anything. You can also read and not take this to heart right now. You can read, disregard, and then come back another time when you are ready to receive. That’s totally cool. I’m here for it.
Okay, here is the thing: The universe owes you nothing. No one is going to give you a break. You don’t even deserve good things. You deserve the life that you have, that you deserve. I know. Burn. Sigh. Mentally ripping pages. Thinking of throwing computers or phones. I get it. Here’s a virtual hug from me to you. Come back tomorrow. Let’s see where we can go from here. Okay?
See you tomorrow, I hope.
L.
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