I am well and truly embracing the new found view I have on things and I must say that letting go of many of the things I was holding onto has been really liberating.
The one thing I have come to realize over this time is that people will expect you to continue giving, and when you stop, they feel like you have wronged them. I have always been a "giver", constantly giving and not focusing on the fact that I was actually getting nothing of value in return. Sadly, many people in my life have been happy to be on the receiving end of things and not once batted an eyelid to do anything in return for me. I have had to take stock of many things in the last few months and the revelations have been enlightening to say the least and that exercise pretty much forced me to start correcting my "stinking thinking" around many aspects of my life. I was forced to call myself out on many of the little behaviors that have crept into my life, and some real changes were required, which I had to start making to get anywhere positive. I had developed a story which pretty much had been the backdrop to my life of being the eternal victim in all the aspects of my life, which was pretty much like handing someone else the keys to drive and control your life. I felt so dis-empowered after I had run the exercise and finally admitted to those limiting beliefs and also after having looked at the types of energies I was allowing around me.
ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!
My soul screamed at me in desperation! I had no idea of what I had been doing to myself for all these years. The influences and negative energies I had allowed to be around me and the effects it had on me as an individual. I had started a personal development journey three years ago, and the teachings and lessons were now hitting me with tremendous impact, and the difference for me this time was that I had been moved to action! I was no longer happy with or acceptant of the current status quo of my life, and I was tired of the negativity that I had allowed to breed around me almost to the point of being so blinded by it.
I could not willingly be a spectator to my life!
I deserve a semblance of happiness!
I am responsible for myself!
I have dreams to fulfill!
I had come to see that people pinned their happiness, success and futures on their significant other with almost no cognizance of the fact that they were individuals with their own separate purpose in life.
People generally talk about the ideal person for themselves, and they have a full set of specifications that they would require in order for such a person to add value to their lives. The list is often an exhaustive one, citing: good listener, sensitive, caring, must cook, educated, good looking, in great physical shape, good conversationalist, etc. You can kinda get a sense of what I am pointing towards here, and sadly, most people don't meet these requirements themselves and yet the expectation is that someone has to meet all these requirements to get into your life, and for what! Most people generally do not reciprocate any of the requirements they expect, and as a result of this, resentment sets in leaving both parties disillusioned and bitter. The default position is taken and the old "I am who I am" saying sets in to justify a position as if to be a disclaimer of some sort. The very use of that tactic or ploy is a cop out! You cannot justify being a shitty person by retorting with:" I am who I am" or "That's just the way I am" and expect people to be acceptant of you. People generally lose sight of the fact that just being a generally good and respectable human being goes a long way in getting people to like and respect you, and to get to that level, requires a heightened awareness of self first and then having that same level of awareness for others.
I have taken many years to get myself to some level of this, given that I myself was an irreverent shit for the most part! My many infidelities and total shutdown of emotion made me a really difficult person to be around. I had put up so many walls for myself with the required fail-safes to protect myself from being hurt and from also committing fully to anyone, that it was almost impossible for me to be able to form properly functional relationships. I was a horrible person and that knowledge ate away at me daily, as my sole function was to make others happy at my very own expense. I would lavish expensive gifts, trips and experiences on the people in my life with very little to no reciprocation in return, and over time all the resentment and anger surfaced, rendering me cynical and cold in terms of relationships. I had been inadvertently feeding and providing emotionally for others and not for myself, which logically, is a really dumb thing to do, given that you cannot feed anyone from an empty cup! I needed to feed or pay myself first emotionally in order to be able to do the same for anyone else. I realized that most of my relationship decisions were all made out of the fear of ending up old and alone, and that was really a terrible thing to base decisions on, given that the decisions were never really sound to begin with. It was easy to be taken up with anyone who showed just the slightest bit of interest in me, as I had not taken the time to understand myself, nor had I taken the time to learn to be comfortable being by myself.
They journey of self discovery for me was a greatly rewarding one, as I became very comfortable with being by myself, as I had learned not to depend on anyone be it in or out of a relationship. Silence became my solitude, as I was able to reflect on my interactions with the people I encountered and the reflection helped refine my knowledge of myself and I was able to start liking myself again after many years of looking in the mirror and not being happy with the reflection I saw staring back at me. The road to getting to understand myself was a long and painful one, given that I had to have many moments of reflection on interactions that were not all that pleasant for me, and I had to correct certain behaviors and I had to consciously start having different conversations with myself and those around me.
I find myself in a place today, where my truth is not a generally accepted one, as I have now made some experiences that lead me to see that some people want truth but they are totally unprepared to handle truth. People want a form of truth wrapped in a bow or packaging of their own liking that is easier for them to internalize and deal with, and sadly, I have come to the understanding that one cannot be authentic if one allows people to wallow in an air of ignorance around the truth they want to experience as opposed to the truth they should experience. Nobody deserves to be mollycoddled around the truth!
I have since read a phrase that says: "Be yourself, and the people that matter won't mind and those who do mind won't matter." I thought that was absolutely profound! The implication is simply that if you are genuine and authentic in the way you show up, the right people will gravitate to you or into your life. The most important thing I have come to expect in life of late is that I surround myself with the right calibre of people, the type of people who out-think me and force me to level up.
The human condition is fully met when one finds acceptance in this world, and by default love as well, given that our very existence is spent looking for love and acceptance and unconditionally so! How many of us can look into our lives and say that we have found unconditional love and acceptance? Very few, I would wager to say!
Why you ask?
Well, it's all really simple! How many of us are completely open and honest about who we actually are and how many of us can have really crucial conversations with our significant others'? We create constructs based on what we think the next person would like or not and we perpetuate these constructs without question, simply because we don't want to give that true reflection of who we are. We fear that people will not like the true reflection simply because we have lost touch with who it is we really are, or we simply adopt the terrible habits that ultimately become our character and expect others to take us as we are.
An intimacy of an entirely different type is borne when we are able to show ourselves to a significant other "warts and all" in a safe and unfiltered way, but many steer clear of this because the persona or construct they have created has been done to hide controlling or selfish characteristics that only surface once they have snagged their prey. One can therefore see why dating in this day and age is a minefield littered with scary dangers and perils for anyone brave enough to jump in and navigate the dating/relationship pool as we have now become acceptant of narcissism, conceit, selfishness and abusive behaviors
The call to action therefore is simply: "Be who you need to be", that being said, simply means that you need to be a good person, you need to be authentic without being a first class douche about it and just abide by the rules of being a decent human being!
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