We’ve all seen the cartoons- the ones with the protagonist facing a dilemma and is accompanied by an angel version of themselves on one shoulder and the devil version on the other. Do you ever feel like that in real life?
I do.
We all face a devil hanging out on our shoulder, whispering in our ear. They make a lot of sense, right?
They convince you to think a certain way, act a certain way, be a certain way. But they don’t even exist. It’s just you. Talking to yourself. This is your ego-mind. The part of you that is run by fear and low self-esteem. At least in my case it is.
The ego-mind is as powerful as you let it be. If you feed it, and feed it, and continue to feed into it, it becomes more in control. The more control it has, the harder it can be to break from its reigns.
But for myself, I have to.
I’ve let the ego-mind convince me I wasn’t good enough. How I’m not a good mother. Not a good partner. That I don’t deserve to be loved. As if what’s on the inside wasn’t enough to trample on, it took hold of the way I felt about my appearance as well. How my nose is too big. How unflattering my smile is. How my body looks like it belongs on a 10-year-old child. In turn, I felt I needed to seek validation from the outside. To be honest, sometimes I still do. I thought if I gave more and more of myself that I would feel like I deserved it. That I finally belong. The thing with seeking outside validation, though, is that it feeds into the ego-mind more. It makes you think people like you, but the truth is that some people just want to see you fall with no intention of catching you. You feel alive and free during the free-fall, but then crash when you hit the bottom. And the cycle repeats.
For myself, I need to stop this cycle.
I’m learning that sometimes I am the villain in someone’s story. Being on bad terms with people used to tear me apart. My people-pleasing nature couldn’t allow this. I needed everyone to like me. Or so I thought.
The truth is, not everyone is going to like you. Not everyone is going to have your best intentions at heart. And not everyone is going to see you in a positive light.
I used to try to convince everyone to see my worth. But I’m tired. Tired of fighting an uphill battle. If you don’t like me, I can live with that. Because now, I love me. I know my worth and what I bring to relationships. I know I’m a good, kind-hearted person. If someone can’t see that, it’s their loss and their problem.
I’m letting go of things I can’t change and other’s expectations.
The people meant to be in my life will see my worth. See my character. Those who already see it have listened to my struggles, my demons, and still see ME past all of that. They’ve read all the chapters of my story, and even though some chapters were unfavorable, they still loved the book as a whole.
Everyone is going to have their own opinion and experience with, and about, you. Let them. Why waste your time convincing everyone to like you and your decisions?
My life is for me to live- not to live for someone else.
We all view the world differently. We have different perspectives based on our own personal experiences.
I think this gives us all an opportunity to uniquely connect with each other. By embracing an outside perspective, this gives us a chance to understand and find ourselves in ways we can’t imagine on our own because of our own personal limiting beliefs. I’ve learned so much more about who I am by allowing myself to immerse into outside perspectives than I think I ever could have without.
We all understand things differently. We all react differently. We all are affected on different levels.
You can make a decision, and regardless of if it was good or bad, people are going to form their own opinions on it. But why get caught up in what they think?
For myself to thrive, I am focused on my character- not my reputation.
If a child has never seen an airplane, would you expect them to know what one looks like?
I wouldn’t. So, I’m gentler with myself now as I learn. Because I couldn’t have known what it means to fully love yourself if I wasn’t shown how. I couldn’t know what a healthy relationship looks like when the majority of my family was divorced or split up. One of the people who should have loved me the most only knew how to say it- didn’t know how to show me it. I didn’t learn how to communicate effectively or open up emotionally- I learned to get people to stay in my life by making them feel bad for me because I was so afraid of losing them. I wanted them to love me as much as I loved them. I was afraid of not knowing who I am without them. Or worse. I would find out who I am and not like her. Just like everyone else.
I’ve realized how much I conformed to the people around me. As a child, I would ask my younger cousin to fill out a handmade personality test and whatever she answered was now my answers, too. As if changing my favorite color or favorite meal was going to suddenly make me love myself. The tactics shifted as I got older, but the concept stayed the same. I never really knew who I was. I couldn’t think for myself. Maybe that’s why I got so lost and ended up on the road I was heading down.
But while I’m being gentle with myself, I also no longer wish to use my past, and current, traumas as an excuse for my behavior. It wasn’t until recently that I even became self-aware enough to know I was doing it. But now that I do recognize my own toxic traits, recognize the root of the problem, I am working on myself. It doesn’t do me any good to dwell on the past. I can only move forward. Be better than the person I was yesterday.
I’ve never been good at dealing with my problems head on. My instinct is to run. Run as far away from the pain as possible. But I think we all know what you can only run for so long before your problems catch up with you. Mine did. And they knocked me right to the ground.
I had 2 grandparents pass away within 6 months of each other a couple years ago. I still don’t think I’ve fully mourned either of them. When people start to talk about them, I want to walk away from the conversation because I haven’t allowed myself to accept that they are gone. Talking about it makes it real- it brings the pain back. And I shut down. I’m this way with a lot of situations that are painful or uncomfortable. I’ve always heard how mature I was for my age growing up, but in all honesty, I don’t think my emotional maturity really evolved until much more recently.
Other situations, I’ve thrown myself into fire just to feel the burn. Seeing the fire destroy everything around me wasn’t enough. I had to feel it for myself. I grew up believing certain people loved me because they said so. Their words were merely a distraction to the destruction happening around me. And now, as an adult, I let other people do the same. I let my feelings control me. If you tell me you care about me once, I’ll believe you for an eternity no matter how many times you prove you don’t. That’s why it’s so hard for me to let go of people. In order to change how I feel about a person or situation, I have to burn myself. I have to self-destruct and pour salt in my open wounds. This is the hardest thing of all to unlearn.
In order for me to grow into the person I’m destined to be, I had to recognize and own up to my own toxic behaviors.
In doing so, my world is now brighter. I see my worth more clearly in this light.
Hiding from pain doesn’t make it go away. It tends to resurface. I’ve always defined myself by my struggles. I became scared that if I wasn’t suffering, I wouldn’t know I am. I became so used to the chaos that the peace I felt at one point felt like boredom because I couldn’t differentiate between the two. I do now. And I’m protecting my peace at all costs.
Ian is set to begin chemo again in June. That is hard enough on me as a mother. It’s physically and mentally exhausting. Throw in normal adult life issues on top of it, and I’m pretty much at limit as to what I can handle without losing my sanity. I can’t let myself be surrounded by negativity. I can’t let myself be surrounded by people who do not care about me, or my family. I can’t let myself stoop to the level of others. I must rise above the noise if I want to make it out alive. I have enough to worry about. My children need me. I need me.
I had to fall completely apart to mold myself back together. Lose everything, or nearly everything, to find myself. I had to do this again. And again. And again. I ran back to my mistakes. After all, there is comfort in familiarity. We don’t always get things right on the first try. We don’t even always get them right on the second or third. But I’ve grown familiar with feeling uncomfortable, and that’s the place I run to now.
Maybe everything has been a blessing in disguise if it brought me to this point within myself. Maybe the changes in myself and in my surroundings have brought me closer to the person hiding inside of me- the person who’s been dying to come out but was overtaken by self-hatred and fear. I’ve listened to the outside world tell me long enough I wasn’t good enough. I’m listening to my spirit and the Universe now. I am worth it.
I walked alone for a while. I picked up my own pieces. I put them back where they belong. I learned to admire each piece, even the jagged ones. If you thought you knew me before, you do not know me now. I’m proud of myself for walking through the fire.
We are all trying to survive our own storms.
This is my journey.
Healing isn’t a destination. It’s a journey. YOUR journey. Don’t let anyone tell you what your journey should be, what it should look like, or where you should go next.
Decide for yourself.
