Today I declare my independence from who I was yesterday and the day before that. I do not have to behave in a manner that allows others to treat me like shit. I do not have to tolerate unacceptable behavior from people.
Yesterday was a hard day. Just swam in my own shit all day. Couldn’t get out of it. I was just sad about the state of everything: my love life, the country, the world, relationships in general. All of it made me despondently sad. It felt like no one cared (not true but it is how I felt). All the people that I reach out to every day, all the people who I am there for and yesterday, I was basically alone with my pain which is how it pretty much always has been. So I sat with that too.
Why is it that I allow people who are not worthy access to me? Why do I put up with such crap? Why do I not feel like I deserve better?
I am not sure but what I do know is that yesterday I sat there feeling sad, alone and in a great deal of emotional pain. I just laid in the pool and floated in the feelings of less than. Not worthy. Sad. Despondent.
I didn’t enjoy it. But I really couldn’t do anything else. It was here - pervasive emotional pain that all centered in the thoughtless comment of another which just brought it all to the surface. I spent the better part of the day kind of hating that person. But upon further examination, I realized that his comment was just showing me who he was. And my reaction showing me who I was.
What I learned was that I have a lot of work to do. I am still not able to effectively date. I am not there and feel like I get it all wrong still. I pick people who I think are good but really they are just interested in themselves and are not capable, not willing or just too self involved to really see me or care that what they do or say is hurtful.
I lack words to tell them. I get lost in this morass of conflicting feelings. I want to be a good person and treat the other person the same regardless of how they treat me. That has not served me well over the years. It allows me to remain in contact with people who are not really worthy of my attention or energy. I have been using spiritual principles to keep me forever subjugated to people who I should not even really give the time of day to...except that I believe that everyone is worthy...apparently except me.
So I have some work to do. I am going to do a better job of gate keeping in my life, keeping those people out who really don’t care, are not capable of showing up for me and just want to use me for their own selfish ends. It is time for me to have my own back a little more and care about their feelings a little less.
To those that don’t make the cut, I am sorry. I tried to love you and care about you but your lack of willingness to even see me or behave in a caring way has regulated you to the heap of others over the years who similarly didn’t care. I have to choose me and walk away. Why this pains me so is something I need to figure out...
Like all spiritual growth, it is starting with some self pity and injury. But I have tools to take that negative self imposed crisis and turn it into something greater, another lesson I didn’t want to learn from a teacher I didn’t want to learn it from...again.
And that is my super power. I am capable of making minute and also sweeping changes. I am capable of having my own back. Of standing up for myself and saying “Enough!” I am capable of seeing that I have other choices today, other than staying and being pissed or leaving and being hurt. I can just simply let you go with love and light and wish you the best and thank you for the lesson, painful as it was. I will use it for my improvement and I will not allow your conduct to make me believe that I lack worth. No one lacks worth and I allowed your conduct towards me to tell me an untruth for way too long.
I see my part and I am willing to change it. I see your part, do you?
So on this very bizarre and surreal 4th of July, I declare my own independence from allowing your treatment of me to further the story that I am not worthy or good enough. Today, I will set off my own inner fireworks and claim this day as a new beginning. Independent from old habits and methods for dealing with poor treatment. I will no longer use my spiritual tools to keep me shackled to accepting less from people who are capable of more. Today, I will free myself from my own habitual reaction and choose something new...independence toward me instead of away from you. Today I will celebrate me in my current, flawed and somewhat despondent form...
Happy 4th everyone, may you have a day that shows you, you are loved just as you are by one person who really takes the time to see you, even if that person is only you. And may that light off fireworks inside your soul.
Happy Interdependence Day!