Letting Them Go and Picking ME instead
My entire life, I have tried to make everyone around me as happy as possible. I didn’t realize at the time, but it was because I had been rejected so often that I thought if I could just be better people would stop telling me by leaving me how much I wasn’t good enough. Truth is, as a kid you don’t think the issue could ever be someone else, so that always left you as the culprit. And, as a kid you also don’t realize that your own behaviors brought the toxic people into your life. Not everyone in my life is by choice obviously but those that were, may not have been the best fit for me. Doesn’t make these people bad people but what it does mean is they were bad for me.
Image Credit: @flaviotx
As I continue to age, I’m finding that the ability to care is dwindling more and more. Now I will also admit that my children play a bit part in that, My love of them has taken over what I will accept in their regards...teaching me how to say no and mean it. Because if it's best for them, I don't care what others think.
What does it mean to not truly care? It means if someone else likes what I’m doing or not, is just something I don’t care about, at all. You may think I should visit certain places, live a certain way, Raise my kids to your liking, etc.., but that’s your problem in that you feel a certain way. Its not mine that I’m living my life in the way that will make me happiest. YOUR Happiness isn’t my problem. MY happiness is.
I’m also no longer ok with being accommodating to everyone around me. Which is more like catering to their every want and need but to me it has been this excuse to be accommodating to what they may need in order to keep them happy.
In reality…I am to blame, I’m entirely to blame because I allowed people to think it’s ok to treat me like that. I’m telling everyone each time that I do this, how they are right, I’m the punching bag and I’m not enough. It's caused me to exclude myself from life as much as I could. Avoiding social situations, and pushing out as many people as I could. My Anxiety took on a whole new level and instead of telling people no at this point..i continued to do as they wanted, taking on the blame and accepted my bad person status.
But! As I take the accountability of my life and realize more and more that I simply do not need or want the approval of the toxic lives around me, I find that I actually have a chance now. Because I AM enough, and my needs DO matter. It IS my fault in what I have accepted.
I have the opportunity to choose what I will allow and what I won’t. I have the opportunity to just be happy because ultimately if I am living about making ME happy, it won’t matter what all of these people think or what, because I’m not living for them anymore.
Growing and maturing little by little, deciding to stop taking the toxic waste like it’s ok. How have you grown?
