A few years ago I was speaking with a colleague regarding someone's actions and how it was affecting me. My colleague turned to me and said that I was being selfish. I was a bit shocked until he explained further. He said to me, "Trudy-Ann, you are being concerned about one person when they are so many other individuals who need your brand of living. If that one person doesn't like you, it is not the end of your world unless you make it so. Then that person will win while you are sitting down being upset about what they are doing. No one outside of you has the power over you to stop you from stepping into your greatness".
I was raised to be a people-pleaser. If someone did not like me then it was my fault and I must have done something wrong to make him or her not like me. I would then do everything in my power to try and make it up to that person while he/she is still doing everything to show their distaste for me. You can imagine the losing battle that I was engaged in. I have spent a lot of valuable time trying to wonder what I did to make others not like me. It consumed me, it became my life's mission. It took a lot of therapy, a lot of dancing, a lot of traveling and meeting new people and a lot of internal work to begin healing my psyche before I stopped engaging in people-pleasing. For a very long time I would punish myself just to make other people happy. Every negative thing that people said about me bothered me. I wondered how to fix it so they would like me. I was ready to lay down my life to please those people. That little girl in me was trying to please everyone in order to get him or her to like me. I thought that if I did not have friends then something was wrong with me.
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As a child, I was subjected to a "friend" beating up on me and then afterward I asked if she wanted me to buy her lunch. Even my own mother jeered me for chasing after that girl, a girl who scorned me, ignored me, and was friends with me when she felt like. When my parents left us in another home far away from those girls who beat up on me, it was a relief. I was living in a healthier environment. I found new friends in my new high school and I was no longer around those girls who thought their family was better than mine was.
As I grew up in that healthy environment, I began to have a healthier view of myself. It also helped that my Grandaunt did not jeer me nor put me down. She did everything to grow me to have a healthy view of myself for the time that she was alive. She passed on certain life lessons to me, lessons that served me well when I became an adult. Because of the earlier things in my childhood, things started to come out in my adult life. I started hating myself and I fell back into that people-pleasing pattern. I remembered that I use to loan my rent money to others because I felt that they needed it more than I did. I would help others pay their bills so that they could increase their credit score and purchase a house while I was still living in an apartment that I hated. Those same people would turn around and criticize my station in life. I swallowed all of that and still kept them on in my life because it was un-Christian to cut people off. I must do everything to help them become better. Good lord, can you imagine the hell I was living in. Keeping people in my life who treated me like crap.
It was not until I went to Therapy and my Therapist pointed out to me that I was still having in my life people who had used me, walked over me and criticized me after helping them. I told her that I was trying to be mature about it and not cut people out of my life. She said to me, "OK, that is good, however, if those same people are still putting you down and treating you like trash, why would you want them to be in your life?". She made me realize that I had carried over that people pleasing from my childhood over into my adult life. That session woke me up figuratively and literally. I realized how dangerous it was to put others in charge of my life when it's me and me alone who knows what is best for me and what my life truth is. I learned that I needed to trust my own voice, my internal Self and know that I have the power to direct my life thus making it impossible for my life to fail.
I started to stand up for my health, my finances and myself. A friend of mine taught me that I should not loan money that I could not afford to give away. I pocketed that advice. I stopped allowing people to take advantage of me and to stop using me. Granted that made many people unhappy. I was no longer being Trudy-Ann, the doormat. I started taking the time to develop my self-love, stopped hating on myself, worked on raising my self-esteem and my self-worth. I stopped allowing people to abuse me. I was not able to stop the abuse as a child, but as an Adult, I worked on developing the inner power, the inner self-love so that I no longer accepted abusive behaviour from anyone in my life. I found the inner strength to walk away from anything that was not healthy for my life and me. I have taken many criticisms from people who felt that I was being conceited for loving myself and for wanting a healthier living. I am not going to lie, it hurt like hell to start standing up for myself. I use to care way too much about what other people thought of me. However, I was determined to live my own life, my way! Slavery ended a long time ago.
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As a child, I was told that if one or more people did not like me then it is my fault. I wore that crown for many, many years until it became too heavy for me to bear anymore. I learned that if a lot of people don't like me, I may be around the wrong crowd. I also learned that the only thing that was really important, was me liking, no scratch that, the ONLY thing that was important, was me loving myself deeply. I learned that loving myself was NOT conceited. Matter-of-fact, by loving myself I started to build my self-confidence, my self-esteem and my self-worth. I stopped looking for others to like me before I liked myself. I stopped trying to please people. I learned to value myself, know that I matter and that I am worth living a healthy, happy and passionate life. I was no longer interested in getting people to like me. I love me, I choose me and I am happy with me. Those were things that I spent time developing and working on my self-growth and I am still working on those things every day. It is a non-stop journey. I cannot stop my life just to make someone else happy.
Over the years, I have learned that everything and everyone serves a purpose in our life. I stopped looking for "everybody" to like me. By getting to know myself, I realized that I am a unique individual and who I am may not work for everyone and that is fine. So what did I do? I changed my "everybody". I found a whole country and culture that was like me - BRASIL! I found my home, my new home. I also found a whole community of people that thought as I did, dance as I do, lived their lives like I do and was not afraid of sharing their story so that others along with myself would have a healthy life blueprint to follow. My life started to become a passionate place for me to live. Realizing that I was no longer a child and I do not need the popular girls to like me was a huge load off my shoulders.
I started living the life that was true for me and I knew that not everyone would make it over into that new life. I started to create and live for myself. If one or more people do not like me, not only am I around the wrong crowd, I love me, so guess which one is more important. Me loving me of course. So instead of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, I realized that a certain lifestyle, certain beliefs, way of living and thinking no longer worked for me and I would then remove myself from that life. I am not going to force myself to live in a lifestyle, mentalities that does not work for me nor does it resonates or align with who I am. Although people may feel offended, which is not my intention, I cannot live a life that is suffocating me and does not really put me and my happiness anywhere. I need to do what is best for me and keep my life moving forward. It is not for me force people to change their life so I will not force myself to live their life and I will not tolerate anyone trying to force me to suppress my life. If others wish to travel with me then great, however, I'm no longer sacrificing my life to please anyone.
Living my truth means that I live the life that is true for me, not a life that others think is true for me and that I should live according to their specifications. We are no longer children and our parents no longer control our life and our every waking move nor should they be allowed to. When we become adults, parents need to learn how to let go and stop trying to control the lives of their children and whom they can be friends with. It is also up to us to stand up to our parents and let them know that their behaviour is not acceptable in our lives. I no longer try to get people to listen to me. I am now confident in myself and I have my own sense of self. If someone is trying to control my life then that person is no longer welcomed in my life. That is not an insult, that is self-preservation, my self-preservation. If I allow other people to control me then I would be a twisted mess of confusion. I can't have people in my life who second guesses everything that I do, who want to think for me, tell me what to do, otherwise I would not be able to take care of myself, stand on my own two feet and guide my life to where I desire it to be. I have my own mind and I can think for myself and for the good of my life.
If others are putting my well-being in danger then I remove myself from those dynamics. People might feel angry with me, but my life is my life. I control and direct my life. I am the leader of my life, no one else is. Are their friendships that I miss? Yes, however, those friendships were destroying my life and I could not continue in those alliances. I am a free spirit so I have learned to let my life and people flow, but if there comes a time when I need to protect my life, my health and my psyche, then I will put my life and my health first. That means I can't have people in my life who does not care about me, who expects me to live and jump to their tune and who feels that I should not protect my life and my health against anything and anyone that puts my life and mental health at risk.
As I begin to connect with who I am, I am no longer a doormat who allows other people to walk over me and treat me like dirt. With each passing day, I think better of myself, I feel better about myself and I am no longer preoccupied with people not liking me. As I grow myself, I have learned to quiet the outside chaos and go within to listen to the voice of my Soul. I am freeing up life so that I can live more passionately. The more I grow, the more I connect with others who are in alignment with who I am and who I'm becoming. I'm no longer preoccupied with who do not want to listen to me or who do not like me.
I'm no longer that little girl who wants everyone to like her. If people don't like me, I will not waste my time trying to get them to like me. I'm no longer that little girl who wants to please everyone and who wants everyone to like her and be her friend. What a Relief! As long as I listen to and pay close attention to myself and to my life I know I will be OK. I trust The Universe to bring the right people into my life, who connects with me and with whom I connect with. People who can relate to what I am saying and who is looking to move their lives forward powerfully, purposely and passionately. That is my purpose.
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About the Author:
Do you find yourself constantly looking to please others? Are you afraid of living your life because someone else might not approve? Do you trust yourself and who you are? Trudy-Ann Ewan specializes in supporting individuals in their Journey to building a better relationship with themselves by becoming wholistically healthy so that they can create and live a passionate and powerful life. To read more on whom Trudy-Ann is, feel free to visit her website: [http://www.trudyannewan.com]. Feel free to contact Trudy-Ann Ewan via the website if you are interested in any of her Speaking and/or Coaching Services.
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