How much power do you give away?
There was a time in my life when I felt extremely inferior. I had experienced some tough times as a child and had very low self-esteem. I didn’t see my worth at all and viewed the world through a dark, dirty lens.
Because I felt so low on myself I allowed everything to come through my dirty filters and translate to me as “you are inferior, you are not enough, you are worthless”. It didn’t matter what people said or did, I always saw their actions and reactions as negative. They could actually be loving me the best way they knew how and I still saw it as not enough, because I saw myself as not enough.
I gave full consent to these people to make me feel sad, not because they necessarily wanted to make me feel that way, but because I felt that way. See, one thing I’ve learned is that when we believe something about ourselves or the world around us, we find evidence to support that belief. As human beings, we hate being wrong so we will continue to find things that agree with our current belief system. I thought negatively, so I found more negativity. I believed I wasn’t good enough, so any experience I had helped me continue to believe I wasn’t good enough, simply because that’s how I interpreted it.
Later in life I began doing a lot of self-development and through it all I learned that I was attracting certain things to me. I was attracting people who weren’t great to me, because I wasn’t great to myself. I was attracting partners that would be half in and half out because I was afraid to commit and treated them the same way. I was so blind to it at the time because I just didn’t see what I was doing. I felt like a victim to all these circumstances and didn’t understand that I could change things. Once I finally understood this, my life changed. Once I cleaned off my dirty lenses I found that light shone through. I began to see myself as worthy and deserving of love. I began to attract friends who truly cared about me, a partner who loved me unconditionally and opportunities that I wouldn’t have leaned into before because of my unworthiness.
When I began to love myself, I didn’t want the people in my life who were negative toward me. I didn’t want to be around people who were half in and half out. I only allowed love, light and beauty into my life because I knew that’s what I deserved and it finally resonated with me. I found proof to support my self-love and it changed my life.
We all have the power to clean the dirt off our lenses and see ourselves and the world differently. We have choice in how we feel about ourselves. This can be simple or it can be complicated – however you feel it should look is probably the way it will look.
Once we know how we deserve to feel, we will not let people into our lives who treat us differently. We will look for proof that we are lovable, valuable and worthy of respect. Elanor Roosevelt says it so well – “No one has the power to make you feel inferior without your consent”. If you have people in your life that make you feel that way, know that you are letting them because you feel that way about yourself. Change your mind, change your life!
