Being me

What have you been putting off doing? Why?

It’s been a year of change for a person who finds some changes more challenging than others. I’ve tackled three hard things this year.

I find personal change to be a no brainer, as my husband would say. The only person reacting to my life is me and the only person who can change that life is me, via the way I think about and approach life. That’s true personal power.

It is them but only I can change the effects.

Stupidly Loyal

Yep, loyalty can be a double edged sword. I used to pride myself on loyalty but now I don’t. Sounds bad doesn’t it? But bear with me here.

There is a subtlety to true change requiring what sounds like a dramatic shift in thinking, but is in fact very small.

Making yourself important

We all know it, few do it.

I’m human, so are the people I love, therefore we all have to put up with each other’s humanity.

To ask anyone to be better than me is wrong, so I don’t ask that.

That’s all very well and good until you find yourself compromising yourself most of the time, and getting very little of want you want and need. But that’sokay because you’re being a good person. Except that’s not okay,

Not important

I was raised to be perfect, it feels horrible just writing those words. My parents were basically showing me off and I had no idea. Ramming the fact that I had a well off (devastatingly cruel ex) husband. Boasting that I got married in white. That was a polite lie in those days for the look of the thing, many white weddings were. My cousins thought I was miss goody-two-shoes, whereas I was an adult who minded her own business.

Importantly, I was never good because I was a perfect child or person, I was good because I was scared not to be. The first time I stepped out of line I lost everyone except three very close friends. So I was right to be scared. Sounding familiar? Step out of line and that’s you dismissed.

As you may imagine/know, I took every aspect of being good to extremes of self-crucifixion.

Especially, but not exclusively, loyalty.

Subtly shifting change

This year I’ve changed my dentist, hairdresser, and vet, and it’s been hard. Why? Because the three people I’ve left were some of the best people I’ve ever met. But the subtle shift dictated that it be done.

It’s hard to create change when no one has done anything wrong. Hard to believe that you have the right to say that superb people no longer deliver what you need. But you do have that right.

The dentist was the best man, I went in to have a tooth out with him without a qualm. But I have implant crowns and I didn’t realise that they have challenges requiring specialist dentists. Not his fault I didn’t know that. Moving on was right for me.

My hairdresser was so lovely, but her personal circumstances led to three wonky haircuts in a row, the last of which was spectacular. But her reasons were good. Certainly not her fault.

The vet was second-to-none, but Brexit wrecked everything. They lost their European vets, could no longer provide a weekend emergency service, and the emergency vet is 30-40 minutes from us. It was another no brainer that I fought because that man had earned loyalty if anyone had. One thousand percent not his fault. But I can think of two political liars that I’d cheerfully throttle if my spirituality would allow it. I’m grateful it doesn’t because that would be letting the likes of them change me.

The point

We can all be frightened of change, but those three changes have been superb!

But when you’ve been raised in a way that doing anything for yourself just wasn’t worth it, or with an over developed sense of other people, you hold back for any number of misguided reasons:

* You don’t feel important or that you have rights.

* Lack of trust in yourself.

* When you’ve been hurt you don’t want to hurt anyone. You’ll put up with all kinds of things so that you never become the hurter. It’s crucial to prove to yourself the hurters didn’t win. It’s how you start to rebuild.

The shift

In accepting humanity. I accepted too much in any number of ways.

I made the subtle shift in life from black and white, good/bad, to fully inclusive, and stopped judging myself for having needs.

I now include myself in all decisions. My needs and feelings are important too.

I consciously choose to create change but do it kindly. I’ll say it’s not you it’s me, when it is you. ‘But I just can’t be near you anymore’ doesn’t need saying. People have to work out their own effect on their own lives. I achieve peace by moving away.

Obviously this doesn’t include any form of violence or abuse. That’s zero tolerance with no apologies whatsoever.

So…

What I’ve put off is making myself central in my life and awarding myself human rights.

I worried and delayed because I didn’t want to cause hurt. I looked at things from every angle in minuscule detail to try to make sure I was right. I didn’t realise I was right about what I felt.

I did it because I forgot to be nice to me.

Deb xx