You can't have more if you think you deserve less.
I don't know why I put that in quote. Nobody said it. I thought it. Just now. I had an interesting realization recently and as we tend to fetishize our suffering, less so our success, I'm trying to count my wins.
It occurred to me I like the people I'm attracting a lot more than I did 2-3 years ago.
I don't mean the same people, though of course, my relationships with the ones who've stuck around have changed, also. But I'm thinking about new people here. New lovers, new friends. It's easy to get swept up in things that aren't working. In things like "oh, but why haven't I met someone I want to be with". That's a negative, and I need to remind myself to restructure that.
I may not have met him yet, but I sure like the men I have been spending time with a lot more. I see the quality of the time I've spent with them improving, also, and while it's tempting to chuck that down to growing up, I would only agree with the growing part.
Growing up doesn't guarantee anything, unfortunately. Neither does getting burned. It's tempting to say I got burned enough times, I learned better, but often we don't. We just go right back to that kind of burning or mild variations along the same lines.
I'm sure you have people like that around you. Maybe you've been that person yourself. Doing the same mistake on a different street doesn't change much, not really.
But there was growth. And I'm happy to see that growth, 'cause you need sometimes tangible proof that you're on the right road.
I started thinking I deserve more. That I have more to give. It's hard ass work. It's not just going "Jim was a bit of an asshole, wasn't he?". It takes a lot of introspection and sitting with yourself to rewire how you think about yourself.
It's changed how I talk to people. When someone tells me of a partner or a friend's continued bad behavior, I've stopped criticizing the third party. My mind always goes to, why do you think you deserve that? Fool me once, shame on you. We don't say these things for nothing, and unfortunately, quite often when we indulge in toxic relationships of some form, it's because we think that's all we can get. All we deserve. Not even toxic.
I needed to remember something, so I went scrolling through a conversation with an ex. It had nothing to do with him, what I was looking for, but in the process, I inevitably read through some of our chats. That wasn't toxic. That wasn't mean or cruel or abusive or anything like that. It just wasn't right. Going back, it struck me how trite and vapid the conversations were, how little I was actually showing of myself, knowing this person couldn't handle more. So instead of seeking more, I made myself small and digestible. I felt sad for that kid.
I try very hard not to make myself small now.
It's scary. Not easy stuff. We all do it, especially when we meet somebody new. We play along or we squeeze out the occasional white lie, or we alter our personalities to some extent (hopefully not too great) to be liked and accepted and wanted. In time, some of us unfurl. Like mattresses.
But not always.
I always thought I was a bit of an odd one out. That I was strange and it wasn't fair to ask a normal person to be with someone strange. I was perfectly willing to play at being normal. To mute the parts of myself I thought too odd and that put me in peril of rejection.
And I don't think it was growing up. I didn't have more self-confidence at 22 than I had at 18. Nor than I had at 15. If anything, I had less. Because I was quite happy being the odd one out at 15, then for a while, I tried to mould myself to the normal world. Got scared, I think. Now I'm back to being odd.
It turns out, it's not nearly as lonely as I thought. There's people here. Odd ones or just normies who aren't so picky after all.
It was a real game-changer for me and it didn't happen consciously. I didn't decide one day, I'll go ask for more. Nor was I so put off by some horrific maltreatment. I just started saying "That's too little" or, sometimes, "I have more to give than this person can let me". It also meant becoming more accountable. It's necessary to educate people on how to treat you, not because they're assholes or morons. Simply because they're strangers and in eight billion people, we don't each come with a separate manual for everyone else on this Earth.
It's true. People treat you the way you teach them to for the most part.
That's the rub with not believing you deserve much. It carries over. They hear you, the new people who come into your life, and not knowing better (or perhaps some, with malice in their hearts), they start believing it.
We often ask why am I attracting shitty boyfriends? Fake friends? Why am I so unlucky? It almost never occurs to us that the common denominator here is us, though. And that what they're responding to might not be the cosmos's wilful ways, but the message we ourselves are broadcasting.
