Abandoning Self

It will never be about walking away from someone for someone else. It will never be about greener grass or being too afraid to be alone. It will always be about me not being willing to abandon myself. It will always be about valuing myself more, not valuing them less. So I won’t stay. If there is a hint or a spark of the idea that I am giving up who I am for something or someone it’s time for me to bow out gracefully. 

And if you do it at the beginning when your intuition tells you instead of waiting until you’ve tried every way possible to twist that around and turn it into an answer you like better, you have a really good chance of doing it gracefully. For you. For your truth. 

When we abandon ourselves because of someone’s inability or unwillingness to hear or see us we lose so much more than we realize. We give up our self-confidence, our innate sense of trust in our intuition and most importantly we begin to see ourselves through the distorted lens of their dysfunction. Doubt creeps in and second-guessing becomes the norm. And for what? So we can obtain a false sense of belonging? So we can fit into the comfortable nook of another person’s opinion? 

One of the most empowering lessons I’ve learned during relationships, with both friends and partners, is exactly what it feels like when I abandon myself. The way my body responds to being out of alignment, the nuances of feeling off balance emotionally, physically and spiritually. That moment when you realize you’re walking on eggshells because you know if you say the hard, but necessary thing it’s going to start a conflict that will turn into something untenable. That moment when you find yourself filtering what you say because you know that expressing your feelings will make them angry. That moment when you realize you’re defending yourself and trying to explain away who you are, because their ego is too fragile to make room for your story. That moment when you feel yourself stepping back, making yourself smaller, to allow them to step up, even though you know deep down that you can’t fill the gaps of what they’re missing. 

We don’t owe these things to anyone. Our only responsibility is to ourselves and that is not selfishness. That is vital self-love and no one can give that to you. That quality is nurtured and grown from inside and with it comes a healthy dose of self-respect and boundaries. In turn we come to our relationships as a complete and whole human, emotionally mature and ready to share life’s challenges with another person. We’re not free of baggage but we have the skills necessary to unpack them, and we don’t ask another person to be in charge of our emotions or responses. 

It took me years to understand the difference between compromise and sacrifice, which would ultimately require that I cast aside who I am for the needs of someone else. It took educating myself and really looking at my internal dialogue to realize that I was handing over the most valuable parts of me so I could make another person happy. But that’s not my job. The truth is that it was codependency and it was never going to be enough to make them happy; it just allowed them to take more pieces of me. I didn’t recognize it because it was so familiar, it had been the foundation of how I grew up. I practically evaporated into a shell of my former self before I realized what I was doing. Once I did I stepped away and started focusing on my growth. I needed to take a long hard look at my patterns and how my unstable upbringing informed my decisions. I’ve been stepping away from things that don’t serve me ever since. The practice of listening to and staying in my truth has led me to a deeper understanding of what makes me who I am and what I bring to the table. I now recognize sooner when someone is emotionally unprepared for a relationship and have the courage to move forward without them. 

My commitment to me is that I will love myself so fiercely that I can discern the condescending tone of disrespect, the sharp edges of passive aggressive behavior and the subtleties of emotional manipulation. 

And don’t kid yourself into thinking that this kind of behavior only comes from abusive people. It can come from decent people who simply don’t have the emotional skills to deal with conflict. It doesn’t make it any less damaging or insidious. We owe it to ourselves to have razor sharp clarity with our own voice so we never accept this as normal or tolerable. As we release these negative interactions, we make space for healthy, reciprocal relationships.

Anything else, anything less, is settling.