Week 2: Choosing Yourself
“I still remember you as a little girl who overwaters plants because she doesn’t know when to stop giving.”
When I read that quote for the first time, tears were streaming down my face. For what feels like the majority of my life, I have put other people’s needs in front of my own, and in doing so, I have been abandoning myself for years. In fact, I’m still learning to choose myself and ask permission to put myself first.
I think women in particular are guilty of not choosing themselves. Part of it is our relationship with our self-worth, but the other part is that we are fitting the typical stereotype of what defines a “good” woman or mother. Words like selfless, caring, generous, forgiving, and attentive all sound great at first, but they become incredibly toxic traits to strive towards when we can’t even take care of our own needs. Negative relationships with self-worth often lead us into relationships where we accept sub-par behaviour and essentially send the message to ourselves that we are worthy of that treatment. It is time to love ourselves enough, to give ourselves the love that we give to others.
This week’s theme is all about how to choose yourself. If you’re not quite sure how that aligns with you, consider whether the following scenarios play a role in your life:
Have trouble saying no to people and end up either feeling burnt out or disconnected
Tolerate behaviour from others that makes you feel less-than
Don’t want to speak your mind for fear of shaking the peace
Constantly worry about not being “enough” and feel like you need to change yourself in order to be accepted (chameleon effect)
Anxiously wait for people to text you back, make plans with you, or put you as a priority
Hold a lot of resentment towards others
Find yourself wishing for more, but never committing to your dreams
If more than one resonates with you, don’t worry, you’re not alone. I’ve felt each and every one of these feelings at different points in my life.
I’ve constantly picked up work shifts for other people and when I needed coverage, somehow nobody was around
I’ve been shamed for saying that someone hurt my feelings and been made to feel TOO sensitive and emotional
I’ve stayed in friendships and relationships that treated me like garbage and then made me feel that it was my fault
I’ve waited to be someone’s first choice and even when they proved I wasn’t, I still stayed
I’ve said yes, when truthfully all I wanted was to say no
In the last few years, I’ve spent a lot of time on setting boundaries, learning to say no, and loving certain people from afar. All of this work has allowed me to lean more into actively loving myself and gaining my own self-worth, not from anyone or anything else, but from myself. The moment I decided to set boundaries, the things that I used to tolerate became intolerable and I started choosing people and things that amplified me, rather than belittled me.
The most important step towards choosing yourself, is learning what you are choosing. Tune into your body and trust what it is telling you, because it never lies. Your mind may be able to come up with a million reasons and justifications of why you should do something, but your body will ALWAYS tell you the true path. Your body will feel tense, constricted, or heavy when you think about what isn’t right for you. On the flip side, when you feel drawn to choose something, even if it’s scary as hell, your body will lean towards it with a feeling of joyous anticipation and lightness.
One of the biggest indicators that I’m not choosing myself is the feeling of resentment. It’s the buzzing in my chest like a swarm of angry bees. It’s the bitterness at the world and feeling like everyone must have it easier. Even being in the wonderful relationship I am, I often come up against this feeling.
“Why does he have time to work on his hobbies?”
“How come he gets to see his friends when I don’t have time?”
“Must be nice to just relax”
Funny enough, the resentment had NOTHING to do with him. It had to do with my relationship with me. Resentment is a mirror of everything that you are not choosing for yourself. In this case, I wasn’t giving myself enough time to enjoy life, hang out with friends, and do the things that filled my soul. Essentially I wasn’t choosing myself. I was trying to place that anger on someone else, rather than take the blame for not filling my own needs.
What I’ve come to realize, is that I have a fear of disappointing others and so I have a hard time saying “no.” But this constant people pleasing leads me to feeling exhausted, burnt out, underappreciated, unseen, and bitter.
One of the best pieces of advice of this comes from the beautiful Glennon Doyle:
“Every time you’re given a choice between disappointing someone else and disappointing yourself, your duty is to disappoint that someone else. Your job, throughout your entire life, is to disappoint as many people as it takes to avoid disappointing yourself.”
When we actively choose ourselves, there is no room for resentment, only freedom. When I put my own needs first, I can then attend to the needs of others while upholding the important boundaries I’ve set. Remember that your boundaries are not walls, they are gentle reminders of where the door is. And the only people who get upset about you setting boundaries are the ones who were benefitting from you having none. People who truly love and care about you will always respect your boundaries and will do their best to never cross them.
For this week’s theme, I’ve created a short mindfulness meditation to nurture this relationship with your physical body and to start to truly listen to what it has to say so that you can start to fall in love with yourself all over again.
Journaling Questions:
Where am I currently choosing to disappoint myself to avoid disappointing another?
How can I choose myself in these instances?
What circumstances do I have trouble saying “no” to? What makes this so challenging?
Are there people in my life that make me feel “not enough?” If I am honest with myself, is that relationship causing more harm than good?
Am I resentful about anything currently? What could this be mirroring to me that I am not choosing for myself?
Do I have fairly strong boundaries or do I feel like I let people trample all over me? What boundaries could I create to uphold my self worth?