By I am emotional by nature. I feel deeply and everything. My emotional nature feels like a sponge, often. If I am close to somebody, I can read their emotions and doing so impacts mine. For much of my life, this caused me to be a people pleaser and lack skills required to set boundaries. I just loved without reservation, limits, or taking myself into consideration if I was close to you. Fixing situations became a default setting, for me, to my determent a lot. In November 2022, I knew I had to work on myself and change. I had so much healing work to do.
The first step was to decide what I did not want or want to be anymore. I wrote it down for myself. Then I asked myself what do you want, and want to be? Writing that down, too, I set about desperately needed inner work. Research led me to books and podcasts which led to more research and books. I followed all the authors and helpful podcasters on social media as well.
All of that, which I still do, led me to the conclusion I have a difficult time trusting myself and others. This was not always the case, so I started working on trusting myself more first. Trusting myself to make good decisions and forgiving myself when I make wrong ones has been a steep hill to climb, but for the first time in quite a while: I feel like I have solid footing on that hill.
Trusting others is much more difficult because so many people I loved and trusted have left my life of their own choosing. That reality left me reeling. What did I do wrong? Why? Now, I understand it had nothing to do with me no matter what they told me. Closure is something I doubt I will ever get, so I just had to accept what it is.
I had to let them go and do whatever was best for them. Then I had to do the same for myself. My growing audience and opportunities coming my way are not something that I will or should ever apologize for. I will not stop this work just because some people liked and loved me better before my audience grew or before I had an audience at all. Setting healthy boundaries and not trying to fix everything for everybody I love became paramount, too. While difficult at first, it gets easier every time I let stuff be as it is, or say no as needed.
I am still working and learning about everything mentioned here, and stuff I have not mentioned as well. I just have a new perspective on all of it. It is nothing more than growing pains, and I am blessed to experience them. It means my best self and the best parts of my life are yet to come. I wanted to share this with all of you to encourage you that the same is true for each of you as well.
