I had not learnt to make decisions once, make them right and make them final. I kept repeating the same patterns over and over again, such needless repeats with their expenditure of energy that I could well have done to conserve.
The truth hurts and often alienates; but there comes a time when you just have to tell it like it really is. I had for too long said what everyone else wanted to hear, too afraid to express my own opinion for fear of criticism and rejection. I believed I didn’t have the right to anyway.
I had lost my own voice, I had lost myself
It felt as though I had spent half my lifetime straightening out constant mess, misunderstandings, hurt feelings, damaged egos, and when I was not being treated fairly I was afraid too afraid to speak up. My lust for recognition and approval brought destruction upon myself. I didn’t understand that I had options at my disposal but I couldn’t pick anything up with my hands so filled with unnecessary baggage....Yeah I lost myself somewhere.
I held onto the familiar even when it wasn’t working any more, clutching on to a dead marriage, sentimental about people who were not sentimental about me. I needed to learn to lose...
I was emotionally, physically and spiritually bankrupt, dealing with too needy people who were always holding out for more, making me feel obligated and guilty, and never feeling able to put myself first.
It was time to relinquish the need to be needed, to acknowledge that there is a difference between helping and carrying others. I was giving to others what I so desperately needed for myself. The fear of rejection and criticism imprisoned my common sense.
What would people think of me?" "What will they say about me?"
But it was now a matter of survival and some relationships needed to be left behind in order for me to move forward on my journey of healing and recovery.
Yet I didn’t know how to just walk away. I was living in stalemate locked in pent-up, silent frustration. The choice was mine I knew. Only I could decide what I allowed to cling to my soul or what I would strip away. Fear, insecurity, was the reason I could not let go I was scared.
Fear only served to cripple my creativity it crept into my life and diminished my self-image. Fear sneered at me in the mirror in the mornings: "You could have done better." Lord knows this played in my mind over and over but yet I still couldn't move. Fear manifested itself in my need to make people know who I really was and what I had done, because I feared I would be overlooked, or not measure up.
The nagging insecurity that lurked at the back of mind whispered constantly, "You will never make it or amount to anything," These words were said daily it became a part of my life. This dented my armor and undermined my effectiveness.
Fear is fertilized by words, but it’s not the words of others that leave you trembling or intimidated. No, it’s the words you say to yourself.
So, how did I begin to sort through my relationships and relinquish the hindrances that clung to me like briars on my clothes? Making a hard choice I had to look fear in the face, eyeball to eyeball, and tell it that it was nothing more than false evidence trying to appear real.
I had to begin to break the self-deception, confront my self-sabotaging, and swallow my pride with a tall glass of honesty. This