Learning Self-respect

It was part of my learning to enter a toxic relationship in which I felt victimized and stuck. It was after a year when I found myself deeply wondering “How did I end up in that situation?”

It was then when I experienced coaching which supported me in dissipating that feeling of stuckness that I had experienced for years and shined light into the blind spots of myself that I was just not able to see.

​This acted as a magnifying mirror to realize the power that I was giving away, the little sense of self-respect and self-worth that I had been walking with, and the voice that I had shut off while growing up. Because in my subconscious, a loving relationship was about finding external acceptance.

So if someone was satisfied with me, then I was satisfied with myself. But if they didn’t really like what I was doing, saying, thinking or feeling, then I needed to change myself to adapt to them. I was inviting manipulation and pain into my life and I could not see it. This rock bottom was my motivation to reach out for answers.

​It was a hard pill to swallow to recognize that I invite people into my life and the dynamics that go with it. Why did I attract this into my life? This is a question that I continue to ask myself, since I believe these are the questions that bring me self-awareness and growth.

​I relearned how to speak up, hear my own voice and detach my own value from anyone else’s sense of my own worth. I am the one who needs to be accepting of myself first.

I understood that I can appreciate kind words, but I don’t want to rely on them, because if my sense of self-worth comes from your words and behavior towards me, then I am giving you all the power to take my worth away at your own will.

​Sometimes we need to reach a point of chaos in order to re-arrange the pieces into a new more aligned version of ourselves. Checking in, reflecting and practicing. Finding the support we need and creating the supportive structures that are aligned with our deepest yearnings.