Standing up for Ourselves

I am noticing with some curiosity how my changing relationship with myself is causing some immediate changes in my relationships with others. As we learn to love ourselves more, how we allow others to behave towards us changes too, and for me, with some unexpected results!

This morning I did something quite uncharacteristic of the old me. I was swimming along quite nicely in my lane in the pool when a guy swimming super fast got into my lane (the lane is separated by a row of floats) and started swimming straight towards me! It was quite aggressive and he was behaving as if I wasn’t even there.

I stood up and demanded ‘What are you DOING?!’ he said he was just following the signs. I thought, I don’t want a discussion here the guy is new and mistaken…so with considerably certainty, ‘Fuck OFF’ came out my mouth as I pointed back over where he came and there was space for him. It was so strong that he immediately moved out of my lane.

I did this without feeling angry, and carried on with my relaxing swim. In the past I would have considered what this guy wanted to be more important and I would have just moved myself to accommodate him and seethed in anger for the rest of my swim.

In this situation I felt indignant that my space was being invaded insensitively and I spoke up. It felt very good standing up for myself, and demonstrating self respectful in the face of someone showing disrespect.

I used to put up with some awful behaviour in relationships, and for a long time I was perplexed at my tolerance for this abuse. I thought I was just one of those strong women who could take a lot of pain in life. I was attracted to men who were like this and the theme became quite obvious, as it was one relationship after the next.

I see now that what we get in relationships simply reflects our own level of self worth. And it could not have been any other way. There is no chance we could tolerate being really loved and cherished and treated with a high level of respect and kind consideration when we don’t feel remotely worthy of this, when we do not love ourselves.

History is starting to make sense now. And I can take responsibility for my part in those relationship dynamics. These relationships were a type of self abuse. This is how we create our own reality. Our relationship with ourselves determines what we feel we deserve in life, and what we believe we deserve is usually what we get.

Life is starting to feel a whole lot different. Now that I love and cherish myself more I can allow more of this response from life around me. I can let more love in and more abundance into my life.

And an important element to all this is that I can go through life feeling less defended, as I now know that I will look after and protect myself as required. I can relax.