Believe in Yourself
Let me start off by saying this.. believing in yourself, and taking care of yourself first is not selfishness.
I remember years ago I was told that believing in yourself is not selfishness, it was hard to hear because the way I was raised was to put others before myself. As I’ve grown on my spiritual path I have adopted this philosophy of taking care of myself first… it was difficult at first but the more I practiced it the more I realized that by serving myself I was also serving others.
What do I mean by this?
When you start taking care of your own needs first, and you are honest about what you feel and who you truly are, you are going to weed out a lot of people in your life. That is ok. You can’t make everyone happy, nor should you want to. Eventually though you will find someone that is on the same vibration that you are, someone that believes in themselves as much as you believe in you. You’ve heard me talk before about ‘mirror’s’. When I talk about mirrors what I am talking about is this… when you look in the mirror you see yourself, if you look in the mirror and you see someone that is miserable, unhappy, insecure, etc., do you really think that you’re going to get back something else? Let me elaborate. You can’t have what you are not. It’s impossible. It might happen, yes, but it will be brief because the other person will eventually see your true colors. So, no matter what you want in this world you have to be honest with yourself and honest with the other person.
It’s a hard lesson, but a worthwhile one. I wouldn’t have who I have in my life now did I not look in the mirror and become who I truly am. I have who I have in my life now because I am reflecting who I am. I wrote a song called The Mirror of your Soul with D.N.A.. I wrote this song after dating a narcissist. I believe though that everything happens for a reason. Had I not have had this experience I never would have taken a look at who I really am. Everything happens for a reason… Everything.
What did I learn from this and how can it help you?
Take it from a guy that has taken the backseat in many relationships. I’m not blaming them, quite the contrary, I was to blame for all of them. Why? Because I wasn’t in the relationships for me, at first I was, but after a period of time I was in them for somebody else. It was either to please a family member or to prove to the other in the relationship that I could become what they needed me to be in order to make them happy. It’s a lose/lose situation because you can never make somebody else happy, that is their responsibility. Now, that doesn’t mean that you cannot add to another persons happiness, but you can not, and let me say this again… you can’t be responsible for somebody else’s happiness or unhappiness. It’s impossible. But I tried, and I failed many times. It was a pattern of mine to do everything in my power to make someone happy, to prove to them that I could do it. The pattern would last for about 3-5 years before I internally blew up. I would run away, I would start resenting them or I would go find somebody else, and the person I was with at the time would be left standing there dumbfounded not understanding what the hell was going on. They never knew because I would beat myself up inside, convincing myself that I could change for that person.
It wasn’t until I moved to Los Angeles that all of this changed. I was forced to be alone. I forced myself for the most part. I recognized the patterns by learning more about myself. It took me being alone, with myself, to really look deep into who I really was and what I really wanted. Yes, I dated here and there, and sometimes I would fall back into the pattern, but this time it was different. I recognized the pattern. That was the key. Sometimes it would only take one date, sometimes a month, but I looked at what I wanted first. Was this person serving who I really wanted to be to the world? Were we both in alignment of what we both needed? How could I serve that person while also serving myself? Millions of questions would come up, and each time I would meditate on it to see if I was falling back into an old pattern or not.
Who are you seeing in the mirror? Who do you want to see in the mirror?
Start taking care of yourself and that reflection will change. Trust me.
Namaste,
David
