Value Yourself!

Stop treating others as though they are of greater worth than you. Nobody is more important than anyone else. And nobody is more important than you. Nobody. This is not about having a massive ego or being self-righteous; it’s about stopping all the self-sabotage. You know what I mean. It’s about not rationalizing mediocrity and failure any more. It’s about changing your standards and your thinking. It’s about not letting your poor self-esteem get in the way of your potential and your possibilities. It’s about not letting your past become your future. In case you don’t know or you haven’t been told, I will tell you now; you are worthy, you are talented, you are good enough and you are powerful. More than you know. If you don’t believe those words then you don’t value yourself as you should.

I seem to lose sight of this concept quite often - more often than I'd like.  With that being said, there's no one to blame for my predicament except me. My whole life people have told me that I'm too nice and I let people get away with too much or walk all over me.  The sad thing is that it's true.  I would rather let people walk all over me than to have them mad or upset with me.  I think I was born a people pleaser and in some ways, that's totally disgusting to me. I still find it hard to stand up for myself and to tell people what I really think for fear - of - well... abandonment.  I've had abandonment issues since I was a child.  

We tend to blame others when they don't love us or treat us the way that we want to be loved or treated.  Instead of expressing how we feel, we blame, judge and then convict the other person of being guilty. Then we project our verdict onto them and wonder why they react negatively and then use that negative reaction as further proof that our verdict was in fact, correct. Instead of blaming and judging, if we can open up, become vulnerable and EXPRESS our feelings and needs, we give the other person an opportunity to course correct and with this new information. 

This is going to be an experiment with the "boyfriend".  Instead of not saying anything when he comes over on the weekends and takes over my TV I'm going to open my mouth and take control of the remote for at least some of the shows that I want to watch.  And if he says they're stupid I may just kick his ass to the curb. Really?  You're going to come over to my house and call the TV shows I want to watch stupid?  I don't think so.  By the end of this he may think I'm a real bitch but I must take back the parts of myself that I've been letting slip away for fear that he wouldn't like me. It starts tonight - now.  The other part of all this is... should it be this difficult?  I think I'm the one making it more difficult that it should be.