Claiming My Voice: From the darkness, the light emerges.

Sure I still lack the self esteem I wish I had. I have tons more than I used to.

I used to NEED the approval of others to such an extent that I couldn’t have told you who I was or what I wanted if my life had depended on it. I was always being who I thought you wanted me to be. I even changed who I was for people I didn’t even like. Gah!

I know we all say that we shouldn’t care what other people think but how can we get along in society if we don’t to some extent. Unfortunately, some of us take it too far and it only hurts us. Fortunately, we can all change.

My -give-a-shit has mostly disappeared when it comes to certain people or types of people.

Here are some examples:

-Men who fit my idea of “father” got whatever they wanted: my body, my approval, my attention…I have this one friend. He is about 30 years older than I am. We hung out for a while and I doted on his every word. Once he bought a new jacket and was marveling over the cool buttons it had. Within a month, I had purchased a similar jacket with the same type of buttons. If you had asked me why I bought the jacket, I would have told you that it was because he made a great argument in favor of those buttons and I liked them. I can tell you today that subconsciously I was mirroring him trying to win his love and approval. He and I still talk sometimes but now I check myself before and after our conversations. I make sure that I am who I want to be and not who I think he will like.

-I used to let people talk down to me because secretly I knew they were treating me the way I deserved to be treated. I let bosses and colleagues diminish my work/contributions. Once a friend and I were talking to a guy who was hiring for a tech support role and the guy asked me a question. My friend said something to the effect of “She doesn’t know that. She’s just tier 1”. I said nothing. We finished the conversation and left. I haven’t spoken to her again. If that were to happen today, I wouldn’t let her interrupt me and I would call her out for speaking for me and dismissing my experience.

-The oldest example I have is my laugh…when I was about 13, a friend and I met these guys and we went back to their place to get high. At some point, one of the guys made a joke and I laughed and he exclaimed, “There you are! There is your laugh!” When I asked him what he meant, he told me that when I was straight, my laugh was weird and fake, and now that I was a bit buzzed, my laugh was genuine. My take away from that was that getting high made me more likable AND when I was straight, I shouldn’t laugh because it was wrong. So I stopped laughing when I wasn’t high or drunk. Honestly, I still struggle to laugh out loud in person. I find lots of things funny and I love to joke around but for me to laugh in front of you is a precious thing. Me not laughing became a habit…one that I still work to remove. I notice when I am laughing and find that is it generally only with people I trust. I’m a work in progress.

How was I able to grow and get past some of this, you ask? I supposed some of it is age and wisdom. Anyone paying attention to themselves or life is bound do find themselves doing things they don’t want to and search out the resources to change bad habits. In that vein, I do A LOT of inner work. I regularly sit with myself (especially when I don’t feel right) and ask myself what I am doing and why I am doing it. I have people I trust and share it with them, and somewhere in the writing and talking, I get clarity on the causes and conditions of my own behavior. Then I have people I can practice new behaviors with to try to correct the things I don’t like. They give me honest, loving feedback and I can adjust as needed.

There are some people who will never see the real me: Either because they can’t or I don’t trust them enough. But there are others who know the whole me and I know the whole them and they are my people.

I was listening to this song today and was reminded that no matter what, I want to love me first and I do that best when I am always the full me: