Self Love For When You Don’t Feel It
Today was a bad brain day and I strongly considered not writing this post—-but that’s usually when posts like this need to be written.
I was tagged in a post meant to be funny about my star sign, Taurus. One of the jokes on it is that a Taurus “can’t be wrong,” mentioned on it four times. I know that it was an issue in my much younger years but near my early twenties I realized the best way to never be wrong is to never claim that you know something, unless you really know it.
I was really proud of when I learned that. I got braver at saying, “I’m not sure but I THINK so. I think I remember something about this but I’m not positive.” That was the best way to not be proven wrong. When there is something I definitely know for sure—what actor starred in a film, who wrote what book, etc.—-I have no problem arguing that I’m correct because I know that I will be proven correct.
This got trickier with things that I know to be true “morally.” These include things like past experiences that I’m familiar with but others aren’t: one person’s truth doesn’t make it incorrect; it just means that that’s a situation you haven’t been put it yet and it’s okay to admit that you don’t know this. It’s also okay to have different experiences: “Maybe it was that way for you but for me...”
A really big one is offense. Just because you are not offended, does not mean that others cannot be. Just because you did not mean something hurtfully does not mean that others cannot be hurt. Even if I have the best intentions when saying something, if I’ve hurt someone, I have to accept that I caused that regardless of my intention.
The example I use for this is walking down a hallway. If you are walking down a hallway and you, walking peacefully and happily, do not notice another person and bump into them, making them knock over their things, what do you do?
Do you say, “you should look where you’re going,” and keep walking away?
Do you see them fall and keep going on your way?
Do you say, “I didn’t mean to,” and keep going?
Do you stop and say, “I didn’t mean to,” and help them gather their things? Regardless of the intent, you’ve caused that person to stop, drop their things, and now must either pick it up by themselves or with your help.
I see unintentional offense this way. Though the situations I’ve gotten into in my life have taught me that most people don’t.
Seeing that post today sent me into a downward spiral. I flashed to the last three relationships where I was wronged in terrible ways and nearly each time was not only made to believe that everything was my fault (yes, both people should be watching as they cross each other in a hallway, but sometimes no amount of dodging keeps you out of someone’s way—making it hard to believe it was unintentional in the first place), but sometimes that the wrong didn’t even occur. Sometimes I was told that I tripped myself and fell and dropped everything because I wasn’t looking and was now just passing blame to avoid accepting it. I would remember the push that knocked me down but the lie would make me question everything that I thought was true.
In my last relationship, he would say that I had bumped into HIM and then would tell others an aggrandized story of how and why this was true, while leaving me in the hallway trying to gather my scattered things.
The relationship before, I would be told that because it was unintentional, I was just passing off blame.
In a relationship before that, I was told that he didn’t see me there so I shouldn’t be taking it personally.
Which brought me back to my parents and the times they did all three. The times they went around and told lies about me in case I tried to get help from others. The times they made eye contact to knock me down and claim they never saw me there. The times they pretended to be unaware of their actions to accuse me of casting blame. The times they treated me like I had just fallen and had never even gotten close. The times they knocked me down, held me down, threw my things farther, asking why I was upset because all of it was in my head.
I have no problem admitting when I’m wrong because I never claim to know anything that I don’t know.
I drove home from the grocery store with dinner in hand, having flashbacks for hours of my exes and my parents and people that I trusted as friends, knowing that I can never truly forget what they’ve done and recognizing it’s because of links to what my parents have done, and I cried.
I haven’t cried in a while. It only lasted slightly longer than five minutes and ended in less than ten.
Sometimes self love is feeling your pain and feeling all the anger and sadness that you have inside of you, even if only for a few minutes.
365 days of self love: day 3
