It’s been a relatively relaxing weekend – one of those where you just come back to yourself and reflect.
To be completely honest, most of my weekends go this way. I work throughout the week and socialize then, but once the weekend comes around, I feel really drawn to being alone. I’ve accepted that about myself, however, I know as a species, connection is vital to humans. So I can’t help but feel guilty that I’m not putting myself out there 100% of the time.
People will ask how my weekend was and I draw a blank. I close up because I feel that other people won’t understand what I do or see me as a loner. I know who I am and feel such a love for the person I’m becoming, but sometimes, that feels a little scary expressing to the outside world.
I spend hours diving into spiritual workshop videos, reading, writing, and doing mundane activities that make me feel like I have my life together. Nothing beats the feeling of a clean bathroom and finished laundry. However, if you asked me what I did, I’d boil it down to one word – relaxed. It seems to be the most socially acceptable answer because at 7am on a Monday morning, no one wants to hear about the intricate facets of life. They just want me to say ‘good’ and make their cup of coffee.
I don’t blame them. We live in a world where we’ve been brought up to put on these facades. We all put on facades of ourselves – maybe not in the same environments, but we create them nonetheless.
I find I gravitate towards this positive, go-getter version of myself. When I’m not her, I don’t feel as well-received.
You see, what I’ve learned about myself more than ever is that I grew up believing I needed to be everything to everyone. I have an impossible time asking for what I truly want nor will I ask for help when I need it. That’s why I’ve always been so drawn to the side of the self-help community that preaches to ‘fill your own cup.’ With this truth, I don’t have to depend on anyone. I can be what they need and help how I can, but when it comes to me, I feel fully validated in the sense I can take care of myself.
This is also why there are so many contradictions when you fall into the self-help field. Someone will tell you to confide in others and ask for support when not even a moment later, you’ll read a different quote telling you the only person you can count on is yourself. Thing is, both of these ideas are true. What we feel receptive towards fully depends on our own belief systems.
These belief systems stem from childhood, but just because two people had a similar experience doesn’t mean their beliefs are the same.
For example, take someone who didn’t feel loved as a child. They never felt seen or cared for in the slightest. It usually starts with the parents, however, your ability to form friendships could tie in as well.
So, this child’s beliefs can go one of two ways.
Either they believe they can’t depend on others and retreat to themselves or they grip to absolutely anyone who shows them affection.
If they fall into independence, every quote that speaks of ‘filling your own cup’ and ‘the only person who is there at the end of the day is you’ will feel incredible. It makes your childhood self feel validated because it no longer matters that you were treated wrongly – you didn’t need them anyway.
On the opposite end, never having true connection may lead a child into full co-dependency as an adult. The pain of loneliness ate them alive in youth and as a means to avoid that pain again, they grip to those who give them the attention they crave.
Now, if either of these scenarios feels familiar, acknowledge that. Don’t push it aside.
The #1 detriment to your own well-being is disowning a part of yourself. When you recognize a part of yourself you don’t like or behaviors you wish you didn’t have, the first instinct is to push it away. You don’t even want to go there because the emotions alone feel too heavy to comprehend.
But, if you never go there, the problem will always remain.
If you’re drawn towards independence, you may feel anger or resentment towards those with a full-on supportive tribe. Since you feel this resentment, the Universe may actually bring more of these outside friend groups into your life. What I mean by outside friend groups is essentially seeing close friends bonding on social media or even friendships forming at your work office. Any scenario where you are on the outside of the socialization.
The Universe isn’t doing this to taunt you, but because you are focusing on the lack of friendships in your life (either consciously or subconsciously) you will be given more reasons to believe you are on the outside. What you focus on internally will always manifest externally – the law of attraction makes no exceptions.
If you find yourself gripping to another, maybe even someone who pulls away more often than not, you have trouble when it comes to being alone. It feels unsafe to you. You’re immediately taken back to the cold nights spent alone in your bedroom as a teen. When you’re distracted by someone else or immerse yourself in their life instead, the trauma you experienced feels healed. You see it as you didn’t have love then and now you have it, so the very thought of it disappearing is terrifying.
So, you attach yourself to them. In your mind, you’re like two puzzle pieces coming together and without the other, you are not whole. The idea of ‘filling your own cup’ feels downright ignorant given your past experience. Being alone never felt good to you, so why go there if you don’t have to?
Seeing both sides of the equation is crucial when it comes to understanding not only ourselves, but each other. This is why trying to force our own beliefs on other person is pointless – their internal guidance system may have learned a completely different lesson in childhood than what you experienced; due to this, it is crucial to meet people where they are.
Everyone walks on their own path of awakening. Some may learn a lesson at fourteen that takes others until seventy-two. Just keep in mind that the people you come into contact with in this lifetime are there for the exact amount of time they’re meant to be. I could go into a whole post on the ‘coincidence’ of meeting people, but for now, I’ll leave it at that.
It’s easy to get upset when you realize a quality about yourself you didn’t know existed. I never realized how tied to my own independence I have been until recently and let me tell you, not a fun ride.
I spent nights trying to figure out where I went wrong – how did I go from being okay with social outings everyday ’til the very thought of plans crippling me? I was angry. I was angry that I couldn’t be as ‘carefree’ as those around me.
Yet I realize now that by defying this part of myself, I am going against myself altogether. There’s an aspect of me that feels so tied to this independence and without meeting her where she is, I am bypassing her experience as a whole.
It’s okay to be where we are. It’s okay that things got fucked up at one point or another because from realizing our patterns, we can put ourselves back together. We can pick up the lost parts of ourselves and integrate them back into our experience.
By nurturing the aspects of us that feel scared, alone, sad, and so on, they feel understood. They feel taken care of.
So, on that note, I encourage you to see where you are.
Is there an aspect of you you’ve been avoiding? Maybe for so long, that your mind can’t even re-collect where it stemmed from?
For most of us, this will be true. We believe when we leave childhood and enter adulthood that the child self is gone, but she/he is still you. We just forgot.
By integrating these disowned parts of us, our childhood self finally gets the validation it always craved – the knowledge that it is okay to feel exactly the way they felt.
From there, life becomes a-new and despite everything, I think that’s a chance we all deserve.