Learn to leave the table when respect is no longer being served.  During Mental Health Awareness month, I figured this was another important topic to revisit.  We are trained to be polite while we are with people and cut them down when they are no longer around or when we don’t need anything from them anymore.  Knowing this, know that others are trained the exact same way.  When we are taught to mistrust and use each other for our own gain, it’s difficult to find a space where mutual trust and respect flow freely.  It’s also hurtful when we thought we found a place like that and discover that isn’t the case. 

As a life-long people pleaser, outside validation meant everything.  Boundaries didn’t matter—they rarely existed.  Anything you wanted, if it meant some sort of validation or praise, I was on it.  Yes, I always wanted respect, but I confused respect with that validation.  And it went away quickly.  As soon as I needed to do something for myself, it meant disappointing someone else.  That caused so much confusion and hurt inside of me that I didn’t know what to do—so I continued putting myself last no matter what.  As I got older and more time passed, I noticed I continually attracted people who needed something from me.  I also noticed that I was doing less and less of what I wanted to do.  Most importantly, I realized that no one was going to give me what I actually needed and that there was only one shot to live this life.

That’s when respect came in.  Why was I spending my days wracking my brain trying to find ways for people to like me when it made me miserable?  Why was I spending time trying to please people who had no interest in me or my best interest?  Why was I respecting people who didn’t give a damn about ME?  Or people who did things I was inherently against?  I got really tired of giving grace and making exceptions for people who wouldn’t do the same for me.  That was when the boundaries tightened for me.  When I saw those I had sacrificed for wouldn’t blink for me, I knew I had to make a different decision.  I’m not saying it’s easy—it’s still something I need to work on daily—but seeing how people behave around us is eye opening.  Seeing how they behave around us when we treat ourselves better is even more illuminating.

The point isn’t to rip up the life you know and become something different.  That rarely works.  But taking the time to find our boundaries and express our limits and respect them for ourselves creates and aura of respect from others.  We all deserve respect.  If we aren’t receiving it, if we have to prove we’ve earned respect in some way, that needs to be a cue to get up and leave.  It can be scary at first, but it’s the most liberating thing you will do.  It’s an immense gift to learn to honor the core of who we are.  When we learn to look at walking away as a safety measure for our sanity and protection of our goals instead of a measure of our worth, the world opens up.  Ironic that in setting boundaries we open up possibilities.  Don’t be afraid to step into who we are because our confusion only benefits those who need us to fulfill their purpose.  When we know our purpose and our worth, we become unstoppable.