“All worries and conceptions from others are bullshit and that’s what holds use back,” Richard Miller.  We’ve spoken often about not worrying about what others think of us and how to work on being completely ourselves—and that who we are is enough.  But what of the anxiety behind it?  I’m not sure I realized it was an anxiety about what others thought.  I thought it was just anxiety about what would happen.  The more we try to elicit a reaction out of someone the more we are tied to that person.  The more we allow that person to determine what we do with our lives.  I’ve really taken a look at that over the last few days because I saw how much I let this impact me.  My husband and I were are a graduation party over the last weekend and I really struggled.  I felt so awkward, lost, just not myself. It has been a long time since I’ve been with a large group of people.  I’ve been working on healing a lot of things since the fight with my husband several months ago and I was simply not ready to deal with the outside.  So at this party I found myself overwhelmed because there were people there that were partially the cause of my mini-break down.  I understood in an instant that I had been basing my decisions on how they would react, what they would think of me.  I wasn’t doing the things I wanted to do in spite of being in the situation.

Let me clarify.  So I honestly wasn’t feeling well (digestion) and I was uncomfortable because these people have continually excluded me while accepting my husband and my husband has consistently chosen to be with them.  I admire my husband because I see how giving he is of himself and how generous he can be with people.  I see how easily he communicates and relates and simply is himself.  I don’t begrudge him friends, I begrudge the consistent choosing of friends over the needs of his family.  Regardless, I found myself really uncomfortable because I physically wasn’t feeling well and there were people there who had treated me like crap and I haven’t spoken to them in some time.  I felt like I was expected to put all that aside.  And truthfully that party wouldn’t have been the place to address any of it anyway so I had no plans to address it there.  But as I watched the evening unfold, as drinks were flowing (something I no longer partake in) I noticed that I really wasn’t enjoying it anymore.  It wasn’t fun to watch them devolve and laugh and not be able to function under the guise of “letting go.”  I don’t feel like I was judging them because it was a legitimate observation, but my reaction to it was different.  It hit me that if I didn’t even like the activities, then why was I trying to relate to them?  Why was I ever worried about what they thought of me, thought of my need to heal, my need for respect if they don’t even respect themselves?

Then the cycle of control and ego hit me with my son.  He was having the time of his life and I found myself getting angry because he was hanging out with a kid that I truly have an issue with—him and his parents.  It’s like when we are angry and someone tells us to calm down we get even more pissed; I don’t want people stepping on my toes and determining how I raise my kid, allowing things that I don’t allow while I am expected to respect their boundaries.  I see my son loving on these people and having fun and it stings because I feel he respects them more than me, he has a better time with them than me.  And I don’t know if I have the energy to give him what he wants, to allow him to do the things that terrify me.  I know I can’t be with him all the time and at the end of the day my goal isn’t to make him be a certain way.  I just want him to be safe and not do the things I know he is so brazen about that can hurt him.  I also want the opportunity to raise my own kid without interference from the group. 

With all of that being said, I understood how this was ego and fear related to me, my perception, my control, and my relationship.  I understood how all of my anxiety was caused by my own brain and expecting things to go a certain way and to be treated a certain way.  And simultaneously realizing that I’m allowed to expect to be treated with respect.  I have to get over this idea that because I’m short I need to defer to other people.  I am allowed to voice what my expectations are in regard to my boundaries and I am allowed to hold those boundaries.  I don’t need to choke back those feelings because if people are only friends with me because of what I give into for them, then they aren’t my friends.  If they can’t respect me then I don’t need to be around them.  But I do need to expect my husband to back that up.  We are partners and it isn’t unrealistic to expect my partner to demand that respect for me as well.  He needs the party still, I do not.  But I need the respect and I need to believe that what I contribute is enough.  I need to believe that I am able to share and be enough as I am, that my dreams are enough, and that I am allowed to focus on those things instead of demanding basic decency from others.  I deserve to be around people who appreciate and want me around and who I can reciprocate energy with.  My perception of their energy is irrelevant to my decisions—I need to do what is right for me, to be secure in my decisions for me, just as they are allowed to be.  Anything else is holding back forward momentum.  I choose to release that burden, that pattern, and move forward.