I had an interesting thought today. First I guess I have
to give a bit of background.
I love helping people. I always seem to be the confidant,
counselor and advice-giver to all my closest friends and boyfriends. I always
make people think about what they are doing, and really analyze what the next
step is for them. I still don’t understand how some people grew up only
thinking in the short-term, but I’m here to help. I’ve had many exes come back
and tell me that I changed their lives in a positive way, and most people
really value my insight and advice. Helping people makes me happy. That’s part
of the reason I started this blog to begin with.
So my thought today was this: Maybe if I stop trying to
help (or fix) people, I’ll stop attracting people who need help.
Pretty obvious, when you think about it. A couple months
ago I’d already put the pieces together and acknowledged that I seem to attract
people who need my help in some way, big or small. Well, guess why? Because I’m
probably actively seeking it out. While this may (or may not) help society at
large, this is also probably warping my view of the world and keeping me lonely
and miserable. I search for relationships where I can feel needed and
important, and this is achieved by using these extraordinary skills of mine.
But it’s a catch 22 because then I feel like no one gets me, and I’m all alone
in these thoughts that seem so obvious to me.
I have to break my attachment to wanting to feel needed.
Giving that up is a really terrifying concept. Ever since
high school, and probably sooner from influences around me, I learned that the
way to keep someone around was to keep them dependent upon you. That’s what I
thought love was at that age – needing someone. If they needed me desperately
enough, then that was a deep love. It became more complex than that, but I
think that’s been the undertone for me all along. Now I see how fear-based that
is.
Well, hold on a second. My heart is protesting against
this cut-and-dry explanation. My entire problem is that I wanted people to
think like me, and could never find it. I hated it when I had to explain to people
why something they did was wrong. I wanted someone to figure it out on their
own without me having to spell it out for them.
Maybe this was self-sabotage. That’s what I wanted, but a
deeply seeded feeling of having to be needed to be loved may have screwed that
all up. “Looking for love in all the wrong places.” Mine wasn’t at all as
extreme as that phrase usually implies, but nevertheless, perhaps my need to be
needed was pulling in relationships that my search for love and friendship couldn’t
work with. Maybe that’s why I had such long loving relationships, but
inevitably I couldn’t deal with them anymore and I left.
People who have themselves together don’t need me, so why
would they want to be around me? Ah, writing that out resonates with me.
It all comes down to self-confidence, doesn’t it? I get
my confidence from my morals and values. I get my confidence based on the
choices I’ve made. I’m definitely no saint, I’ve screwed up a handful of times,
but I wake-up really quickly and learn from those mistakes. I make sure they
never happen again. Some people make mistakes over and over and over, and I
don’t understand that. I can’t process that. Does it make them feel strong
because maybe they got away with something? The short-term consequences weren’t
that bad? Again with the lack of seeing long-term or beyond your mere sensory
intake.
Sorry, I won’t rant.
The point I was trying to make is that I found my area
that I can flaunt that makes me feel confident. For some people, that is their
body. For some people, their book smarts. For others, their masculinity. For
me, it was advice and insight. That’s where I shine, but I’m relying solely on
that aspect of myself for my confidence. Some of the times I’ve felt the most
miserable were when I had nothing in my life to analyze in that way. I felt
like I was losing myself because I had nothing to think deeply about. I very
much identify with this ability I have, and it basically defines me, at least
to myself. I have to remember that there is more to me than that. I am more
than my wisdom. I have value beyond that wisdom. It’s tricky though, because I
really don’t want to let that go. That’s my lifeboat. That’s what makes me
stand out. That’s what makes me proud of myself. Not gonna lie, that’s a very
good trait to be proud of, but the problem is that I’m clinging to it. I have
to love ALL of me.
Well, I guess I’ll get to working on that.
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