Be Mindful

We were created to be in relationship with other humans. Whether it is platonic or romantic.  The foundation of a relationship starts with you knowing who you are. It is amazing to watch yourself grow by evaluating the relationships you have with others. Me being a mother, daughter, lover and friend, I am able to see myself from different angles. I can appreciate my growth by actually sitting with myself and understanding why I may be the way that I am.

I had to look at my parents and understand some of their foundation to understand my own. Being able to understand their story in some ways, helped me to break some of the ongoing unhealthy cycles. I crave healthy relationships and I am aware that it starts with ME. I have to be the person that I want to encounter on a daily bases. I can’t be unhealthy mentally, unaware of myself and expect to receive certain things out of others.

Sometimes that looks like visiting your past. I had a mindset of never going backwards when it came to relationships. I felt like if I did everything that I thought was right and it didn’t work out, then that is the end of the road. Sometimes we have to let go of our own rules just to get clarity for ourselves. 

Recently I encountered someone from my past and I felt like I should have done more, I should have been more open minded.  I should have not been so stubborn. So I told myself that I need to go back and correct that. That I need to revisit the relationship differently to be better at it.

So I went in with the heart of change and understanding.  Understanding that I’m not perfect,  the other person isn’t perfect and there is love there. I thought that because I had worked on myself so much that things would just naturally flow.  I thought that by me being more aware of where I may have messed things up, that it would just fall in to what I thought it could be. I was wrong though. What it did for me was shined the light on how you can really go right back to old habits and stay stuck there.

Sometimes you have to understand that visiting your past just shows you the situation you were in was designed for your growth.  It doesn’t mean you have to go back and correct anything.  You correct things so that you can move forward.  Now don’t get me wrong, just as you can change so can others. It doesn’t mean you change for each other.

You change for YOU. I realized I had done the work to be better, and I was receptive to my own flaws. It helped me be mindful of some of my behaviors. It helped me to see the things in me that may have been negative. It helped me to see what I do like about myself.  It also helped me to see what I don’t like in others. It helped me to see how the parts of me that make who I am, may trigger the parts I don’t like in someone else. The parts of me that I’m not willing to change, can bring out the worst in another person. 

My growth in that area is that I have to be aware of myself to understand that I am a good person, that may not be good for every person. My goal is to bring out the good in others. If just simply being me is triggering that not so good in someone else. I need to remove myself.  Instead of trying to change parts of me that I don’t see a problem with. Instead of trying to do things perfectly in hopes that the other person will see it and change how they do things. 

I would much rather just remove myself for the sake of them being comfortable with who they are. Instead of me trying to point out their flaws.  It is not always necessary for you to tell someone that they shouldn’t be a certain way. That works for them. They feel good about it, so let them be. If I don’t like a certain food on a restaurants menu. I’m not going to keep ordering it, hoping they will change the recipe to my liking.  I’m going to order something else. It’s good to someone else, just not to me.

So instead of challenging someone and constantly telling them what they do wrong. Evaluate yourself and take a step back and say do I not like this about myself? Do I really need to change this behavior? Is it detrimental to who I am and how I show up to others? It could be that part of you just triggers them and they don’t like it. If you can honestly and wholeheartedly say that you like something about yourself,  that someone else sees as a problem.  Then don’t change that. Just understand that part of you doesn’t work for them and you need to set them free.

Everyone should have the freedom to be themselves. You should not compromise who you are to make someone else comfortable. You should not feel like a prisoner in your own mind to make someone else feel comfortable to be themselves. The lesson for me in visiting my past is knowing who TF I am. Knowing that I am a good person that can tigger the not so good in another good person.

We all carry light and darkness within ourselves. You just need to understand all parts of you in order to allow someone in to help you balance it out, without changing who you are to fit who they want you to be.