During the process of self-development, you sometimes encounter extraordinary things. Things that are often so incredibly obvious that you overlook them. Things that, once discovered, make you feel like a dumb blonde with the response "Oh is that so" or give you a more upgraded "Eureka" feeling.
For example, I recently made a very important discovery about myself during a coaching session and, in doing so, learned an essential lesson: You can't always give yourself what you need. Maybe I am not telling you anything new, because you have seen this light before in your life. But I have always been in the full conviction that you should not depend on another and that you can never love another if you do not first love yourself. In other words, if you feel a gaping void within yourself because a certain essential need has not been fulfilled in your past life, that void can never be filled by another. However, it came as a total shock to me to discover that you apparently cannot fill that gap yourself either, no matter how hard you try. Because if in the past, as a survival strategy, you decided to take care of yourself and do everything on your own (because someone else won't do it) and from that strategy you built a wall around yourself (because you don't really trust anyone but yourself, but mainly because you don't want to get hurt by trusting someone else perhaps wrongly), if you push others away from you via that wall and the thought "I'll do it on my own" and you just keep going and going and going and working, working, working and trying so hard to give yourself the appreciation and love that you never got from your parents as a child, then I have news for you.... IT DOESN'T WORK.
You can eat a sandwich when you are hungry, grab a drink when you get thirsty, buy clothes when the chills run down your body, go for a walk when you feel the need for exercise, go to sleep when you are tired and put on a comedy movie when you just want a good laugh, but giving yourself the love, appreciation and warmth that you missed from your parents as a child does not work. Trying to get it from a new love or through material goods doesn't work either. If that's what you've been doing for years, you'd better stop, because it won't make you happier.
Although I have always known this, I still fell into the trap and the insight came as a slap in my face. Have I been so wrong, then? What is left when another cannot give you what you need, but apparently you yourself cannot either? And then the solution dawned like a ray of sunshine in the sky: you can give yourself what you need by allowing others. As long as you isolate yourself, you cannot receive what others have to offer you. Once you choose to break through your wall and allow others in, you open yourself up to all the attention, love, warmth and appreciation the world has to offer you. When you come to the realization that this attitude has cost you years of your life, it takes some getting used to, but the realization that you did what you did out of protection for yourself and because you simply did not know any better at the time is your first step toward the love and appreciation you have been searching for for so long.
“Eureka!”
Best wishes, Wanda
I am curious if you recognize yourself (or others) in this article and would love to receive your response.
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