Are you being met?
It’s taken me 34 years to truly understand what “being met” means.
And now, I am on a journey of honouring what it means to me.
As a child, I was parentified. This happens when a child is an emotional support to a parent(s), sibling, or takes care of the household in ways a child shouldn’t be responsible.
I logically thought that I was helping my family and parents with their overwhelm but it created a beast of negative beliefs that my needs and feelings weren’t as important and my role in this world was to put other people first.
As a result, I self abandoned. I never felt good enough. I was terrified at the thought that someone may not be pleased with me and I was highly sensitive to energy shifts within a room. Whenever a shift happened, I immediately assumed it was either something that I did or was my responsibility to fix. I lived in constant survival mode.
This past year, I made a point to honour myself and to no longer live for others. I had to set some strong boundaries that strained many relationships, crippled those who have benefited from my lack of self-love and, in some cases, resulted in strong judgements and a lack of support and understanding from my friends and family.
To be clear, this post is not meant to be hurtful towards my parents or even about my parents at all. I know they did the best that they could with what knowledge and resources they had at the time. It’s about how our behaviours as adults act as windows into our childhood and learning how to change those behaviours that no longer serve us.
On this journey, I realized three key things that were required of me to move from living for others to loving myself; The three A’s. Awareness, (radical) Acceptance, and Adaptability.
Awareness
I didn’t always understand why I behaved the way I did. Through a lot of reflection, self-development, and honesty with myself, I’ve become aware of my participation and contribution to how I showed up. A great first step to finding awareness is to start asking yourself open-ended questions. For example; What am I mad about? Where am I exhausted? What do I want in my life that I don’t have?
Knowing what your preferences, desires, and limitations are is a strong first step to knowing who you truly are and that is where awareness comes to life.
(Radical) Acceptance
I say radical because we are not just accepting what has happened to us, what we want, and who we are. We must also accept how we’ve contributed to our own programming and how we still are. It is easy to point the finger at your parents, siblings, teachers and friends. I know because I’ve done that. It's honestly where I started my acceptance journey because I didn’t know any better at the time and it was a lot easier to see and acknowledge.
But when you start looking at your participation in your own unhappiness and feelings of not being met, although challenging, it can also be extremely empowering; you’re taking your power back. You are reminding yourself that regardless of the circumstances of your past, you get to choose how you want to move forward and how you want to show up for your higher self. Acceptance is an inside job my friends, remember that.
Adaptability
We’ve become aware of who we are and what we desire out of this life. We have accepted what has happened to us and because of us (note: Acceptance does not equate forgiveness. This is an acknowledgement of what has happened. Not necessarily forgiveness for it.) But, where to go from here? As Ross Geller from the TV sitcom Friends would say “PIVOT!!!!”
From the lighting in your home to your romantic partner—What isn’t aligning with who you are? What don’t you love? Take accountability for having a choice and use it. Change what you don’t love. You have the power.
This may look like boundaries with your loved ones, wallpaper in your spare room, or maybe a career at a company you could care less about. This could look like self-talk, the amount of times you move your body, or how often you socialize with your friends.
The most underrated relationship we’re in is our relationship with ourselves because it sets the tone for all the other relationships we have. If you are not meeting yourself where you want to be met, then you can’t expect others to meet you there either. They aren’t going to know how to do that if you don’t know who you are, where you are or how others can find you.
If you’d like to learn more about the Three A’s or how you can apply them to your life, reach out to lauren@shecanconsulting.ca and let’s journey together until you feel you’re being met.