Most
of us were not taught how to love, and not shown the importance of
making ourselves an equal if not top priority in our lives.
We were most likely taught to first please our parents, and others, before ourselves.
The
relationship we had with our parents directly affects every
relationship we experience as adults. (Until we do the inner healing
work.)
The most important things a child needs from their parents are unconditional love, acceptance, and complete acknowledgement.
A child deserves to fully be seen, heard, and honored for who they really are, not for what they do or accomplish.
However, because of the times they grew up in and their own limited
awareness, most parents just did not have the tools and capacity to
teach us anything different from what they were taught during their own
upbringing.
Our parents also came from an ancestral lineage that passed down to them unresolved traumas.
These
traumas often take up so much inner space that they prevent parents
from knowing how to manage their own emotions by using coping behaviors.
So of course, because these parents are unable to manage their own
emotions, they have little or no idea how to support their children in
managing their emotions.
This pattern has a great impact on us as children.
One of the biggest impacts, is that it teaches children to people-please in order to receive love and acknowledgement.
It makes the child contort themselves to fit into whatever their parents want them to be.
The
child begins to do more of the things their parents deem as good, and
starts to reject and hide the parts of themselves their parents deem as
bad or useless.
Every person just wants love and acceptance, and wants to be viewed as a good human being. No one wants to disappoint their parents.
This is why most sensitive and in-tune children people-please.
As we do our inner healing work, we expand our awareness to understand
that we don’t need to please people any more in order to be loved and
accepted.
We become such a wellspring of unconditional love to ourselves, that we
no longer need to contort ourselves to fit into what others think we
should be.
We become so self-sustaining that we no longer need everyone to like, love, and accept us.
We become the emotionally mature parent—to our inner child, and that our own children so deserve and need.
This is us freeing ourselves from the people-pleasing pattern.
February will serve as an excellent month for us to untangle ourselves from this pattern, once and for all!
If
you’re feeling that some of your relationships could use a bit of
refining right now, the process below can help support you in that.
The Mirror Process
Step 1: Think of a current relationship in your life that you desire to improve or refine.
Step 2: Write down all of the ways in which you think that relationship could benefit from some refinement or improvement.
For example: Better communication, greater appreciation of one another, or a more balanced exchange of love and support.
Step 3: Look at what you have written, and ask yourself, Are
the items I listed something I want the other person to change about
themselves? Or are they something I would like to improve within myself?
If
the answer is the latter, you now have clarity on what you can give to
yourself in order to build a strong and nourishing relationship with
yourself.
That is vital, because our relationship with our own inner self is the foundation from which we experience all relationships.
If you noticed that your mind wanted to make it about the other person, please continue to Step 4.
Step 4: Ask yourself: How does it serve me, to want to change or control how others treat me?
Usually the core answer to that question ends up being something about safety and self-protection.
The
desire to change and control others is a survival pattern the mind has
identified with, as a result of forgetting what our Spirit has always
known: that It—our true essence—can never be controlled, because it is
infinite and eternal.
It is everything!
At your core, you do not really desire to control anyone. That impulse is just the mind’s way of protecting itself.
Doesn’t it feel lighter to know that?
With
this new awareness, you can then begin to understand that the
relationship was just a mirror, reflecting back to you how you have been
treating yourself.
These
are patterns that exist on both a conscious and subconscious level, as a
result of your upbringing, and personal experiences you‘ve accumulated
throughout life.
Step 5: With
the awareness that everything you wrote on your list was just what you
desire to give to yourself, go back over the items on your list, and
read them out loud in the following statement:
“I desire to give myself _______________ (fill in the blank), so I now choose to give myself this.”
Repeat the same statement for all of the items you wrote on your list.
Step 6: Thank the person you originally thought of, for being the mirror that showed you what you weren’t fully giving yourself.
Step 7: Thank yourself for being so open and willing to understand that the whole situation has only ever been about how you treat you.
Step 8: Make
the decision to give yourself everything you ever thought others should
be giving you, and give yourself that on a daily basis.
This is you, coming back into your power!
As
you become the one who gives yourself everything you thought others
should be giving you, you will find that your happiness and fulfillment
quotients magnify Big Time!
You
will begin noticing that the people who are unable to do these things
for themselves, such as increased self-respect, will start to lovingly
move into the background of your life, while those who can do that for themselves will increasingly begin to show up for you, in extraordinary ways.
