The Lesson

Friend, I will always be a stalwart supporter of creating and cultivating close, deep, meaningful connections.

These are the people that support us when we are down, encourage us when we face insecurities, and buoy us when we falter.

We need to build a community of people around us that support us, believe in us, challenge us, and help us to become better versions of ourselves.

However, people are not infallible.

People are flawed and susceptible to the baser and more destructive sides of human nature. 

There are times when, no matter how much you try to do the right thing, these efforts will never be reciprocated.

People can and will let you down.

There will be empty promises.

No matter how much another person promises to love you, assures you that you matter, or that you’re meaningful to them, there will be times that these words are not followed by action.

They, the individual, cannot always follow through or hold space for you.

There will be times when they will have to choose themselves.

To feel good.

For attention.

For affirmation.

Or a myriad of other reasons.

Until they escape a pattern.

Until they learn a necessary lesson…

That, while we can provide buoyancy and support, people are not personal flotation devices to provide an escape from the pains of life or to inflate depleted egos.

Friend, I am tired of being that lesson.

It is exhausting to be the one hurt so that someone else can be fulfilled.

Sometimes we are meant to be placed in the path of another for a lesson, and others are placed into our lives to teach us something as well.

Yet, I’ll be honest with you, friend, I’m tired.

I’m tired of being a lesson.

But, maybe, after all this time,

this was meant to be my lesson?

To reflect on how I have continually broken my own heart again, and again, and again?

So, the question I now ask myself is this; how do I change the way in which I show up in people’s lives?

How do I escape my own pattern?

How do I learn my own necessary lesson?

First, I will not take responsibility for anyone else’s healing or sense of self-worth. Those things are the responsibility of the other.

Second, I will establish clear boundaries for myself and how I show up, as well as how I allow others to show up in my life.

Third, I will listen to my body, my gut, my intuition. I will wait for my mind, heart, body, and soul to be in agreement, and – if they are not – I will lean into myself and ask why. Then, I will listen.

The human experience is messy but beautiful.

Made even more beautiful by the encounters that we have with those around us.

However, when we abandon ourselves to appease a need for connection we do a disservice. 

True meaningful connection, I believe – friend – can only happen when people can show up as authentic versions of themselves, ready to let go of any sort of need of others to fulfill or satisfy any inner shortcoming or longing.

I’ve already revealed that for so long love to me existed in this state of feeling and being needed.

That, in some ways, is quantifiable and much more easy to accept and believe than that someone has chosen to love me as I am – imperfectly perfect, flawed, and bumbling.

To believe that and accept that is an absolute release of control, which is almost paralyzingly terrifying.

Fourth, I will show up in authenticity with myself, with a firm belief that this is more than enough, without self-abandonment.

There are so many lessons, the ones you offer and the ones you are able to take away.

Perhaps now you can reflect on your own lessons…

the ones you teach,

and the ones you’ve learned and, in so doing,

play a more conscious role in what it is you choose as your lessons?

Always,

Your Trusted Friend ❤️