My father used to tell me to not let anyone make me feel anything. I used to debate him on this all the time. I would argue that other people’s actions and words had the ability to hurt me. Each time he would reply, “Only if you let them.”
As people, it is in our nature to do good by others. We want to preserve our friendships. We go out of our way to help the people that need it the most. We put the needs of others before we even begin to remember our own wants and needs. We are compassionate and generous with our patience, time, and effort. And oftentimes, when we do this, we give the world around us too much agency and ability to damage us, to hurt us.
When people choose to leave our lives, we are crushed. We are left wondering what we have done wrong, and what we can do to get them back. We feel as though we are not good enough. We feel as though we are not enough.
Romantic heartbreak is terrible. It’s devastating. It’s demoralizing. It’s debilitating at times. Investing your all in someone to have them leave seems like the ultimate betrayal.
It’s not.
I’ve learned that the worst you can do by anyone is to hurt yourself. Breaking your own heart is more painful than any breakup you can ever experience because you are hurting the strongest and most valuable relationship you have. You need to be your own best friend, your own motivator, your own reason for waking up in the morning. Once you start doing things for yourself, and not for others, you gain the confidence and inner strength that you never thought you could have.
I used to spend a lot of my time bending over backward for people who didn’t appreciate it and could never reciprocate my feelings. I was drawn to people who acted like they needed to be fixed, or needed to be helped. Along the way, I realized that I was only damaging myself, and not allowing myself to reach my full potential. I was skipping out on events I wanted to attend, or doubting my ability academically because I didn’t feel I measured up to my company. I was selling myself short to make others stand tall above me.
When I realized I was breaking my own heart, I needed to make a change. I made a list of small, daily goals I could accomplish and felt the satisfaction of checking them off each night after I completed them. I healed myself from within, and that made all the difference in the way I presented myself. I was attracting people who wanted to watch me thrive, not make me feel small.
In a time when we’re labeled the “Me Generation” and told we’re selfish, we need to push back and defend our honor more than ever before. We are told we are weak and we are knocked down. There are enough negative forces that will try to break us out there. We can’t let ourselves be our biggest weaknesses. We can’t break our own hearts anymore.
