I had to cut ties with someone the other day because the majority of my efforts in the past few months to rekindle a friendship between him and I have gone ignored. In doing so, I was reminded of a pattern I allowed myself to live in for years and it’s one that dealt with me once believing that a person will give me the love and respect I truly deserve if I just wait a little while longer for them to change.
Here’s a simple fact of life that took me several decades to figure out. Waiting around for someone else to change does nothing more than make a person extremely resentful because those changes often never come. The real truth is that the only person I can ever change in life is myself. Unfortunately, that never stopped me from trying again and again and again until I finally figured this lesson out. Why it took me so long stems all the way back to my childhood where I desperately wanted my dysfunctional mother and father to be more loving parents. I generally thought back then that if I tried a little harder to please them that I would achieve that, but I never did.
When I became an adult, I went on to form one connection after another with individuals who were no different from my parents. Consistently I received much less love and respect from each of them than what I truly deserved in life. But I always stayed in those connections way beyond what their shelf life was probably meant to be always trying harder and harder to make them work. I frequently pointed out all the areas they needed to work on, yet I wasn’t changing in the process either. The only thing this led to was making me become a very resentful person in life. Until I released all the anger I harbored inside over my parents and forgave them, I remained this way, living out my life in various relationships with others who I desperately tried to get to treat me better than they did.
With some, I even waited years for them to change, doing everything I could to be what I thought they wanted and I grew more and more miserable in the process. None of them ever really changed though and sadly, neither did I, other than becoming more and more codependent. Thankfully, I eventually did find the healing for the pain I had held onto for so long with my parents. And once I did, that’s when I began to change. It’s then that I began to find the energy within to cut ties with everyone in my life who was just as unhealthy as my parents once were. The more I did this, the healthier I became. And the healthier I became, the more clearly I saw that the only reason why I ever allowed myself to get into these toxic connections was to remind me of the work I needed to do within to heal. Today, I don’t need or want anyone in my life that I have to chase after or try harder with like this person whom I attempted to rekindle a friendship with recently. And truthfully, the way things used to be years ago between him and I was no different than how things once were between my parents and I. So I guess I needed to have a gentle reminder of this invaluable lesson and thankfully the pain it caused me was quite minimal.
The bottom line is that I deserve love and respect today in all my connections and so do all of us for that matter. None of us need to wait around for that to happen because it often never comes. But if we work on healing and changing ourselves, we will soon find we don’t draw those types of relationships into our lives anymore and instead, will find ourselves becoming surrounded with people who can offer us the unconditional love we truly deserve in life.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
