Knowing your worth

I’ve learned in the last few years that no matter what other people think of me and there are some out there who think I’m a monster, that their opinion, their judgement, means nothing. I’m still a kind and loving woman who has an amazing life and wonderful relationships. Others may have tried to control me or claim that anything in my life is because of them and while I may have been given opportunities that other people might not have had, I also worked hard and I’ve made a good life. I’ve never denied that I had help along the way, but I paid for that help in many ways. I’ve never claimed to be perfect, but I’ve tried hard to right a lot of the mistakes I’ve made in the past. I’ve tried hard to be better person. I still probably eat too much salt and swear too much but I don’t go about my day intentionally hurting people.

There’s a person from my life who was supposed to love and protect me but instead chose act differently and instead said terrible things about me to me and to other people, telling anyone who would listen that I was a liar and blamed my “terrible” life on them, yet with the same breath still claimed to love me. You know at first I was angry and hurt and I wanted to hurt them back, but after stepping back and listening with my heart to what was going on, I realized that all the venom and anger directed towards me was because that person felt unloved and unworthy and I was just a convenient target to focus on. They acted out the only way they’ve ever known how to and that was to strike out. To take things said in confidence and twist them. To take part of the truth or what they think they know as the truth and make their story bigger, uglier and essentially make them a lie. To claim I was never there for them when they needed me, that I never stepped in and helped them when they were hurt or in pain or needed someone in their corner. They instead focused their energies into making people look away so that no one really had time to look too closely at what was happening to them. They did that so no one would see how hurt and ugly they feel deep in their heart. They try to focus the attention on other people, point their finger and so oh look at all that “drama” and honestly who doesn’t look when someone points at something? We all do. We all look at the car crash as we go by and by getting everyone’s focus on them yet pointed in another direction, they can feel relevant. They can put themselves in the center of focus, but not focused on. I don’t feel any anger or resentment towards that person, but I do feel sorrow in my heart for them, because they must feel very small, alone and unworthy.

I have lots of secrets, everyone does. Some are mine and only mine. Some belong to others and are things that would hurt so many people if I ever broke that confidence and because of the hurt it would cause I could never imagine telling anyone, not even to hurt someone who hurt me. I’m just not built to be that kind of person. I really never thought I would ever have anyone in my life who could be that person. I often wonder how someone becomes so jaded and bitter and can only think it is because they have just never felt truly worthy of love and in turn have never been able to accept love or give it freely. I feel sorry for them and hope someday they can find peace and worthiness in themselves and not because of someone else’s reaction to them. It really does make me sad because I know to my very core how loved I am. I know I’m worthy of all the good things and people in my life and because of that I am able to give so much of that love back to make sure everyone around me knows how I feel about them and how important they are to me. How important they are as a person. I also feel sadness very deeply, sadness for the things I’ve done in my life that have hurt people I care for, because I know I’ve hurt people. Some of it was unintentional but I won’t lie and say some of it wasn’t unintentional because I know there were times I purposefully did hurtful things. Everyone can and does. But I also have the capacity to look back at the damage I did and feel shame for it. I realized I did more damage and hurt to me in the end. I feel sadness for the people that have hurt me because they had to have been feeling pain and feeling shame as well. Learning to forgive myself for hurts I’ve caused in the past has allowed me to forgive people that have hurt me. I bear no grudges. If they ever asked for help and I could provide it I would. I don’t doubt my worth or the love given to me and that makes me strong enough to do anything, be anything, be better.♥♥♥