Some Words...

A friend of mine is going through kind of a rough patch with her significant other. As I sit listening to her talk about the pain her heart feels I wanted to reach through the phone and hold on to her, keep her safe - from the pain I've experienced resembling her own. I used to look back at all those painful moments and think, "how unlucky am I." But now, in times like these when someone needs my advice, I think, "I'm a stronger person, I have knowledge to offer, because - I've felt all that pain before." It's such a strange thing how when you are in the moment, in the pain, you see nothing else but that pain. Most times you convince yourself that nothing will ever feel any different than 'this' feels right now. When I think back to those times that I lost myself in someone else I wanted to scream, "how could you have been so stupid." In reality I know it wasn't stupidity at all, it was this thing I have called a heart. Those damn hearts can really get us in trouble can't they? Once, a therapist told me that I would always pick out people to be in my life that would take the most from me, people that would rarely give back even half of what they had received. I hated that statement, mostly because I knew it was true. People are givers or they are takers and rarely are they both. I picked out people who took things from me because deep down lost in the shadows of my pain, I believed I didn't deserve anything better. So many people that loved me would look at me and say, "why do you stay, why do you want to be with someone that takes so much from you." I could never answer them because I didn't understand it myself. I thought if someone treated me kindly even 25% of the time, that meant they really loved me. I believed it when they told me my fears were due to my insecurity. I believed I was the one with the problem - so I stayed because who else would want such a broken person? I repeated those patterns for years and no matter how hard I tried to break the chain, I'd always end up the person who sacrificed the most. I still remember the very moment that my life changed. This man who claimed to love me, a man who took so much from me including my self esteem, stood in front of me and told me, "you need to change or this won't work." I pondered those words over and over until finally I got it. I did need to change. I needed to love myself, I needed to believe in myself, I needed to give myself as much as I had given him. Those steps away from him was one of the hardest journeys I've taken in my life. That part of me that stayed - it was a part I gave back to myself.

So how do you help someone decide to always choose themselves over someone else? How do you show them that love isn't a give give thing...it's a give take thing? How do you take the memories of your own pain and hold them up to the light as if it were slideshow to teach someone else what not to do? I suppose part of that saying, 'learning the hard way' is true but does it really have to be that way? Can't something good come from someone else's pain? God I hope so.