Do you give the power of how you feel to someone else? And why do we give the power of how we feel to someone else?
These are great and complex questions, which I have been asking myself. If I want someone else to love me, to make me feel wanted, appreciated, respected, accepted, then they become the holder of the keys to whether I feel happy or not. I give them the power; I give them the control. I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t want to rely on somebody else loving me or accepting me, for me to feel ok.
What if they are having a bad day, or somebody has been treating them badly or unkind, are they then going to turn around and give me love, kindness and attention? Probably not. They will probably be feeling empty themselves, and now I’m feeling unloved and uncared for because they can’t give me what I want or need. It doesn’t seem logical to give them my sense of self-esteem. To give them control over that. So, whether it is my children or partner or parents or friends, it doesn’t seem like a good idea to give them the power over how I feel.
I can see myself being constantly disappointed hurt and lonely.
So how do we take back the power that we may have been giving away?
How do we get back the control of how we feel?
Easy! Refuse to give the power of how you feel to someone else.
Know that you are the only person who controls how you feel.
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But most of all love and accept the things you don’t like about yourself. The inner child who spits the dummy when you don’t get what you want, or feel put down, rejected, or ignored. Instead love that part of you, which reacts to these things by attacking or withdrawing from the person who makes you feel like that. By the way, nobody actually makes you react to anything. Even though on a higher level, nobody can make you do anything, it’s your reaction to them, your choice. Nobody can make you angry. You make yourself angry. Love the part that judges your own actions. Love the part of you that sometimes wishes everyone would just go away.
It is often the things we don’t tolerate in others because we don’t tolerate the same things in ourselves.
It is hard to love ourselves unconditionally even though we might want others to accept and love us unconditionally. Maybe if we could love ourselves unconditionally then we wouldn’t judge ourselves so much.
I have observed this for myself and in my own behaviour. The more I accept myself for who I really am, both the good and the not so good bits, then I can understand that they are just parts of my personality, which is not perfect. Then the judgement of others will decrease, and the acceptance of others will increase. I realise we are all just doing the best we can in the chaos, and because we are all so different, how can I judge another anyway?
It’s like comparing apples and grapes, they are both fruit.  But that’s about all.
So now I have taken back the power of how I feel. It’s my choice, and I don’t value my self-worth on whether people like me or not. I have a choice and now I feel a little more content and at rest with myself.
I believe our life goal and purpose isn’t to get someone else to like, respect or love us, but it’s for us to like and accept ourselves.
Much Care,
Pete C
