Learning to stand up for myself and my back goes out. Go
figure. When one hasn’t stood up for themselves their entire lives; when one
has given their power away to people outside of them their entire lives, so
that they could be liked; finding your own strength and power to stand by
yourself takes a lot of back pain and adjusting (physically and emotionally)
I am talking about myself here. I have given my power away
to everyone outside of me so that I can be liked. I have mentioned this before in
one of my posts on facebook. How I am a people pleaser and how this work with
Chris Duncan is really helping me get my power back. But it’s not something
that shifts overnight, or maybe it is? It is all completely up to us what we
have been holding on to, and for how long? I feel this has been a disposition
for me since I was a little child. My sister used to beat me up, I remember
very clearly asking me to “speak up. Stand up for yourself. Why are you
allowing other people to dictate your life for you? Defend yourself (but always
allow me to dictate your life, okay? 😉😊)
Its amazing to see how that becomes a pattern and we allow
others to govern our lives because all we want is to be loved. Taking back that
power and standing up for yourself is not just an emotional shift but in my
case a physical one too. I threw my back out about a week ago and it is so
difficult to get anything done and I kept digging and trying to figure out of
why I would throw my back out. I wasn’t doing anything tedious. I was mimicking
an actor on tv, he was doing a kapalabhati pranayama breathing technique. And
instead of sitting in the proper posture (which is either padmasana (legs
crossed) or vajrasana (leg folded back)) I started doing the exercise without
its proper positioning and hence I felt the shift. It was the straw that broke
the camel’s back. It was meant to happen. If I wasn’t mimicking breathing technique,
then it would have been me lifting something heavy. It was waiting in the woodwork
for me to make a move and pounce just like a tiger pounces on a little baby
dear, my back went out and I have been in severe pain for one week now.
I have given my power away to my father, my mother, my
sister, friends, family members and people I don’t even know. God, how much did
I not love myself to want to gain other people’s approval and attention? Why
would I do that to myself? Somewhere I believed that love only comes from people
outside of me. There was no concept of self-love. Give yourself to others and
in return you will get love. I think that is why I love serving. I have to give
service to others for approval (in this case, money). I must give something to
get something in return. Wow. Who else has that disposition in their belief
system? Give yourself to others, get love in return?
Standing up for myself: metaphor or actually using my body
to make that happen? What does standing up for myself look like? It’s different
to every individual. Standing up means
having a voice and saying what feels true to me and my heart. Standing up and
saying NO, when someone is crossing your boundaries. Standing up and saying, “this
does not work for me” when it doesn’t. Standing up and saying, “this is where
my limit is, please respect it”. Standing up and saying, “this is my point of
view and I take a stand with it”. For me, fear of loss has been huge since I
have lost my mother and my father. So, I do go above and beyond to please people
and make sure I have their love and approval in my life. But it’s different for
every one of us. Self-love, self-respect, self-care and self-understanding are
just words until you imply them. What does it mean to self-love? Learning to
listen to that little voice within you over other people’s voices. Hear
what others have to say, but then take a moment and breathe, sit with yourself
and see if it resonates with you or are you just agreeing because you want to
be accepted? In the same way, standing up for myself physically means: stand up
using thigh muscles, loosen your glutes and tighten your stomach muscles. I am
learning to stand up for myself physically and mentally and boy there is pain. Lots
of pain, and growth along the way.
Thank You for being here and reading
