Liking the Boy Who Pulls Your Hair - Day 148

Today two of my students came to me to talk about boy troubles. Both girls were talking about how confused they were because the boys they liked were very hot and cold with them, basically being nice especially when they were alone, but mean to them when there were other kids around, or otherwise being generally hot and cold.

We talked about self-respect and I asked why they would like someone who does not respect them or who treats them poorly. This was more just a question I wanted them to think about and reflect on, since it is certainly something that takes a while for most women (and men?) to learn. In fact it is something that I am only learning right now.

I encouraged them to be reflective of themselves and only act based on decisions they make about who they are, not about what other people do or say, or what they think other people want them to do, or what they think other people think.

I encouraged them to think about how they could best support themselves.

I pointed out how we're probably always going to feel those butterflies in our stomach when we see a boy who we think is attractive. Sometimes that's hard to control. But what we can control is what we do with that. We don't have to "like" someone just because of how he looks. It's how he actually is toward us that matters, and how he is in general. I mean, what do they expect a relationship with that person to look like, based on how he treats them now? And what kind of relationship do they really want? "One where we're kind to each other, we don't call each other names..."

And what did I really expect that relationship to look like? More of the same? I hoped it would be different. I hoped he would change. I hoped I could make him change. I hoped I was special enough to make him change, to make him be the person I originally thought he was, or wanted him to be. I hoped. Hope is not real. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create my experience here and now based on what I hoped for the future. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to exist in the here and now of reality, responding to what is here, now, and moving myself in self honesty from the starting point of stability in this moment. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to change another person for the sake of my own ego, of feeling good about myself as being important enough to another person to make them change. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to wish that I could have that power, to change another person because they care about me that much. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to equate caring and love with a person changing to be a better person. I realize this goes back to my dad, who said he loved me, but who was abusive. I realize that I wanted him to change in order to show me he loved me. I realize maybe I have a hidden belief that he didn't really love me, since he never changed. So I commit myself to investigate this further. What is "love" in this belief? The belief that I do not matter. That I only matter if I can get another person to change, to treat me better, then I will know I have value. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe this, to put before myself this impossible task that is completely irrelevant to my actual value as life, and which is self-abusive by design. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I can be the person that makes another person change. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to try to be that person. I see that in this instance I have helped another person see themselves, but only after engaging in much frustration and self-abusive behavior of arguing and not supporting myself. It is not my job to change another. It is not my job to make another see himself. I will not be enticed by this ability -- I am tired! It is not worth it to do this when I am not stable in myself, supporting myself. I cannot support another instead of supporting myself, and I cannot accept or allow myself to be drained by another person who does not understand and respect (see himself as one with and equal to) the consequence of these interactions. I will respect myself and stop my participation. I will create myself now here as the person that I want to be, supporting myself, trusting myself, respecting myself, and taking responsibility for myself NOW, so that I no longer hope for the future to be a certain way. I am here now, I will be here now, I will create myself here and now as what is best for all as best I can in self-support. I stand. 

I also pointed out how, from the sounds of it, it seemed like these boys just wanted attention from them in order to stroke their own egos. And so, when one girl stopped talking to that boy for 4 days, he started giving her a lot of attention on facebook, trying basically to coax her back into the position he had been keeping her in: at arm's length, but still feeding his ego.

Maybe I was projecting from my own experiences; I don't know. But the girls said they could relate to what I was saying. One girl felt sympathetic about a boy who was going through a difficult time with a break up. I pointed out that for me, in the past, I would use that as like an excuse for a boy to be mean to me, and I would think that if I could be stable and consistent, then eventually he'd get over it, and he'd want to be with me, like he'd see how great I am, and we would be together, and everything would be perfect. She laughed and said that's how she feels. The other girl wanted to "blast" one of the boys she had liked but who was being mean on facebook, which I gathered meant that she wanted to basically post a lot on his wall about what she thinks of him. I pointed out how that might feel like taking control, but he's probably not going to reflect on anything based on that. He's not going to say, "you know what? you're right!" or at least he won't say that and mean it. I pointed out how here the three of us were having a nice conversation and we were learning from it, but when other staff, for example, shout at them, it's easy to look away and say "yeah, okay, whatever, oh my god, this is so stupid." So when someone is really reactive at us, we tune them out. But when someone comes to us calmly, or otherwise stops participating in the game / dance of reaction, we realize that something's up, and we look at it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be abused and mistreated with the hopes that a boy / man will see me as valuable. How backwards! 

I realize this only shows what I am accepting and allowing. This communicates that I accept and allow and even invite abuse. 

I commit myself to respect myself by no longer accepting or allowing others to abuse me. I commit myself to set boundaries for myself and live by them. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I will be heard if I am loud, that I will be seen if my actions are big or extreme. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be directed by my reaction with a belief that it will communicate better than me communicating for myself. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feed into the desire to have retribution through reaction, through "showing another how it feels" or trying to convey my emotional intensity through anger. I see, realize, and am beginning to understand how effective communication comes from a point of stability. I realize that giving myself over to reaction, giving myself over to retribution, is abandoning myself and abusing myself. I realize that I am most easily heard when I am calm. I realize that others do not typically react well to reaction -- they will react in turn, whether by also becoming angry, or discrediting me, or something else. But if I am calm, then I am supporting myself, and there is a better chance I will be heard and understood. So I commit myself to keeping my reactions to myself as much as I can, as much as seems appropriate. I commit myself to not using my anger to communicate. I commit myself to abandoning the belief that if I can show others how much I am hurting, they will feel bad. I realize people don't want to see themselves as bad people, so seeing the consequences of their behavior sometimes makes them just turn away. So I realize this is not effective. So I commit myself to effectively support myself and effectively communicate by finding stability before I communicate. I realize the other person understanding me is not paramount. Understanding myself is what is paramount. Respecting myself is paramount.  

I've been kept at arm's length, and I've been in the position of thinking someone was quite mean to me, disrespectful, and also seeing his behavior as contradictory and even irresponsible. And yet, for some reason, I succumbed to his charm and charisma, and his CONfidence, and his physical appearance, and I decided I "liked" him. I didn't listen to myself in self-honesty. I believed that the other person must genuinely be that great, since he acted so great, since he acted like he was hot shit, since it seemed like other girls liked him too.

I directed myself from what I thought I should do based on what other people thought, based on my perception of how other people received this person -- not how I actually received him, which was a lot of really negative interactions, that I just overlooked, because I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, or I thought he would change, or I thought I was wrong for perceiving things that way, because I trusted him more than I trusted myself.

And this is mainly why I am mad, at myself. And I am mad too because I finally let it be known how I felt, and I fear now that this is just being used once again for this individual to stroke his ego. But mainly, I am mad that I abused myself and rejected myself in favor of hanging out with, liking, and pursuing a guy who wasn't nice to me, who didn't treat me with respect, and who behaved egotistically and arrogantly. I'm mad at myself for trusting someone who was obviously not trustworthy. I'm mad at myself for not trusting myself. I'm mad at myself that I believed it was just the way it would be, that it only made sense for us to be together, so it's like I was "stuck" with that, so I found a way to be okay with it. I'm mad at myself that I SAW all of this, and I ignored it. There was no lack of awareness, there was simply a lack of self responsibility. And now I am here as the consequence for that.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to be self-dishonest and twist my own words / memories / experiences to deny that I liked someone because I feel embarrassed and because I do not want this person to have even more food for his ego. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to lie to myself in order to manipulate this other person to feel or not feel a certain way. Again this is holding myself hostage in order to manipulate another's experience. I forgive myself. I let it go. 

I'll make absolutely no excuses for myself. I was only just beginning to receive and learn the tools. But it doesn't change the fact that this is what I accepted and allowed, and now I am here as the consequence of that. And now I must take responsibility.

I realize that my liking this person had a lot more to do with me than it did with him. I realize that the fact that I liked this person shows me myself, and what I have not given myself: Trust, Respect, Support. I realize too that I have not given myself the responsibility to give myself these things. I realize that it is who I was as who I have been in my life that led me to the point of liking this person, as a consequential next step from who I have liked in the past. I realize that even though I thought that every relationship after my first should get "better," they have all actually gotten "worse," because my self-esteem, self-respect, self-support, and self-trust have diminished with every experience I have had with men, and it has not been until now that I have been able to see this as the root, that: I have not allowed myself to trust myself, I have not allowed myself to respect myself, and I have not allowed myself to support myself; instead I have done all of this unto another, without first doing it to myself.



I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create an extensive belief system within myself centering on the core belief that "my life will finally start when I am in a committed relationship," and so I should hold off on really creating myself, so that I would be more available and free to conform to whatever man decided I was good enough for him, so that I could become whatever he wanted me to become, so that I could finally be in a committed relationship and my life could finally start, and I could finally be happy, where the "start" of my life becomes the end of my living, the end of the only thing I have: myself, my ability to direct myself. I realize this belief is central to how I have accepted and allowed myself to be abused by men, to how I have abused myself through men, and abused myself through this belief. I realize through this belief I have abdicated responsibility for myself throughout my life. I realize I have not trusted myself, that within this belief I have cultivated and nurtured self doubt. I realize I have not allowed myself to really live, as myself, as life. 



I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to normalize the phenomenon that men are abusive of and mistreat women, and this is okay, in fact this is a sign of a good relationship.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hold onto the small few positive interactions, choosing to ignore the negative / abusive interactions, in favor of believing the positives are what is "real" or what will become real, rather than seeing all interactions as what is real, and using all interactions to show me who another person is, and to show myself who I am being, as what I am accepting and allowing within my relationships with others.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think that another person is better than me or superior to me simply because they treat me poorly.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to take memories of past relationships, especially with my brothers, where these were boys I was supposed to look up to and who were supposed to protect me, who sometimes teased me and treated me poorly.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think / believe that it is acceptable or allowable for someone to treat me poorly.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think / believe that if I accept and allow someone to treat me poorly, they will like me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think / believe that if I accept and allow someone to treat me poorly, they will realize that I am valuable, and they will start to treat me better.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think / believe that my value to another person comes from what I accept and allow them to do to me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be used and abused by men, to stroke their egos, or stroke something else.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be used and abused by men sexually, because I want them to like me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use and abuse myself sexually.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think / believe that accepting and allowing others to use and abuse me is how I can get other people to like me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that it is important or even imperative that other people like me.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to like myself.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself liking myself to be enough.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I need others to like me in order for me to be okay or happy, or for my life to be worthwhile, for the fact that I am alive to be worthwhile.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to trust myself, respect myself, or support myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to give gifts to others that I have not given to myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I do not matter, that only what I can do for other people matters. I realize I cannot really do anything for anyone, only myself, or only once I have done that for myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to "like" someone just because I think they are attractive.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to "like" someone just because it seems like other people think they are attractive.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to hide this experience because I do not want the other to use this information to continue to stroke their ego.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel embarrassed when it seems as if I have been more transparent than I realized, that what I was trying to hide actually showed through.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to "like" boys / men who are not kind to me, who do not treat me with respect, and who are not actually supportive of me as life, as an equal.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to "like" boys / men who treat me poorly, who treat me as less than them.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think this is normal, this is just the way it is, and I don't deserve any better.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to make excuses for boys / men / people who treat me poorly.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to accept and allow my own abuse.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to identify what I perceive as "weaknesses" in another person / areas where they have room to grow, and to believe that I can be the person to show them this, and to help them grow, and within this I find value in myself, I believe I matter.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to go out of my way to support another person with the ulterior motive of feeling valued and validated and like I matter.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to validate myself, or realize that I am valuable and I do matter, as all life matters and is valuable.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to direct myself from the starting point of what I perceive about what other people want or think, so that, since I never communicated my intent, I didn't know for sure what the other person wanted, so I held onto the hope that maybe this is what they wanted, so I kept that door open as an option, kept imagining that as a possibility, so that rather than listening to myself in self-honesty, and directing myself therefrom, I was more enticed by the possibility that this person might like me, and then I could be liked, even if I did not really, in self-honesty, like this other person, but only liked my idea of who this person could be someday, or what this person represented for me, or what I had imagined about this other person, but actually rather disliked this person based on our actual interactions.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be led on.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want another person to like me who I did not even like. I see this is abusive. I see this is not self honest. I see this is irresponsible.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to do what I could to get another person to like me, to stroke my ego. I realize this is also what they did to me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to be wanted, and want to be liked, so that when I saw the possibility that another person might like me "like that," I fed into it, and allowed myself to be led on, even though I was always kept at arm's length, even though I never felt good, even though I was always confused, even though I felt like I had no control of myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to trust another person to be responsible and self-honest because he claimed to be these things, so that, within this, I abdicated my own responsibility and I did not trust myself, because I thought trusting this other person was safer, because he knew more. But I realize it is not about what a person knows, it is about how they live. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to recognize the reality of the interactions and the reality of living, instead engaging in ideas in my mind and ideas as communicated by another, ideas and "knowledge" about who a person is, rather than the reality of who the person shows me he is.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to be a person who is self-honest absolutely, because even though I was communicating with myself, I did not listen to myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hold onto "what ifs" and "buts" and wondering how things "could" be rather than looking at how things actually are / were and moving myself from within reality.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing all of this bullshit that has occurred over the past almost year of my life. I forgive myself for that. I forgive myself and I realize I have learned so, so much about myself through this experience, not only about myself and relationships, but myself and self trust, myself and boundaries, myself and honesty, myself and responsibility, myself and grudges/conflict, myself and friendships, myself and listening to myself, and myself and the desteni message. I realize that I made mistakes. I realize that now I know, and with that knowledge I can now live better, as what is best for all.

I commit myself to continue to work through the reactions.

I commit myself to trusting myself, as I listen to what I communicate to myself.

I commit myself to calming myself and soothing myself when I see myself doubting myself, I commit myself to breathing and investigating the self doubt and the function of the self doubt.

I commit myself to respecting myself. I commit myself to not accepting or allowing others to abuse me. I commit myself to not accepting or allowing myself to abuse myself through accepting and allowing others to abuse me.

I commit myself to support myself absolutely. I commit myself to create and live by boundaries for myself as what I learn to trust in myself, and what I learn is best for all.

Standing as Equals

Here is a cool post by someone else who wrote on a similar topic: Why do I like the guys that do not like me?