Do you feel uncomfortable ‘To say No’ or ‘To set boundaries‘ ? Are you exploited by everyone ‘due to being emotional’ ? Do you get ‘manipulated by others’ so easily ? Do you feel underconfident or scared to take your decisions by own and allow others take your decisions ? Do you afraid to take stand for yourself ? Do you suffered for staying silent to avoid conflicts or arguement ? Do you feel suffocated due to all of these and after a point of time it turns to worst anger and you became a villian for everyone and feeling of lonliness has gifted to you by others ?
If you deal with any of these, Don’t Underestimate yourself as a weak personality, You are suffering from all of these since your concious mind has always learned that “the defination of being a good person is ‘Care for feelings of your friends, family or relatives with no boundaries’, Priotize society’s expectations by keeping yourself at the last priority, Don’t say No for the the things that made you to feel uncomfortable and suffer silently, Never raise question against anything in front of elders and follow them blindly” and your subconcious mind response by believing it to be true. But actually this is not a defination of a good person it’s a defination of a stupidity.
How we Forget our strength and allow others to control us
How we Forget our strength and allow others to control us ?
- Understand it’s pattern: In our indian society, obiedience is a sign of ideal kid character and obedience gives us respect in the society due to which ‘when a child question about any particular believe or society rule which is blindly follows by maximum peoples’ or ‘express it’s own different opinions/thought on any particular thing’ or ‘wants to choose a carrier or a life partner by saying No to family or society’s expectations’ Such kids often label as disobiedient kid and they didn’t get social acceptance and somehow our subconcious mind also starts to believe that it’s a disrepectful behaviour, We all need to play a role in society to be accepted by showing ourself slightly different from our trueself and sometimes we forget our trueself, our true identity and inner personality while playing a role in the society due to which we lacks awareness about ourself and allows to define our identity then suffer later.
- The Fear of Not Being Accepted: ‘Think about moment of your life when you were passionate to live a passion of dancing or singing or acting or writing or to create a youtube channel to serve a purpose that came from you inner side but you suppress that passion and decides to become a doctor or engineer just because people made fun of your passion or say that this kind of carrier is so uncertain and most of people got unsucceed and you didn’t got validation from anyone for your dreams‘ You Know Why ? Most of us learned to earn the acceptance instead of believe in ourself, most of us learn criticism towards ‘rejection or for not being fit in society’ We often scared about ‘others opinion for us’, ‘what will people say’, ‘if they laugh on our dreams or kind of personality we are’ Due to this kind of thoughts, we subconciously lose our self confidence, doubt on our true identity, become a people pleaser, seek validation from others and As a result ‘We try to become what others expect from us and suppress what our soul truly desires or someone even forgets our inner self’.
- When manipulation is disguised as love: Sometimes manipulation look likes love i.e Sometimes you couldn’t differentiate between ‘healthy love & protection’ and ‘Overprotective Control’ , Do you hear from peoples when they say that ‘We are worried about you that’s why not allowing you for that’, ‘You haven’t see the world, you are too innocent, let me handle this or I know what’s best for you’ , In India, it is most common that ‘most of the over-protective parents or controlling male partner restrict their girls or wife to go outside or to meet others, teaching her to accept comfort over their dreams by reminding her about challlenges attached with it instead of guiding her to handle the challenges, say anything to her and call it as a concern or love and then that manipulation creates the fear, guilt and dependence on her parents or spouse’ This kind of control sounds like love and make you feel safe but when you realize that this cost your freedom and making you a weak personality and that moment of the life you would feel that you have lost you strength and self-confidence, you feel like that you need permission of others to do anything or for your life decision.
- When Kindness Crosses the Line: “Remember that moment when you want to say ‘No’ to someone but you got so emotional or stay silent or say ‘yes’ inspite of being uncomfortable from their response or behaviour and later you feel exploited or frustated due to your kindness” Your Kind Nature is not a problem, problem is when you didn’t maintain a boundary ‘it is exactly like that your mind is a house and you left it’s door open, anyone is coming, walking, sitting, making noise, taking space, Problem is you never learned to close the door of the house’. It’s not a kindness, it’s an stupidity by which you are hampering your mental peace.
- When We Forget Our Own Value and think we’re Not Worth It: Do you know the moments, when you used to get compared from your Batch Topper or any of your cousin or siblings and a thought came in your mind that I am useless ?, Do you know the moment when you used to see others speaking confidently on stage and you were feeling like ‘I wish I could speak too but I lacks confidence’ ? Do you know the moment when you saw the peoples of your age were achieving great success and you were still figuring out, for ‘what work you are made for’ or ‘getting failed in any competitive or professional exam’ or ‘dealing with self doubt and self confidence is reached at zero’? You Know problem is not you are behind the people of your age, problem is that you didn’t respect yourself, you feel uncomfortable from your body or looks, you feel uncomfortable to express yourself, you think that your opinions and thoughts have no value and Remember until you won’t respect your identity and live in comparision, your true potential or your higher self would never get activated, It’s completely Ok if your friend crack the IIT but you can’t, may be you were born to be known for your purpose or any passion that came from your inner self, but to see that purpose you need to accept yourself first.
- Losing Ourselves in Blind Faith: Is this happen with you that you trusted your boyfriend or girlfriend too much and your blind trust didn’t allow your eyes to see his/her redflgs and instead of questioning him/her, you doubted yourself that might be wrong and later you realize that your partner was in relationship with you just for temporary pleasure and you started to hate the word ‘Trust’. It would be illogical to say that stop trusting the people, Don’t trust blindly on anyone, Learn to observe the people that what are their red flags and green flags and don’t feel hesitate in raising question where you think that something is wrong, otherwise you will loose yourself in blind faith and people will take advantage of you.
- When Approval Becomes an Obligation: Remember the moment of your friend’s marriage when someone compliment made that event special for you and one negative comment on your any youtube video becomes a reason of not uploading content for a month, Approval becomes an obligation when your self confidence becomes dependent on other’s validation and you stop listening your inner voice and hide your inner self or start doubting yourself and become a people pleaser, you forget that No one can understand your better than you, No one knows the purpose of your life for which universe has selected you, No one knows about your ‘god gift’ or ‘real talent’, everyone’s give opinion based on their point of view, they didn’t know about point of you, So it didn’t make sense that you bound yourself with the other’s approval, always hear your inner voice over other’s opinion and priotize spending time with yourself or ‘self talk’ so that you could know what your inner self wants and you could accept yourself.
How to get your strength back and reconnect with your innerself ?
Before sharing the ways to get your strength back, I want to be honest that everything I am sharing are my own experiences that help me reconnect with my inner self
- Don’t Follow Anyone Blindly, Learn to Question the things: Take a pause when someone give you any advice or keep their opinion infront of you, Don’t believe it blindly, listen to your inner voice and think deeply on their opinion that on which basis they gave opinions, What are their beliefs that frame such kind of opinion, to how much extent their opinion has logic, What fact they didn’t consider in their opinion, and ask question regarding their opinion if any doubt came in your mind, Even if you got criticize for raising question or someone couldn’t relate with your question, then don’t ignore question that came in your mind by treating it as an overthinking, it’s not an overthinking, it’s your inner voice.
- Fix Boundaries: Don’t allow other to enter in your space too much, Fixing Boundaries does not mean to disrespect anyone, It’s mean to love your mental peace, Whenever you feel Uncomfortable that it is bothering you mentally, or force you to become a giver at a cost of mental health, Don’t feel hesitate ‘To Say No’, You have to change the mindset that If you say ‘No’ people will get hurt, A person ‘who is mature by mind’ never get hurt if you say ‘No’ Since a mature person believes in maintaining healthy boundaries, Always Remember if you would be available for everyone for 24 hours, people would take you for granted and it will kill your happiness and peace from deep inside and you will hate outside world and create a lot of anger and frustation in your mind so saying yes to others for each and everything is not a kindness, it’s a way to disturb your mental peace, Ask yourself, if you didn’t feel happy and peaceful from deep inside, you always hold anger and frustation due to saying yes for everything, how others could be satisfy from you so saying ‘No’ for your well-being is also very important for you to have a healthy relation with others.
- Not Only Finacially, Be Emotionally Strong too: Many womens feel controlled by their boyfriend, spouse or In laws, even if they are financially independent since they lack emotional independency, You must be aware that where you should listen to your heart and where you should listen to your mind so you wouldn’t get exploited due to your feminine nature, Remember that you won’t need anyone’s permission to work for your goals or dreams, You don’t have to adjust alone in each and every conflict in your relationship since you deserve equal respect, you don’t need to stay silent ‘when it comes to your self-respect or make you feel uncomfortable’ just to fit in the criteria of an ‘ideal daughter-in-law or wife’ set by the society, If you earn your money then you emotions didn’t deserve to be owned by someone’s else, Being Emotionally strong does not mean to disrespect anyone, it’s mean not to tolerate disrepectful behaviour of someone, To Care or Love someone doesn’t mean adjusting endlessly, you should not get broken to keep relationship unbroken.
- Understand the difference between ‘Protection & Control’ or ‘Possessive & Dominant’: In Indian Society, Maximum of peoples are not aware of ‘Being Protective’ and ‘Being Dominant’, Maximum of people interpretes both the things similar as love or care, But both are different concepts, ‘If your spouse, parents or any of your closed one is protective towards you it’s a healthy relation and it’s a love or care’, but ‘if they are dominative towards you, it’s a toxic relation and it’s not a love, it’s a control’, Protection gives you wings to fly while Control give you a cage, protection give you comfort , peace and respect your freedom while control gives you fear, anxiety and destroy your true identity, Protection supports your choices while control replace your choice, When your closed one’s say ‘Wear whatever make you to feel comfort just ensure that It will look decent’ or ‘Choose your dream carrier but if your dream carrier is challenging then you should have a backup plan for carrier to deal with that challenge’ that sounds like protection but when they say ‘Don’t wear that, people will look at you and I don’t like it’ or You are not choosing that career. I’ve decided what’s best for you, don’t question it.’ that sounds like control.
- Don’t allow you fear to win over your courage & confidence: Until you will scare to take your decision by own or wouldn’t show courage to take your responsibility by own, your life decision would be taken by others and you will always get controlled by others, your fear is heavy on your mind since you have been scared for too many years, fear wins when you choose for not to try or not to take action but your confidence when you choose courage by train your subconcious mind that fear exist only in your imagination not in reality and if purpose behind the ‘courage for the decision’ you have to take is good, then ‘universe or god or in whatever you believe’ is here to protect you from the worst possible thing that you have imagined in your mind, all you need is faith in it.
- Learn to Observe People: If you want to not to get control or manipulated or easily influenced by anyone, then you have to learn to observe the intention of the others from their behaviour, responses and reactions that how do you feel in their presence or when you talk to them ? Start observing that who listen you, who is giving respect to your opinions too even if they didn’t agree with you completely, who is guiding you politely, who is getting angry on your opinion in case of differences, who is arguing with you if disagree with your opinion, who is trying to make you believe that you are wrong and they are right by manipulating you, who is demanding obiedience in the name of the care. you have to understand the pyschology behind behaviour and responses of the peoples.
- Give importance to your inner voice over other’s validation: Your Inner voice always guide you about what is right and what is wrong but maximum of people didn’t respect to their inner self due to fear of being judged that what other people think, and Sometimes people get so busy in their life due to which they never set aside time for themselves to listen their inner voice due to which they lacks awareness about themselves and couldn’t hear their intuition, then they start to give importance to the other’s opinion over their inner voice and validation could feel good for short term but, In long term if you give importance to other’s opinions over your inner voice, you will forget yourself and and you will always feel incomplete whenever you do not get validation. Start giving importance to your inner voice and accept the fact that no one know you better than you so it is not necessary that other’s opinion will always right for you since everyone’s opinions is based on their experiences, your experiences and opinions of others from whom you are seeking approval are different, To listen your inner voice you have to spend few minuites alone in a quiet place when you voice could speak without being influenced from other’s expectations and thought and ask yourself that what you truly want, and what you have been ignoring for years, separate your thoughts from others’ thought & listen to the emotions you’ve been suppressing, understand which dreams are yours and which were forced on you, you can’t find your inner voice in a crowd — you find it in the quiet moments you give to yourself.
Summary
The message that I want to convey from this blog post :
- Being Kind or Caring or Loving at the cost of your well-being and mental peace without having any boundaries is not a kindness, it’s not a sign of being of a good person, It’s a stupidity.
- You become such a overgiving person when in innocence, you try to being fit in the ‘criteria of a good person at cost of your well-being’ set by society, when you scared for not being accepted, when you get influenced or manipulated so easily by others, when you blindly believes on someone blindly and loose yourself, when you can’t say No and when other’s opinion becomes obligation for you.
- But you can’t satisfy or happy others until you are suffering, and No matter what you do, some toxic peoples will always criticize you.
- you have to learn to priotize your well-being, you have to learn to question the things, you have to set boundaries, you have to learn to control on your emotions, you have to understand the difference between control and protect, you have to show courage to win over fear, you have to learn to observe others and you have to give importance to your inner voice.
- Since your well-being is your responsibility, you have to be accountable for your well-being.