When you feel like your energy is low but you are not very aware of it, you might automatically be focused on other people and their problems. I don’t know why, but it just seems to be the way that it works. It’s easier to deliver critique to others than to take action yourself. So you focus on other people and in your mind you’re constantly thinking of ways you can help them in order for them to get their life back on track.
I have learnt that it is better to take action for yourself. People rarely change due to critique from other people.
When we are criticized by others, we tend to throw the boomerang back in our minds.
We think things like “whatever, look at your own life”. And it just leaves the situation as it is. Nothing changes. On both ends.
When I was younger I was the kind of person that was constantly thinking about other people and what they needed in their life. I was so distracted by other people’s lives that I never really noticed my own life was steering off a cliff. I handed out all sorts of unwanted advice to the people close to me and like a boomerang I was receiving the same sort of advice from the people around me. And nothing changed.
After my point of no return I turned things around. I started focusing only on myself. I started to rewrite my programming and all my wrongful convictions were placed under a magnifying glass. At the time I was helping someone close to me in the sense that she was living under my roof. On its own it would never be a problem, my door is always open for family and friends, but the harsh fact that this person was trapped in dark energy literally gave me a stomach ache whenever I would unlock my own front door.
I no longer wanted to go inside, because it physically hurt me to be around her. I loved her and I didn’t know what to do about it. Was I supposed to kick her out? All for the benefit of myself? But she is part of my inner circle. How do you kick out someone so dear to you and why?
At the time I was in a relationship and I found myself hiding at his place, avoiding the energy in my own apartment, avoiding this person, avoiding decision-making concerning this situation.
And then my partner asked me a pivotal question:
Are you helping her or are you maintaining the situation?
BOOM. What an insight. Thank you my dear partner. Everything I did for her was coming from a place of trying to help, but nothing changed. I was sustaining an unhealthy relationship and it was costing me mountains of energy. So I decided to give my close-one an ultimatum. I faced her with a letter I wrote about our situation in hopes of lighting a spark within her. But it ignited only anger in her. It even seemed like she genuinely hated me after this.
A few months later and the situation had become unbearable. Constant fighting and arguments. Constant fleeing from my own home. And then I made the decision. I decided that she is a grown woman with her own responsibilities. If she feels comfortable in her negative energy that is fine but no longer would I accept this behavior under my roof. I sent her away, I even drove her to the airport.
When I drove home a tsunami of tears hit me and it was so bad that I needed to park the car as I could not continue driving like this. I cried my eyes out, went back to my apartment and cried my eyes out again.
I wanted it to work, I wanted us both to be happy together but I had failed and the apartment felt so empty, void of love.
I decided to pick myself up and clean the whole house, rid it of the dark energy. So I cleaned and I cried and I didn’t know whether or not I had made the right decision. It was the most heart-breaking decision I had ever made and I felt deeply sad. But not for long. Soon followed a feeling of liberation. I had chosen me and it created more space for me to develop myself.
I had created space to find my true passion. I created a platform for me to fight for my self-love. No longer was this other person fulfilling the position of the main character in my life, I had taken my own stage. And it has led me here.
Yesterday we had a BBQ with friends and we brought our dog along for the fun. He was just chilling and playing with kids and running around in the garden (or at least we thought), until we received incoming phone calls from an unknown number. Texts were entering my WhatsApp and it was coming from a woman who had found our dog in the middle of the road.
I ran towards her and was shocked by the distance our 9kg dog had covered. Whilst I was running I yelled to the woman “You are an angel!!!”. I was so grateful that someone had taken care of our dog and had taken the responsibility to reunite him with us. So I invited her for a drink. I figured it was no coincidence that my dog introduced us.
She had time and came with us back to the house. She stayed for hours and became a part of the BBQ group. We immediately got into deep conversations and we both knew this was happening for a reason. She started sharing a problem occurring in her life. One where she has a friend that is an alcoholic and for some reason she keeps dragging this friend along, allowing her in her intimate space.
And it hit me, she was in a similar situation as I had been. So I asked her my partner’s question: Are you helping her or are you maintaining the situation? The answer was quite evident. She was not helping her friend and worse, it was wearing her down.
None of the things she was providing for her friend ignited any change.
So the lesson came back to me, through a random stranger, a karmic meeting alongside the road. My dog led me to her in order for me to deepen my lesson. To validate the fact that I had chosen me over heartbreak.
And of course, in an ideal situation I would love to help anyone. But the simple fact remains that nobody can help anybody unless the other person wants your help. Sometimes you need to make hard decisions in order to ignite a spark. Sometimes you just need to walk away from someone else’s self-destructive behavior. It is not your responsibility. You can try of course, but the healthy boundary here is “never at your own cost”. Once your energy starts to drain, it means it is time to unburden yourself.
You are the main character in your life, you decide. Choose yourself first. Grow, live light and share your beautiful energy where it truly makes a difference.
“You can’t pour from an empty cup. Take care of yourself first.”
