You and Others

Why is it that we can sometimes hold on to so much of other people's words and actions?

It starts when we are infants. This is how we understand who we are...through the primary caregiver. This is how we even begin to comprehend our identity.

In a way, the importance of having a significant other, or friends, or family, is to help define who we are. It keeps us real. It helps us understand ourselves through others.

But then we continue this even after we establish the difference between ourselves and others. We take in what others say about us, take it in as if that is who we are.

We even take in what others do to us, even unjustly. We begin to identify ourselves by what others do and say, without realize that we are doing so. We sometimes wear it as if we are permanently damaged by the past.

The past makes us who we are today. But we can choose how and how much. We can choose if it positively affects us or negatively affects us.

If you find that you wish to change how you feel about yourself and that a lot of it has to do with other people, find some time to do some healing. Journal, draw, talk with someone you trust. Visualize yourself in a bubble, and these things that have happened as separate bubbles. Visualize the other people all in separate bubbles as well.

Take some real time to repair. If it hurts to much to think about it, and your strategy is to never think of it, then you are still wearing it very closely. It may come out in many other ways.

Remember that you are not defined by what others say and do.