By Nevena Martinović
We often don’t like other people’s behaviour. It is difficult for us to accept when someone will not do something for us, when someone is not there, when they do not want us, when we are simply not so important to them, when they do not want to hear us or inquire how we are doing.
This is true especially for people we care about. Then we look for ways to explain it to ourselves and to rationalize it, we secretly suffer and try to fill the void in us. Strange but true, it is precisely these places that shape our further experiences. We keep all those ugly feelings that a single person caused in us and not only that, we further develop them in ourselves. Sadly, we are not aware of that. Then we go further through experiences, we work on ourselves, we become better, but remain unexplained to ourselves. Because a person needs to know and understand themselves in order to accept themselves, that is, at least to want it and to strive for it. It is also true that we never get to know ourselves all the way through, so we should not waste time thinking differently. We can recognize through patterns what we do not explain to ourselves, what remains in us and what develops further – patterns of thought like “I am like that”, “This always happens to me”, “I am going through the same thing again and again”, “This is how things are with me”, “I’m used to this”, “This too shall pass” and so on. Each of us told ourselves one of those.
We all have someone who did not want us, did not want to see us or wanted us enough, or understood us, or accepted us. Some people are bothered by this question a lot – why is it like that? They even dedicate their whole life to finding the answer while others run away from answers, deny them and try to overcome them with self-talk. Others never ask themselves this question, while some think that answers lie with the other person so they delve even deeper into it by shifting blame and running away from responsibility. Some suffer a lot, everything is very hard for them, they are enveloped by looking into this void, while there are those people who just accept it. You accept life and yourself in life. Some can do and absorb this immediately, while others need time.
Still, emotions are a spontaneous process. It also depends on what we are made of. How many supporting virtues there are in us? We need the courage to accept that someone doesn’t want us, that we are not enough to them and important to someone, that someone is not there for us. We need tenderness and compassion to embrace the rejected self. Maybe we will never be able to touch that side of ours again, so we need patience as we discover how deep and wide the void is. We also need will, discipline and perseverance to continue to deal with it, as well as love and joy to have something to fill it. We need determination to permanently bind love and joy to ourselves. In the end, we also need to take responsibility for ourselves and to be our best advocates, to share with others. We need to accept all of that and we need all that to get to the BECAUSE.
What happens then?
Then we are at the very beginning. Then we are a new me, standing in a place where we can do things differently, when the old things don’t have to happen again, when we don’t have to go through the same thing anymore, when we don’t have to get used to it and wait for it to pass, when we have opened our eyes to what lies ahead of us, when we feel the power and know we can do anything. Because birds were created to fly and be free, fish to feel the depths of the sea, lions to conquer, wolves to survive, and we, humans, to realize and integrate all of that into ourselves.