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  It is up to you to choose what you want to believe about yourself and about your self-worth. That is the beginning of self-healing and recovery. There is nothing I can do or say or write down in this chapter or any other chapter or any other book, that can convince you otherwise until you want to believe that you deserve to see yourself in a positive light. You don’t necessarily have to believe what I say, you just must want to change how you live your life. You may find other ways that lead you into your own path of healing and, ultimately, that is my goal of this writing.

  Do you want to believe that you’re worth experiencing joy and love and happiness? Do you want to believe that you deserve to live with purpose? Do you want to believe that you deserve to go through your life without regret and without the infliction of injury from those around you who profess to care and love you? Are you surrounded by people who seek to control you and put you down?

  The truth lives within you. You just must believe it. I can tell you that the people that raised you or influenced you in your life perhaps at church or at school, who said hurtful things about you were wrong. They are wrong and they were wrong to tell you that you are worth less than someone who was born to a couple who was married versus being conceived in rape. It isn’t right to believe that your body serves as a conduit for the sexual gratification for people who profess to be the purveyors of the gospel. It is a horrible concept to imagine the depths of despair and trauma that so many people experience throughout their lives as a direct result of the consequence of their conception.

  No one deserves to deal with that kind of baggage. It is a false narrative. It is untrue.

  While horrific, the abuse that children endure and feel compelled to carry throughout their lives, is not indicative of their value as human beings.

  No one can ever do anything to you that erodes your value as a human being. If you’re reading this, you are worthy.

  The consequences and circumstances of your conception are irrelevant to your value as a human being.

  Your value as a human being is equal to every other human being ever conceived on this planet in all of history and in all the future.

  There is no pedigree, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, able or disabled, marker that increases or decreases your value as a human being. Read that again.

  You, and only you, get to determine your worth. If you think that you are worthless, but you want to think that you are worthy, then all you must do is to believe that you deserve to believe it.

  You do not need to worry about so-called friends, family, acquaintances, coworkers, people on the street, etc. expressing their judgmental attitude towards who you are and what your value is. Other people’s opinions do not matter when it comes to identifying your own value in your own worthiness. Remember, other people’s opinions of you are none of your business.

  I realize that the reality is there is racism and sexism and classism that is rampant all over the world. What I am discussing, however, is the ability to identify oneself with worth despite all the external garbage. It is garbage because it is untrue. It’s a cultural influence that dictates these thinking errors. It’s up to you to challenge them.

  You get to decide your worth. You get to decide what kind of person you want to be. A person who believes they are worthy of good things, will do good things. Your character is directly related to the positive influence you bring into the world. Change is hard. Change is also worth it. If you don’t think that you’re a good person then what do you need to do to change that?

  See the chapter on accountability for more details and fun facts

  Chapter Nine

  Toxic behaviors

  I touch on some of the aspect of toxic influences in our lives in the Fear chapter. Refer to Fear for more details.

  So, let’s get down to it. Let’s be honest here. Are there individuals in your life that are holding you in a space of stagnation? In other words, if you were to contemplate making some significant changes and how you manifest and move through this life, would you be judged negatively for making these changes? Do you feel unfairly categorized and labeled by certain individuals in your life?

  Are these the same people that were in the front row of the audience during our fear to love exercise in chapter one?

  Have these people imbedded themselves in your life in ways that make you feel obligated to them?

  Are you fearful of these people and their responses to your choices?

  Do you often tolerate bad behavior in people?

  Keep in mind, when we allow other people to behave negatively and to express toxic behavior in and around our space, it will affect us negatively as well. Do you ever notice that when you are frying something in your home, the smell tends to hang for quite a while? Toxic energy operates very similarly and when someone brings in negativity, it has a way of hanging in the space around you. It will absolutely have a negative effect.

  Here’s a question you can ask yourself. Imagine someone who is in your life that creates stress and drama in all the spaces they occupy. Perhaps it is a family member or someone who pretends to be your friend or, maybe, it is a negative coworker. Now imagine this person standing in front of you. I want you to imagine their response when you tell them “You are no longer allowed in my home.” Or for the coworker, “You are no longer allowed in my office.” How do you think this person will respond?

  Toxic people are like an unlit match. We all know one, if not a few. They walk around and they may act calm and even caring, but in reality, we all know that at any moment, with the right type of friction, toxic people will explode much like striking a match.

  Granted, this could be a caregiver, a parent, or elderly family member, a next-door neighbor, etc. You may feel completely powerless to extricate yourself from this dynamic and from their influence. However, you must understand that, like the lit match, they can’t burn forever. Their hostility will eventually give way to indifference. Name-calling, gossip, and perhaps even some harassment might be the result of you enforcing your personal boundaries. All of this is to say that, for the long run, don’t you believe that your peace of mind is worth the small amount of drama when extricating these individuals from your space?

  Do you ever wonder why it is so difficult to allow a confrontation to take place? It is so uncomfortable to enforce our boundaries with toxic people because they are not afraid of confrontation. This is one of their choice weapons to control and influence the people in their lives. When we begin to understand that their dysfunction belongs to them and that we are not obligated to tolerate their negative behavior, we begin to make positive changes in our lives, and we become more empowered to determine how our energy is utilized.

  No, of course I’m not trying to say that this process is going to be easy. It usually isn’t because, typically, the toxic people that have an impact in our lives are the ones that are the closest to us. Toxic people do not have emotional profit to be toxic with total strangers, for the long run at least, or with people that are empowered to supervise them at work or otherwise have some type of emotional or financial influence upon them. Toxic people take advantage of those who have thin or nonexistent boundaries. They tend to gravitate towards personalities of people who are altruistic in nature. They are emotional vampires. Understand, that while their toxicity directed at you may feel personal, it isn’t. Once you have chosen to make necessary changes in your life, you become obligated to communicate clearly to these individuals that their energy is no longer welcome. When you communicate that their behaviors are no longer allowed, you will start to feel the strength of spirit that we all have within us.

  Engaging in a confrontation does not mean you are a confrontational person. Refusing to allow the toxicity of other people to affect you is a terrifying construct for the toxic person. You can have empathy for that individual because of the change you are enforcing upon your personal life but having empath
y does not equal allowing the parasitic events to continue.

  There are all kinds of complex relationships based upon the needs of the emotional vampire. If you are involved in a family situation, there can be many aspects and many considerations in making these changes with regards to complex family relationships. For example, if you decide that you will no longer tolerate your mother coming over to your house unannounced, you may have siblings who tolerate the same behavior from her. When you make these changes, your siblings may assert themselves in a projection of their own frustration. Perhaps they do not have the willingness or the courage to do the same with your mother. For them, it might be a simpler route to attack you for daring to enforce your own boundaries. When you refuse to tolerate your mother’s behavior, she may, in fact, magnify her behavior towards your siblings which will cause them to react negatively towards you. It is important to expect this outcome. You still have a right to assert your boundaries.

  Know that none of this is deserved by you. When you are kind to yourself, you have the ability to be kind to other people, while at the same time enforcing your boundaries. Name calling, judgments, and all the other toxic behaviors that are magnified to control you, are a manifestation of the fear that toxic people hold. Nothing more. It is a difficult process to extricate yourself but remember to be kind to yourself. Remember, you do not have to hold anger when you enforce your boundaries. Remember, you are responsible for your own energies, both in what you tolerate as well as what you express to the world around you.

  The procession of your energy is your responsibility. You, and only you, are accountable for what you tolerate and for what you project. Meditating to find clarity is key to maintaining the direction of this effort in eradicating toxicity from your life and, as a result, from your heart and spirit.

  When you are kind to yourself, anger has no room to grow. Remember, the toxic person, in their attempt to control you, will use their manipulative tactics to trigger your anger to justify their treatment of you. It is irrelevant, if in the past, you have been intolerant to toxic behaviors and have responded angrily. When you are making a change, you must start now and in the present. Understand where you have allowed these toxic projections to trigger your anger. Understand how your anger benefits the toxic person. It is important to understand how your anger serves you and how it does not serve you. Understand, that while valid, your anger may also be used against you. If the toxic person can trigger your anger, then they are in control. Remember that.

  Practicing kindness is not easy, but it is critical as a measure of success in this evolution of eradicating toxicity. It may feel uncomfortable at first, because when our boundaries have been violated repeatedly, we are hurt, and we are traumatized. Anger is an expected result of this trauma. Practicing kindness is a diffusion of that anger and, even though you may actually feel angry, having a logical understanding of how the toxic influence from the person who seeks to control you, will help you to not demonstrate your anger thereby allowing the toxic individual to use it as a currency of control.

  Being authentic does not mean that you must express your emotions to other people, particularly when these people are emotionally parasitic. You may feel anger. Acknowledging that you are angry to yourself is all you need to do in order to be authentic, particularly when these individuals need you to express your anger so that they can control you. Behaving in a timely manner despite feeling anger is an action of boundary enforcing.

  So, as an example, when you hear the doorbell, or you hear the door open at an early hour, you may say something like “I’m sorry, Mom, but we are sleeping in today. I will call you later. Here, let me help you back to your car.” She may have a history of creating hysterics when she is confronted with her inappropriate behavior. She may project a victimization if her shame is triggered by your enforcement. She may make statements to elicit a sympathetic response from you. “But, I need to talk to you. Did you know that my co-worker died? Don’t you even care about me?” “I’m sorry to hear your coworker died. I’ll give you a call later today and we can talk about it.”

  Perhaps she displays cheerfulness when she perpetuates a sense of victimhood. You may feel yourself compelled to become even more angry as her behavior becomes increasingly dramatic.

  Remember to be kind but to be firm. Remember you deserve to enforce your boundaries. You are obligated only to yourself by being kind and making a determination for how you are going to be treated, as well as how you treat others.

  Don’t forget that the toxic personality comes from a place of trauma and pain that has been unresolved in a functional way. Again, you can have empathy and understanding for these individuals, but that is not the same as tolerating their poor behavior.

  Remember, in the evolution of growth of the spirit, your changes are not just about preventing other people from harming you. It is about holding yourself accountable for not harming other people as well. It is a holistic evolution that, while difficult, is wholly fulfilling and worthwhile.

  Chapter Ten

  Pride

  Pride. What is the purpose of being prideful? When you think of someone who is prideful, what are your opinions?

  There’s a difference between being proud versus being prideful. I am proud of my children. I am proud of the hard work I have done, both in my personal life, as well as in my career. It’s a positive aspect to have pride in one’s own accomplishments. However, being prideful can be destructive in so many ways. In my practice, over the years, I have observed a variety of different manifestations of pride. Many of these clients exhibit pride as a measure of defense and protection of one’s self. As always, I operate from a position of nonjudgmental stance and when I see this, I always observe it with compassion and empathy. I don’t believe anyone comes into this life manifesting pride simply because they are cruel of character. I think people who are prideful do so because they feel that it is a necessary measure to protect themselves from the threat of harm.

  Being prideful means lacking humility. Typically, the person who is prideful has learned this, either through observing the behavior of a caregiver, or has learned to behave in this manner to defend against humiliation.

  The adult who has suffered through humiliation as a trauma, perhaps as a child, can sometimes manifest prideful behaviors as a result. The sad aspect of all of this is that the prideful person, through their own defense mechanisms, is denying the very joy they are so desperately entitled to.

  Prideful behavior is malignant and affects every aspect of a person’s life. When a person has unresolved traumatic humiliation and responds in prideful behavior that person categorically behaves in a way that is devoid of any compassion or empathy towards other people. They simply cannot express compassion because all their energy is tied up in the defense mechanism of prideful behavior. The pain of humiliation is like a wet blanket they carry around all the time, draped across their shoulders, coloring all their decisions in life. Prideful behavior hurts other people and carries with-it long-term implications.

  When a person exhibits prideful behavior and lack of humility, there is the resistance to accountability. When there is no accountability there is no healing from the original trauma. The fear of re-traumatization and humiliation for the prideful person is so ingrained in the psyche, that there is very little room for concern with how their behavior affects other people. They are consumed with not being humiliated.

  Are you a prideful person? It’s OK to say yes. It’s OK to say no. It’s OK to say I’m not sure or I don’t know. If you know that you’re a prideful person, are you aware of the implications on how that affects the people around you? Better yet, ask yourself this question. “If I walked into a large gathering of people and I tripped and fell in front of them and they all pointed at me and laughed, how would I feel?” Of course, this is a metaphor but ask yourself how you would genuinely feel in that scenario. The truth is, most people would feel embarrassed
and silly, regardless of whether they had humiliation as a trauma in their past. It’s a normal human response to feel a bit humiliated in that type of situation. But for the person who experienced humiliation, perhaps as a child, or who was raised by a prideful person who ingrained in them certain behaviors, this experience could be deeply traumatic, triggering all kinds of anger and hostility.

  A big part of transitioning from being prideful into a headspace and a spiritual awakening of growth and wellness, comes from the acknowledgment of worthiness. If a person, ideally, were to identify where their traumatic humiliation occurred and then was able to logically assess the injury that experience caused them, then that person would be able to isolate that experience and separate it from value of self. The person who is traumatized and humiliated has a feeling of low sense of self-worth based upon the experience of the humiliation itself. That trauma created a schema or a belief of a low sense of self-worth. This is a complete and total fallacy. Just because something terrible happened to you when you were little, is not a marker of your value. If you are behaving in a way that is indicative of being prideful, with an inability to accept accountability for your own behavior as an adult, then it is simply time to flip the channel from your fear-based thought process into a love-based mindset.