I've been talking about how the people in front of me
are the people I'm supposed to pay attention to.
My belief that everyone in my orbit has a purpose...they are traveling this life
with me and when I pay attention, I can occasionally discern
at least one of the reasons they're in my orbit.
To date, I've focused on the sunny side of this belief I hold.
I've talked about the finding friends,
There's a darker reason people might be in my orbit-
proof that I need to pay attention to the path I'm steering
or someone else will start steering it for me.
Often the people that cross my orbit are a reminder that maybe
my life choices are taking me somewhere I don't want to be.
In this post, I want to talk about the people that show up
and that I need to pay attention to
because they are NOT the people that
I need or want to be hanging out with.
You actually know exactly what I'm talking about.
Your parents likely drilled this into you from age 13.
You are who you hang out with.
Or sometimes, you can become a shadow
of those you hang out with.
I know this but I don't always take ownership of in the moment.
Ever find yourself sitting in the middle of a group
that espouses beliefs that make your skin crawl?
In a long term relationship that is heading exactly no where?
Bored by the life that you are circling around in a hamster wheel?
Sitting across the table from a person who you
believe you are essentially better than?
Dreading the social commitment that you're walking into?
I have.
How did I get there?
Well....basically I walked myself right into that place.
By not paying attention to my own worth,
not listening to my heart,
valuing comfort over honesty,
and basically doing what someone else told me to do.
Who was telling me what to do?
Those people who were in my orbit...
that didn't actually have the same values that I have.
I used to be somewhat of a fixer....
a person who took in lots of strays.
No matter what kind of values a person held,
no matter how they treated me,
if they wanted to be in my orbit,
then I let them.
In many cases...I moved them in nice and close.
The more difficult or damaged they were,
the more of my orbit I gave.
Lord help us both if they had a label that appeared to connect me to them.
Mother. Best friend. Employee. Roommate. Lover.
If there was a label, I was going to MAKE THIS WORK.
I spent much of my prodigious energy
bending myself
(and my values)
into someone else.
Or worse...trying to bend them into someone else.
Driving their life for them.
So that I could tolerate them in my orbit.
Here's the thing.
It never works.
Eventually, when I am in a relationship
that requires me to pretend to be someone I am not
or value things that I do not
then it will end.
Often in a glorious, bridge burning way.
And I realize now that it's 100% my fault.
I have no business keeping people in my orbit
who were meant to pass through.
That relative who suffers from narcissistic personality disorder?
Needs to be loved from afar.
That friend who refuses to own a single decision in her life?
Or wants to just cut down every other woman in her orbit?
Or believes that the world is in competition against him?
I have more pressing business than nodding silently through another rant.
The beloved family member who hasn't been sober in decades
and doesn't see the numbing as an issue?
I paid the price for years to keep them in my orbit...and it wasn't enough.
The currency I spare for them now is less urgent.
This has been a hard one to learn and
there's been a cost that I've paid.
I do not cut people out of my life lightly.
Or even holistically.
I've come to understand that the lesson that these folks
are in my orbit to teach me was actually....
that I need to let some people go.
Not everyone is for the long haul.
Not everyone should be allowed to remain in my close proximity.
People who love me, will want to see the whole me.
People who don't value me, or value the same things I do...
-integrity, openness, courage, equality-
well...we just need to see LESS of each other.
Do you have people who need to be moved
out of your orbit?
Or at least moved back some levels?
#beherenow
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