No matter how strange it might sound to some of you, the world around us is actually a reflection of what happens inside of us. This is true for the outer circumstances in our lives, as well as for the people we attract. So if we want to check where we stand on the path of self-acceptance and self-love, we just need to take a look around and see what people we have attracted in our lives.
In reality, the people around us are neither good, nor bad – their attitude towards us is simply a reflection of what we believe about ourselves. That is why a person might have a wonderful attitude towards you and at the same time a horrible attitude towards somebody else and vice versa. And neither do we have the same attitude towards different people – some people bring out the critic in us, the permanent complainer or the rude guy, and others might bring out the kindness, beauty and love within us. Everything is a matter of interaction. So what we are going to bring out from the people around us, depends mainly on us.
Imagine that each of us walks around with a neon sign above their head and there in capital letters it is written what one thinks about themselves, so that everybody can read it. On his sign the first person has written: “I love myself!”; another one: “I accept myself!”; third one: “I am happy with myself!”, but the fourth one has written: “I hate myself!”; “I am not good enough!”; “I am so stupid!”; “I am used by all!”; “I don’t deserve to be loved!”… Then the people around us just come to us and read the sign, treating us the way we instructed them on our sign. Believe it or not, each of us has such a sign. It can’t be seen with our physical eyes, but we can clearly perceive what is written there and we treat the person in front of us accordingly, even when we are doing this unconsciously.
Whatever gets written on our neon sign influences all our interpersonal relationships, especially when it comes to love relationships. So if someone doesn’t treat us the way we think they should, there is no need to get angry with that person. We can simply be grateful to them, because they have shown us what kind of sign we have put out there, and then we can silently and peacefully change the sign. And whether that person will stay with us after we have changed the sign or he will simply look for someone else with a sign similar to our previous one, well this is none of our business.
This important insight came to me after years of not accepting myself and going through many painful situations. I remember that when I was in 10-th grade, I was thinking that I am too fat, too annoying and nobody likes me. So you can imagine what kind of a neon sign I had above my head all the time… Indeed, there were some people who weren’t willing to read my sign, but I just didn’t find them attractive and I was even wondering what was wrong with them, so that they pay attention to me?! And, of course, when you are looking for something wrong, you will always find it. So, this way the people who wouldn’t treat me according to my sign, were slowly disappering from my life. And it is not healthy at all to walk around with the sign: “I am fat, annoying and unlovable”, because sooner or later you will attract someone who will simply read it out loud. And this is exactly what happened. I was extremely hurt when a guy I was in love with, came to me and said: “You are annoying, ugly and fat!”. Looking back now, this happened exactly at a time when I was looking wonderful, I was having a normal healthy weight and I was rather fit… And of course, after this event I created such a drama for myself… When I think about it now, it seems so funny… That person only came to me and read my sign – the sign that I wrote myself, so what’s the big deal?
Years of hard work on myself followed, I started accepting and loving my body as much as I could, I read many self-development books and attended many useful workshops, I started being more conscious and I was noticing and learning my lessons from the experiences I had in life… And everything started to get better. When I accepted myself, my attitude towards myself became a lot better. I thought I have learned my lesson and I have already mastered the love towards myself! However, in the professional sphere I started activities that people my age normally wouldn’t do (I opened my own company and started working on my own projects). And in stead of being proud of myself, I simply wrote on my sign: “I am too young and incompetent!”. Well, you probably guessed already what happened next, right? It didn’t took long before a woman came to me and told me in my face: “Poor child, you have no idea what you are doing!”. Yes, I definately had to change the sign! And this can happen only by constant work on your thoughts and on the attitude towards yourself!
Back then I thought that the situation in my personal life was way better. On the outside I was looking like a confident young woman who knows what she wants and what she is doing. I thought that I have finally managed to change my belief of being an immature shy girl, until one day the person I was dating simply told me: “I like you a lot, but I want you to straighten your hair, colour it blonde and wear dresses for me!” I got extremely angry back then – who the hell he thinks he is! Why should I colour my hair blonde only because of him?! In this situation I obviously didn’t realize the feedback I got regarding the sign hanging above my head, but the funny part is that the words of the next person I was dating, sounded really similar: “Blonde is blonde! You are cute, but if you want to be with me, I want your hair to be blonde and you need to change your tough character!” Well, maybe the first thought of yours after reading these comments, is – where exactly do you find those idiots? But in fact the problem is not with those people, they simply came into my life in order to give me feedback and there is no point of me getting upset and angry about it. The real problem comes from my sign. No matter how much I thought I was loving myself, the above situations showed me that I still have some more work to do! And to know this is a blessing!
If the words on your sign are not 100% positive towards your personality, body and essence, then people feel free to give you their competent opinion on topics they are not supposed to, to give you unwanted advice, to try to mould you as they want, or basically to read the words on your sign. Their reaction is just a feedback about where you stand on your path towards self-love and on what issues you need to work more.
So, when someone comes to you and tells you that you need to loose some weight or you need to gain some weight, they are not actually telling you something about your weight, but they are simply providing you with information that whatever you have written on your sign is not of your benefit. So don’t get angry with people who are trying to mould you, instead just thank them for the feedback and continue working on yourself.
The moment you change the words on your sign, you will start attracting people in your life, who love you the way you are, without posing unhealthy conditions and requirements. You will know how much they treasure you even only by the look in their eyes and sometimes they will even say it to you out loud. But you shouldn’t count on them as the only source of love. If you start depending only on the love and kind words from the person you attracted through your self-love, the moment you stop taking care of your good self-attitude and count only on the love that comes from outside, then you are attracting yourself a trouble. Because some people come into our lives and stay with us until the end, but others simply come, give us their gift and go away. So don’t count on people around you to give you love!
Always pay attention to what is written on your sign! Never be unconscious about bad things you have written there! Be conscious and write wonderful words about yourself there every single day! Now take a look around – what feedback do people around give you?
Picture: Deviantart/ajax