The first time I heard that, I was appalled.
I did not agree.
I had all my ‘buts’ and ‘no ways’ ready…
But the seed was planted,
I could not get that thought out of my head.
I thought, if the spiritual teacher dr. Wayne Dyer said so, he must know what he was talking about, right?
So, I started to do some soul searching,
I started to study how people treat other people.
And yes, it hit me, he was right.
People do treat you the way you allow them to.
Does that mean that you completely control how people behave?
NO, of course not!
You are never responsible for how others act
BUT
you can let them keep on treating you that way
or
you can walk away from disrespectful behavior.
THAT is up to you.
And here is what the whole issue is about:
How do you think about yourself?
How do you treat yourself?
Are you harsh towards yourself?
How do you speak to yourself?
Do you put yourself down?
Or
Do you like who you are?
Do you respect yourself?
Do you treat yourself as you treat the people you love?
You see:
this is what it is all about.
As long as
you don’t respect yourself,
you don’t love yourself,
you don’t think you are important.
That’s how long people
will treat you disrespectfully,
will treat you as a doormat,
won’t respect your boundaries.
So, yes,
people will treat you as you allow them to.
The good thing about this is,
you have a say in all of this:
You choose how you think about yourself,
You choose to honor yourself,
You choose to respect yourself,
You choose to let people know what your boundaries are.
And yes, people will be surprised in the beginning.
But people who love you will be thrilled to see that you finally love yourself too!
And people who do not accept your boundaries, are people who took advantage of you not having any boundaries.
So, my invitation to you all this week is:
Look at how everyone is treating you,
Including yourself!
Do people respect you?
Do you respect yourself?
Do people accept who you are?
Do you accept who you are?
Yes? Great! That is the way it is supposed to be.
No? Do people not treat you how you would like to be treated?
Show them how you would like to be treated by:
starting to respect yourself,
letting them know what your boundaries are,
telling them nicely but firmly what you no longer accept.
If they truly love you, they will love you even more now that they see the ‘real you’ blossoming.
If they walk away, then they have never loved you anyway.
So:
Be the beautiful person you are in your heart.
Show the world THAT person!
Not the one, you think, they want to see.
That can never work in the long run as you can never be what everybody else wants you to be. You would need to be a million different versions to be able to please everyone. That’s impossible.
So:
Be that sparkle of beautiful light and love that is hidden in your true self!
Namaste
Katrien
www.lifecoachwomen.be