When it's time for you to learn a specific lesson, the universe will provide you with every opportunity to master it. I never really understood this concept. When the same circumstances would happen over and over again in my life, I would get angry, complain, and act like a victim. I would feel like nothing was going right for me and that I had no control over this. Somehow, over the past year, I've realized that until we master a specific lesson, the circumstances will not stop. It is our changed behavior that matters.
My most recent lesson has been standing up for myself and not allowing others to treat me poorly. So, the universe has provided me with countless people and situations where I can practice my responses. I will not name names because that is absolutely not the point here at all; the point is how I have evolved and how freaking proud I am of myself.
In the past, I would have let the following things slide. I would have accepted the treatment and continued to allow these people to exist within my life for fear of upsetting them. With practice, I am now able to release people while standing up for how I deserve to be treated. All of these things have happened within the past year and here is how I responded:
1) Someone close to me judged me, talked behind my back and was not there for me when I was in the deepest, darkest depression of my life; someone that I have always been there for during their darkest times. They compared my difficult circumstances to their own, claiming theirs had been worse and that I was overreacting to my situation. I had been accepting this kind of treatment from them for a very long time. Instead of continuing to accept it, I released them from my life.
2) Someone I was dating and living with last year was verbally and emotionally abusing me. In the past, I would have continued to suffer because I didn't believe I deserved better. I would have also stayed, believing that I could fix the person and help them to understand their behavior and grow. This time, I packed my things, left, and saved myself from any more pain.
3) The most long term partner in my life told someone that was interested in dating me that I am "just your typical Moab girl with nothing going on". When I heard about this comment, it was like a stab to the heart. So, I confronted them about it and released them from my life.
4) I have been cat sitting for someone for the past few months. One of the cats that this person had rescued had a 3rd degree burn on its neck. The owner was cutting socks to cover the burn but the socks did not actually cover it, so the cat was scratching the wound down to the muscle. I told the owner I would be happy to bandage the cat in a different way so that it could heal and he said that was fine. Somehow, he began to get upset with me (I think it was his ego stepping in) and started to treat me poorly because I wasn't using the socks that he had cut. He told me that I would have to purchase supplies myself to take care of the burn. He began sending passive aggressive messages and treating me like I was doing something wrong by helping the cat. I told him that I genuinely cared for the cat, but that didn't want to be talked to that way and that he could find a new cat sitter.
4) Someone that I have known for a long time was interested in dating me and pursued me for a month and a half, from a distance, while he was traveling. He texted me morning and night, bought me presents, talked about future plans, started to call me his girlfriend and even sent me money to get my passport so that I could travel with him. When he got back from his travels and things were going well, 5 days in he told me he wasn't sure if he wanted a relationship due to his travels, that he needed time to think and that he was having a mid-life crisis. In the past I would have fought for the relationship and tried to prove my worth. Instead, I released him from my life and wished him well.
6) Someone that I know recently decided to tell me that I am fatter than I used to be. In the past, I would have been heartbroken and felt like crap about myself. Now, I ignored it and next time I see this person I am going to tell them how inappropriate it is to talk about other people's bodies. Also, it didn't emotionally affect me. I love my body.
7) A customer who had come into the restaurant drunk decided to tip me zero dollars the other day (after I heard him tell his wife that he had tipped me $12). I walked up to the table and asked if he had meant to leave me nothing and if there was something I could have done better. He said "well yeah, we never saw you" in slurred speech. The wife was stunned and later came up to me with money, apologizing. In the past, I would have ignored this and sulked about it. Instead, I said something.
These were ALL tests.....were the people involved happy with me? Absolutely not. But, I think I passed with flying colors.
