So it may come as no surprise that I’m all about working on myself. I’ve had a long way to climb (which is being generous - I did a lot more crawling, scrambling, and tumbling than actual climbing along the way). One of the hardest lessons to learn was that I wasn’t the only one who needed to make changes.
When you don’t know any better, you’ll accept all kinds of behavior as normal. If you grew up in any form of abuse or neglect, you’re likely to associate those things directly with the ideas of family/home/love etc. You’re set up to take whatever abuse the world sends your way. What’s worse, some of us seek it out as a result.
I want to be a good friend, a good boss, a good dog owner. Whatever label you’re going to throw at me, I want to be the good version of it. But strangely enough, I found that not expecting those around me to also be the good version of their own labels hindered me from being as good as I could be.
We don’t live in a vacuum. We need each other. We also need to be treated well by each other. To be held to account, to be praised, validated, and loved. We can’t always be the ones giving, we also need to receive.
Easier said than done sometimes. But relationships are two-way streets. If the street doesn’t run both ways, it may be a relationship, but it’s more like a business transaction (and even then, money flows back so).
This is a special series for Jay’s 40th year. To receive all posts straight to your inbox, be sure to subscribe.
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