Awareness

Awareness brings you closer.....

My eyes are slowly opening to the manipulation I have experienced and still do to this day.

It's as if a light switch has been turned on as I see now so clearly how I WAIT and how I expect people to be mad at me, when I don't do what they expect me to do.

This has been raised since I started living more for myself. When I make decisions that are for myself instead of others, I am noticing in myself this twinge....of fear.

Will they be mad at me because I didn't do what they wanted? Will they still like me? Will they punish me? Will I pay for picking myself over them?

My biggest fear is that I will pay for it.....punishment or they will lay a guilt trip on me.
Ah so many questions and then I stop and say.....does it matter?

What they are doing is controlling me.

If they are making decisions about me, just because I did or didn't do something they wanted...then that's not fair to me. They aren't loving me just the way I am.

If I continue making my decisions about my life around them and what they want, then I am living for them and not myself.

That is control. That is manipulation. That is unfair to me.

So I grit my teeth and hold on for another day.
I look for another day of my own freedom.
Another day to make decisions for myself.
For what is best for me.

This is challenging for me, because I have devoted my life to what's best for them.

But wait.....Is that freedom I feel on the tips of my fingers? In the close proximity of me, is there a possibility of freedom from control? My hand reaches upward hoping to feel freedom from this chain that binds my sanity. But I don't think I am quite there yet. But that doesn't mean I can't stop reaching, I can't stop hoping, I can't stop trying. My awareness brings me to the half way point....for it is my awareness that enables me to begin changing.

Today, I will reach for freedom of pleasing others.
Today, I will hope that I can be more who I am and not what they want me to be.
Today, I will try to catch myself when I see that I am worrying about what they want instead of what's best for me.
Today, I will practice living one day at a time.

Lord, I ask for freedom of control of others. I pray that You will continue to show me each chain that binds me, and as You do, I pray that I will give them to You. I thank You for what You are going to do in my life. Amen