*Parts of this post have been inspired by conversations I’ve been having with a few people and seem to have come together to grow this post! If you see yourself here, please smile, and know that you have inspired me!
I’m always prepared that I just might do that! I seem to walk slightly out of step with others, so the possibility of being seen as a fool is strong. Just knowing and owning this lets me be free to enjoy just being myself!
In a world where the image of being pulled together and perfect set an impossibly high bar, sometimes giving ourselves the freedom to just own who we are, let our hair down and stop worrying about being accepted is such a breath of fresh air!
I can’t tell you how many YEARS I agonized about not meeting with other people’s approval, or worse, living in fear of their disapproval. As long as my energy was focused on THAT, it was as though that was exactly what I attracted into my life!
The disapprovers showed their colors to me time and again, when they showed me they really just wanted to control me and my life because they felt they could do a better job at it than I could.
Even if that were true, it was still my life to live!
I spend YEARS giving away my power and allowing others to have the remote control in my life.
Were they shocked when I took it back? Yes. Interestingly though, life rearranged itself, and they were no longer a part of my life!
The relief of no longer having them in my life, daily telling me what to do, how I was falling short, and being a disappointment to them was palpable. I felt the absence in my bones, the way a refreshing breeze feels on the skin on a hot day. It felt absolutely wonderful to be released!
Did I still struggle with guilt, feeling like I was somehow disloyal for choosing myself and being okay about leaving them? Yes, that was a huge part of learning to be me and to stand on my feet, for I had bought into the lies they had told me that I couldn’t live without them or that I would die without them.
The transition was difficult as I had to take baby steps for a long, long time to learn how to be in charge of my life, my thoughts, and my mental state, for waiting on them to do it for me yielded a big, fat zero. Less than zero in fact, for their efforts, eroded my sense of self so deeply that I struggled to feel okay just being me.
Giving ourselves permission to step away from how certain people use acceptance in order to control us is a huge, milestone step!
If you have already done it, bravo, BRAVO to you!
If you’re struggling with this step, know that it’s okay to go very slowly, to take small, minuscule baby steps! Guess what? They’re still steps!
The trick I discovered to learning how to make this transition lies in NOT trying to learn it all at once or from one place!
It is a gradual process, where we learn a small piece and then practice it for a while until we feel comfortable enough to try the next piece.
Sometimes we just need to let each lesson percolate through all the layers of muck that have built up inside of us over the years, so each little truth can finally connect with our spirit, allowing a piece of the growth to happen.
The process can feel very long, and almost as though we’re in the dark, unable to see our progress, but that is actually what is happening to us because we’re all seeds growing.
Remember this: seeds grow through the manure to become beautiful plants! If you’re feeling like you’re in the dark and life is a bunch of manure right now, you may just be a seed growing! That’s a good thing!
With all the struggles we go through as humans, all these struggles and the lessons we learn become the beautiful flowers in our lives. Some people accumulate enough flower lessons to fill a pretty vase, while others have gone on to create beautiful botanical gardens with all the lessons and knowledge they have learned.
There are 100’s of ways and tools to approach this very thing! Even with all my books and posts I probably haven’t covered everything, nor will I be everyone’s cup of tea. That’s why there are so many of us writing and sharing our experiences, for we will each be able to help a few people! We’re all a part of this solution!
We’re all on this learning journey, and each of us is making the choices that resonate the most with us at that given time.
Nothing is set in stone. Just because we started out on one path or one direction seemed to make sense for us at that time, doesn’t mean we can’t change course!
We’re free to choose our next step, at each moment. In fact, we do, whether we realize it or not, for even doing nothing is a choice.
What do you want your next step to look like?
I hope you’ll poke around my Archived Posts to find a wonderful trove of supportive and encouraging posts! Don’t forget to Like, Comment, and Follow my blog!
If you want to become a Guest writer, please contact me and we’ll work out the details!
I’m sharing more posts that may be helpful for you:
- 10 Steps to Owning Our Happiness
- Setting “Boundaries with consequences”
- Making a change… “How do I take that first step?”
- Affirmation: Today is a new day! I can do this!
- As we practice being gentle and kind with ourselves, we actually help to speed the process of helping our lives become more positive!
- Always believe that wonderful things can happen!
- A healthy outside starts from the inside!
- Brain Rewiring
More good stuff:
- Teaching ourselves to like, even to love ourselves
- By changing our inner dialogue, we change EVERYTHING!
- Challenge: When a negative thought enters your mind, think three positive ones. Train yourself to flip the script!
- Red Ocean or Blue Ocean? How do you think?
- An answer to dealing with the Inner Critic!
- My top 10 most viewed posts, plus a few bonuses!
- A helpful trick to be able to overcome negatively Comparing Ourselves to others…
- Do you only accept yourself if you look a certain way?
- A new you! Is this possible?
- Start today, start tomorrow, just start!
- There is no enlightenment outside of daily life – Thich Nhat Hanh
Blessings!
Thank you for sharing this post and for following me!
Tamara
https://tamarakulish.com/ Archived Posts: https://tamarakulish.com/archived-posts/
My books: Now available through Walmart.com!
Developing Happiness When You Can’t Find It and How to Heal Your Life on a Deep Heart Level are available in paperback and Kindle. Audiobooks are available for the busy person!
Guided Journals help you work on a particular issue by answering questions to help see patterns and to find solutions:
Removing Inner Blocks, Anger Journal, Guided Anxiety Journal Joy & Mindfulness Journal My Boundaries Journal My Inner Thoughts Journal
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Tamara Kulish 
Thanks for sharing, Tamara! You are right, there are many of us writing and sharing to help others, and that makes me happy. Together we make this world a little bit better.
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This is a journey we all do together! Bless you, for being part of this big picture! I’m grateful for your support and encouragement! Hope your day is wonderful!
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It is indeed a long slow process. But it does two things. It allows us lots of practice to get it perfect…and then let it all go because we find out we already are. And the second, to see that love and happiness is not in fact ‘out there’, but awaiting us to see we are perfect right inside us, where it awaits us to acknowledge it. Great post dear lady, may your path always have that light 😀❤️🙏🏽
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You’re so very right Mark! I like how you word it “it allows us lots of practice to get it perfect…and then let it all go because we find out we already are”. so true, isn’t it?
I remember how difficult the struggle was, and so I do my best to write about the steps needed to transition through the process. Even though I’m on “the other side” I remember the struggle and so strive to hold the lantern up so others can see the path to follow.
Thank you for your wishes that my path has that light, for indeed, it is the light shone by lanterns held by people who have walked the path before me! Blessings!
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It is all in the experiences dear lady, we can be told, explained, ranted and raved at…but it isn’t until we experience it, and often, that we truly understand anythings truth. We finally relate to it, and then on into all its contrasts so that we can feel their many variations.
An interesting thing I found…I can love my mom, I can love my brother, I can love my teacher, I can love the girl up the road, I can love my partner, I can love my dog…but no two ever the same…why? And then Spirit nudged me…because I hold things against each and every one of them differently. Yes, I really do. Otherwise I would love all the same. I just had to find those bits within myself that I held against them, resolve them, and I’m finally loving unconditionally. An interesting thing among these, I also found I loved my dog more unconditionally than all the others…simply because I could be more open with my dog, did not expect to be on guard with him. And that showed me that I did with all others in one way or another. Mind you, we can still give our furry friends a hard time and hold things against them too…after they’ve chewed our new socks or slippers etc 😀 Oh, Spirit wants another post 🤣❤️🙏🏽
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Very true Mark. Years ago I had people try to tell me what to do to heal or to create a healthy life for myself, but until I was ready to let go of my pain and the connection that pain gave to my identity, I wasn’t able to live those experiences. Our identities get caught up in the pain that was inflicted, to the point that it feels like if we let it go we’re somehow negating all we went through. It was a huge paradigm shift to realize that just wasn’t true.
I’m not quite at the point of loving everyone in my life equally or unconditionally when some people had quite intentionally created deep hurt in another person, not because that person in any way deserved it, but because the 1st person desired an outcome. Had they vocalized their desire, we would have done our best to accommodate her, but she chose to orchestrate a very damaging method to get what she wanted. I will always be very careful around that person, knowing what they are capable of in order to achieve what they want. I’m not sure that unconditional love is the direction my relationship with this person needs to go in, as long as that person doesn’t see the harm of what they did. Sometimes when people show us who they are, we need to believe them! I will be pleasant and civil around them, but my heart will always be on guard with them.
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And that is all you can do dear lady. I must express something a bit more here about unconditional love Tamara. We can never truly feel unconditional love down here, simply because just breathing is a condition on us, and as you have said there are a million other conditions we place on ourselves and others place on us. But…as we resolve those things we become clearer and clearer, closer and closer to that unconditional love. I have reached a place where I feel so clear within but I have a few medical conditions that still are teaching me so much ‘conditional’ things so that I can still become clearer. When I was ‘taken’ by Spirit to touch unconditional love, it is nothing like down here, the freedom in ‘everything’ is incredible, the love is just so pure that when I came back I burst into tears. Big, beautiful happy tears because I could see that all of these millions of conditions we live down here are the making of us. All of it, the good the bad and everything in between shows us so much. Like I’ve always said, and from what I was shown, we cannot know and appreciate happiness unless we have experienced sadness too, and on through all those emotions in so many things. And as we see through our many conditions an understanding light comes on within us, even those simple things like when we see a friend in pain, and because we have experienced that, our empathy, compassion and love is given out to them…unconditionally. We have built and created that love within ourselves because of all those experiences. I still shake my head how everything down here is so beautifully connected so that we all attract accordingly those things we need to see in our hearts. All built by the energy of that unconditional love. I know that sounds ‘out there’ but if I could explain what I saw and felt…it is just beyond words the beauty of it. But trust me, you, we, will all touch that incredible place…and yes, even bursts of it down here as we go through those moments where our hearts open. Enjoy the journey dear lady, even the hard bits, it is sharing a love beyond words 😀❤️🙏🏽
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“I still shake my head how everything down here is so beautifully connected so that we all attract accordingly those things we need to see in our hearts. All built by the energy of that unconditional love. I know that sounds ‘out there’ but if I could explain what I saw and felt…it is just beyond words the beauty of it. But trust me, you, we, will all touch that incredible place…and yes, even bursts of it down here as we go through those moments where our hearts open. Enjoy the journey dear lady, even the hard bits, it is sharing a love beyond words”
As out there as it may sound, I do understand these concepts for I have had a few wonderful teachers (people and experiences) teach me those lessons. They’re hard lessons to learn, but the ones our souls need. Growing into better versions of ourselves requires going through the dark times to learn what no longer belongs to our journeys. It’s what we signed up for right?
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Indeed dear lady, it is something so beautiful in its destination, it will bring such an incredible feeling to know we have discovered its light 😀❤️🙏🏽
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Yes! I love this!
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Thanks for the reminder that “[g]iving ourselves permission to step away from how certain people use acceptance in order to control us is a huge, milestone step!” Over the years, I’ve faced several backlashes when I’ve said no to those who sought only to control me for their own ends.
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*sigh* I hate when that happens! As they say, haters are everywhere. The controllers have a radar, kind of like when a hacker sends pings to many computers, and when they get a ping-back, they have a target. When we are seeking approval, we inadvertently give off that “ping”, our neediness shines a beacon to the controller, who realizes they have a target, Why do they do that? Their own insecurities propel them to seek power over others.
It is no fault of our own that we attracted them, we just didn’t have the tools to repel them. When we do gain the tools, they get over-the-top dramatic about it to try to use force, coercion, guilt, and manipulation to get us back into the small box we lived in before. It does take courage to risk a relationship, but was that a healthy relationship or was it better to just let it go?
Bravo to you for seeing it and being able to step away from the control and the manipulation!
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Tamara, I’ve featured your post on my blog as at 11/13/2022.
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Wow! That’s an amazing honor! Thanks so much Rosaliene! I will visit it!
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My pleasure 🙂
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🤩🤩🤩
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Baby steps can be difficult for those who are impatient – for those who want it all yesterday, but I have learned to celebrate them. This year especially. ✨ I appreciate your thoughtful insights and original quotes, Tamara.
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Thanks so much for your support, Michele! You’re so right, too often we want it all to happen, yesterday, and then get overwhelmed when it does happen, and we feel ill-prepared to handle it.
Most of us who embrace baby steps have learned the hard way, haven’t we, to bite off smaller chunks that can be more easily digested!
Bravo to you for being able to appreciate and celebrate them! Every success is a good success! Sometimes what we think is a small step actually turns out to have been bigger than we realized! Bravo!
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Your writing contains great insight, Tamara, and your message is perfectly timed for me. Thank you so much. 💐
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Wow! I’m so happy this landed in your life when you needed it! I’m always amazed at how Spirit can guide us! I was actually working on polishing a different post but felt very strongly this was the one that needed to launch on that day. Grateful to listen to the nudges, and grateful that Spirit allowed my words to enter your life when you needed them. I should stop being amazed at how Spirit orchestrates things on our behalf, but it always delights me! Thank you for letting me know, for it reinforces the feeling to listen to those nudges of intuition. Thank you also for your feedback!
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It is amazing! Who are we to question it? 😁 Thanks again, Tamara, and thanks for this thoughtful follow-up. You are a kind and gracious person and writer. ✨
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My pleasure Michele! Thank you again for your kind words! Sometimes we need to store up these wonderful serendipities, to see how much the Universe has our backs!
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Like you I spent a long time giving my power away. I hated who I was because I was searching for perfection. Obviously, perfection is not possible and it’s okay not to be perfect all the time. Absolutely loved this post!
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Thanks so much, Pooja! As women we get pressured to give away our power, to try to be the perfect daughter, wife, and mother, but that’s too much pressure. I’m so happy that you have found your voice and are advocating for others to find theirs. These are hard-won lessons, but so sweet when we do learn them! Hope your day is wonderful!
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Thank you and hope your day is wonderful too!
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*smile* thank you!
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Long time, no see.
It felt like forever, since I saw your blog last. Missed your beautiful energy. This blog of yours is uplifting and supporting.
It tells people to think. Yes, we do remain in control, waiting for approval and living in guilt. Just a right sign tells us to break those shackles and be free.
Thanks for sharing this thought-provoking blog.
Very powerful.
Fly high as you have the whole sky.
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Thanks so much, Devang! Your supportive words bring a smile to my fave this morning! I’ve been working on a few posts, none of which seemed to want to jump into the world too quickly, so I have respected the pace they wished to set for readiness. I kept working on them until this one said to me “I’m ready!”
This is all a part of respecting who we are and not trying to conform to any set of outside rules, including rules for being a good blogger, LOL!
We should all just trust this inner drum beat, and not feel intimidated by other bloggers’ apparent super-human abilities! I wouldn’t want to wear that crown, for it may slide off! LOL
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Take your sweet time!!
I adore your work. Will wait for them patiently. You please take care, and keep shining
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Thanks so much my friend, your words of support and encouragement mean a lot! Keep doing you too, for you are growing!
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