Inspiration

There’s a reason you’re so drawn to him. It’s no accident he’s the one you've chosen, even if it doesn't seem like it.

And it makes perfect sense that you feel like you can’t live without him, that you can’t let him go, that you need him in your life to live.

I understand completely even though most everyone else you use these words with doesn't. And they don’t understand because they can’t.

But you do, so well.

This reason you’re so drawn to him, it’s because you’re so good at attracting exactly what you need. It’s because you’re such a beautiful loving, caring, sensitive soul that you've found exactly the type of person who gives you a new feeling of confidence and boldness that you, too, can do anything and be anything when you’re around him.

Of course he makes you laugh, of course you’re so happy when you’re with him.

His is the life you want for you! His way is the ease with which you want your life to be lived by you. And he makes it seem so believable, so possible, and so within your reach.

You can let down your guard, stop trying to please everyone, stop caring about what everyone else thinks, and stop being oh so responsible.

You can breathe.

He's almost everything you wish you could be more like, even if you don’t realize it yourself.  His lack of caring about everyone else, his lack of needing to please anyone but himself, his ability to set such strong boundaries to keep everyone from getting too close, his attitude of irresponsibility.

He knows what’s his and what isn't and he has no problem separating the two. He may even tell you this is who he is, and people can either like or leave it.

And of course, he’s talking about you here,  too.

It wasn't until I finally realized how little I was actually getting out of these relationships, how one-sided they truly were, that I started seeing a pattern to the men I was attracted to and attracting. They were one and the same. They were all various versions of this same theme.

It was because I was always looking for someone outside of myself to give me permission to live the life I always dreamed of. It was because I didn't think I could do what I wanted to do on my own.

It was because I cared so much about what everyone else thought about me and wanted everyone to like me, to approve of me, to accept me for who I was.  It was because I feared failure, I feared disapproval, I feared being discovered that I wasn't everything I was supposed to be by the standards I had allowed others to set for me that weren't my own to begin with.

It wasn't until I repeated this same pattern enough times that I was finally able to see what was really going on.

I stopped trying to live off someone else. I started living for me.

I started making a list of everything I wanted to do. I ventured out of my comfort zones. I started asking myself the big questions I didn't think I had a right to ask.

I started looking at me, not him.

I started finding my own way, baby steps at first, not knowing exactly what I was doing, but knowing it was my own right to find my own way.

I stopped apologizing for not knowing.

I started accepting the things that I had always hated about myself.

I stopped seeing my negatives as liabilities and started seeing them as the qualities that made me who I am.

I made a list of things I wanted to work on, things I really did want to change, but I also started to accept where I was and who I was right then as well.  And realizing that wherever I was starting from was OK.  I realized I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, and the only thing I was wasting by not getting started was my own life.

It was time.

It didn't happen overnight. But it did happen.

Not without doubts and not without fears. Not without so many two steps forward and one step backward wondering if I was doing the right thing or if any of this was really necessary. And not without having those moments where I simply wanted to give up and go back to the old model that seemed so much easier because at least then I didn't have to do this on my own.

But I didn't go back. And I finally found what I had been looking for in me.

I stopped caring so much about everyone else and what they thought of me, and I started living the way I wanted to live my life. I stopped trying to please everyone because I realized I was the only one I answer to and what someone else wanted or needed was their business and not mine.

I started setting strong boundaries to keep myself strong in who I was and keep other people’s issues from becoming enmeshed with my own. I started being only as responsible as I needed to be, and not responsible by anyone else’s standards.

I started knowing what was mine and what wasn't and being able to tell the difference.

I stopped changing myself into what everyone else wanted me to be. I began to live my life for me without listening to that little voice that I was so used to hearing tell me I was being selfish. I finally knew the truth.

Now it’s your turn.

Find it in you.

What does he have that you don’t? What does he give you that you can’t give to yourself? What wings does he give you that you can’t give yourself? What does being with him bring to you that you don’t feel you can do without him? What is it that draws you to him? What need are you trying to fill?

This isn't about proving to yourself you don’t need anyone but you. It’s not about saying no to someone who is on your page and compatible with you.  It’s about discovering that you don’t need to settle for a relationship with someone who doesn't treat you the way you deserve to be treated simply because you don’t think you can live without him. It’s about giving to yourself everything he gives you so that you can have the life and the love you’re always wanted that’s found in the true living of your own life. It’s about feeling that beautiful confidence of knowing you can do this for you.

You don’t need the halfway version of living vicariously through someone else

Go find the real thing in you.

How about you - what need are you trying to fill with the men that you've been choosing? Share your story with us in the comments.