Defining You Now

 Defining yourself is known and researched and proven to be a display of nature (the genes that made you up) and nurture (the environment around you).

What's fascinating to me is trying to teach my 12 year old, a bright honest innocent soul, that there is a third. Him.

How you were made and who made you and who you were influenced by in family or who you choose to shape your surrounds with now will always dominate. 

But if you learn a strong senss of self, if you learn early your core voice and inner soul, and you trust it, you also have on nature and nurture - a lifelong knowledge you make up how you define yourself.

For so long I defined myself by thinking I knew who and what I was. My nature had provided confidence and strength. My nurture early on taught me independence and ability to know I was alone very young. 

One memory I had at school when I was 9 years old was crying uncontrollably. I don't remember what caused it. I don't know what happened before. But I remember a Spanish matron taking me down to the main boarding house kitchen late at night and asking me why I was crying. She asked caringly but I had no words as even to this day I don't think I know why I was. I knew crying wasn't helping but it felt raw inside and uncontrollable. Looking back I think I had a few of these sessions alone, hyperventilating in my confusion as to why no one was there to cuddle me when I felt so lost.

She told me something I have never forgotten. I don't know if I told her anything. I can't remember anything bar her Spanish accented words and her kind earnest face looking into mine. 

She said quietly. 

'the only truth there is is that you were born. That you are here right now. And that one day, you will be no more. When you learn to know that you will hopefully fill your life with people you love and who love you equally, in real truth, there is only you. And truly, we are all alone

If you don't learn to protect and love you, no one else will know how too. One day you will love your inaccuracies, you will admit your weaknesses and work to grow but acknowledge you won't be perfect. 

You will love the body you have been given. The awkward smile is only yours, your heart beat beats uniquely as just yours. 

And when you trust that, when you let others in to join you on your journey, you will know you've chosen all you have'

To be honest.. 

Over the years I may have grown her speech. But her honest bluntness burned a hole in me so deep and it was only older I realised that it hurt so much so young to be told such a raw truth because it truly... Was true. 

My son tonight got knockdd by others thoughts. By their words of condescending immature insecure brutality. By someone not thinking as much of him as I have taught him to think of himself. 

So the next stage is learning you have a choice. 

If someone makes you feel less than you know you are or know you deserve, you alone make the outcome of how you then are treated and whether you accept it. 

Shrug it off and know in yourself their views are theirs. They are not a reflection of yourself. They are a deflection of that person's insecurities.

That by making you feel less than, somewhere along the wY they weren't told about their own worth. And they need to validate their own selves by placing it in others. 

Or. 

You inform them that what they think and how it makes you feel, makes you feel sad. 

By telling someone the choice now falls to them. Telling them allows you to inform them their views are theirs and hurt and are unwanted.

If they choose to continue to hurt you, you alone allow this to be painful. By informing them it hurt, giving them that knowledge to stop and then when they hurt you again you don't step back. You choose to surround you in that. You choose to weigh that view higher than yours. 

If they stop hurting you you still choose if you want that burn around you. Sometimes it's a warning to build a small wall but worth enjoying other parts of that person they provide. If they hurt you again and you allow that to weigh more than your knowledge of sense of self. You choose to lessen your inner soul. 

Now sometimes these aren't choices. Parents and siblings you can't walk away from. Friends who have history you can't leave behind. 

But when someone upsets you, finding space and time to consider their words. Assess their judgement. Reveiw your stance is healthy. Propel you surround yourself with, if they're all telling you you're being a dick, it may be worth assessing the common denominator. 

But finding pity for the odd twat who challenges your sense of self when others don't is liberating. Realising the sorrow of something lacking in them rises you to know your self and sense of who you are. How sad they need to hurt to feel strong. Put down to feel better. How sorrowful they will never learn like you have that your inner self is the best and the only true thing you know and can trust. So don't let those twats knock that knowledge. Pity them

Define yourself by your actions. Find courage to tell those with thorns they're thorns don't hurt you. Those with grit it is theirs to carry. Those with toxicity it is sad they have never known love. 

Love ur self. It makes the world fall in love with you back ❤️