Who Owns Me?

I am a slave. I don’t own my life. Same with you.

slave

noun

1. a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another and forced to provide unpaid labor.
2. a person entirely under the domination of some influence or person

dictionary.com

Read the definition. Do you find yourself providing labor for free? Do you find yourself influenced by others? Your job? Your partner or spouse? Your parents? Your children?

None of us are completely free. Most of us don’t realize it.

“But my job pays me!”

• only as much as necessary to prevent you from leaving and
• much less than they pay themselves

“My kids don’t own me.”

• Exactly what would happen if you quit providing for their basic needs? Aside from their health and happiness deteriorating, you would also find yourself in the courts or jail for mistreatment.
• Do you wake up in the middle of the night to check on your baby?
• Do you drop everything and run to your hurt child?
• Do you follow your teens on google maps to make sure they arrive at their destination safely?
• Do you cry inside when they cry?

They own you, and that’s okay.

“But I don’t live with my parents anymore.” or “My parents are dead.”

• Are you kind and slow to anger because your dad flew off the handle regularly?
• Are you married to a woman who cooks and cleans and takes care of you as well as your mother did?
• Are you comparing your partner or spouse to how your parents did things?
• Are you a doctor, lawyer, scientist, pharmacist, teacher… because that’s what your parents insisted upon?

We are all owned by our past and our surroundings. The question is how DO we OWN our life better?

Think.

I’m serious. Sit down or go for a walk. Turn off ALL distractions. No TV, no one around, no phone, nothing. Learn how it feels to use your brain again. Learn how to follow a thought to its origination. Use all those glorious neurons and make them come alive. Thinking isn’t as easy as it sounds. It requires focus, honesty, removal of biases.

Thinking is HARD.

I’m not talking about meditation. Meditation is learning to just be with yourself, although it can involve thoughts. I’m referring to forcing yourself to know yourself, your history, your wants, your likes.

A few months ago I was tired and grouchy. I felt as if I had no time to see any of my friends, let alone to be the mother I wanted to be. I was watching a lot of TV, staying up super late, and eating a lot of crappy food. Definitely not who I used to be just prior, not who I wanted to be at all, and definitely NOT who I wanted to continue to be.

I was deferring my wants, and unique choices to another person. I gave that person too much control of me. I failed to have and to make boundaries.

I woke up from an abnormally great night’s sleep. My brain activated after being well rested after so long. I didn’t just wake up that morning, I woke up. I saw. I realized the direction I was going and it was the WRONG path.

Waking up from a bad dream takes your breath away. It’s horrible. And wonderful. Horrible to see the negative yet wonderful for the renewed sense of possibilities.

Thinking, allowing your brain to follow the paths that must be followed, is challenging. But worth it.

Act.

Act how? Do the very thing you know you need to do.

Knowing what to do can be difficult or feel too big. Start small. Have the BIG goal in mind, but work on it however seems best. But doing is the only way to move forward.

There are multiple ways to move forward. Do one or do them all.

1. Write down your thoughts. This helps you to organize the chatter in your brain and can greatly improve how you choose to move forward.
2. Do something lovely for yourself. When was the last time you did something JUST FOR YOU? You deserve good things.
3. Enlist friends. I found that my friends saw it all and were just waiting for me to come back into myself again. When I reached out, they welcomed me with arms open. When I bared my soul to them, they held me close and then held me accountable.
4. Professional help. Trust me, sometimes this is absolutely necessary. You deserve to be happy, healthy, and free.

Revise

Revise your plan and your life as you think and discover. This could be as simple as being more open-minded toward others. Or as complicated as rebuilding your lifestyle from scratch.

Imagine how you would be different if you had never smoked, never drank alcohol, never married, never had children… Imagine what your life would be like if what you regretted hadn’t happened.

For myself, I have often imagined how would I be different if I had never been raped as a teen and the horrible things that went along with that. It’s easy to think:

• ‘that’s horrible!’

• ‘how awful!’

• ‘no one should ever have to go through that.’

Yes. but, if I HADN’T I would have not dated the types of men I dated, would never have married the one I had, and would have never have the AMAZING children I have now. Yes, the men weren’t the best for me and their dad and I are no longer together; BUT, I to have my life without my children is unthinkable!

One of the things I love best about who I am becoming is the impact of my kids.

My children taught me the power of love, true love for another. From that I finally began to learn to love myself, all of me.

Revising your beliefs, your thoughts about your history, you realize your true wants, desires, and needs. You also may discover that some beliefs need changing.

THIS IS A LONG PROCESS.

Continually listening to your thoughts, opening your mind to learn more, and feeding the humanity and needs of yourself will make you a better person. Once our own needs are met, that’s when we are able to help others the best.

We are meant to make the world a better place, to love one another AND ourselves.

Without these, there is nothing.

Thank you for reading,

Dr. Wendi