Maybe You Should Pick Yourself First?

It was a one-sided conversation, but sometimes that one side can tell you everything.

Standing in line at the grocery store is always longer around the holidays. It’s part of the tradition. Along with the obligatory crying baby, many in line kept themselves busy by scrolling through their phones waiting for the convoy of overstuffed shopping carts to eventually make their way to the cashier.

One woman in line was deeply engaged in what seemed to be a rather significant phone call. In this age of indifference, having personal conversations in public spaces has become rather ordinary. And this was a very personal conversation.

It was evident that this woman was having some sort of relationship issues. And the disdain and self-loathing radiating from her words indicated that this was not the first relationship she’s had issues with.

“I know how to pick ‘em, don’t I?”

You could feel her pain in those words, a pain I sensed she was very familiar with as history appeared to be repeating itself once again.

Maybe her problem wasn’t who she was picking. Maybe the problem is who she wasn’t picking.

Herself.

Relationships don’t come with instructions, do they? You kind of have to figure them out on your own. Ideally, though, you’d try and figure yourself out first. Traumas, those intentionally and unintentionally inflicted, can often instead send us down the path of looking outside of ourselves for what we can ultimately only find within us. We try to fit ourselves into less than ideal environments at the expense of our own authenticity, forcing our square peg self into round hole situations. At some point our authentic voice will emerge to remind us that once again we’ve painfully abandoned who we really are.

That voice will always emerge.

History repeats until it gets our attention, often meeting our continued resistance with increasingly painful lessons in the process. Square pegs don’t fit into round holes, no matter how much we want them to.

Love songs don’t do us any favors. The music world is a soundtrack of the lonely and incomplete, with the longing for someone to save us and make everything perfect. As romantic as that all sounds, it simply reinforces that the cure for our loneliness and incompleteness can only be found in the arms of another, with us often settling for less than we know we are inherently worth in the process.

Is that a healthy criteria when it comes to picking another?

What if we pick ourself first?

What if we step back and take the time to define who we are and clarify the world we want to create for our self, one fully aligned with our vision, values, and authenticity? And then unapologetically live that life? And then offer that version of ourselves to the world?

“Never go in search of love, go in search of life, and life will find you the love you seek.” – Atticus

We always get more of what we energetically and vibrationally send out into the Universe.

Our authenticity is infectious.

The life we want requires us to create it.

And we are the only ones who can.

Photo by Julia Caesar on Unsplash