My therapist told me that repeatedly every time we had a session. She told me to never ever accept second best, with regards to any future potential connection.
At first I was unable to understand it nor am I able to fully take in her advice.
After a few heartbreaks from the dating scene, it really dawned to me that the reason why they could hurt me so bad was because I self-sabotaged myself. I did not believe that I was worthy of being loved and treated nicely.
The realization surfaced after a really bad heartbreak which led me to question "what have I been allowing people to do to me". It is a bad vicious cycle that kept on circling until I learnt the lesson. I was so heartbroken that my knee hurts when I was grieving over it. It has gotten so bad that I wanted to contemplate suicide. I even resorted to writing down letters for my family. My therapist was informed of my circumstances and we met almost immediately due to its urgency.
She kept emphasizing to me the hard work and efforts I have put in for the past few years shouldn't go down the drain just because of someone. It's not worth it. Her presence and words of affirmation reminded me of my personal encounters with God, how God would feel if He were to witness me wanting to take my own life and how He would disagree when I kept thinking that I wasn't deserving enough to have the best.
It goes back to the childhood traumas and incidents that built up over the years. I remembered as a child, I was really insecure and did not have confidence in myself. You could say it's the culture of the asian families, where many "taboos" aren't supposed to be broken. For instance, asian parents think that if they were to complimented their child, it will lead to bad consequences. So if there is any conversations that's to be spoken between the parent and the child, it would be rounds and rounds of criticisms. What's worse was that these tiger moms or dads would do it in the presence of others around. So growing up, I had very low self-esteem and felt guilty or shameful whenever I wanted to have something good for myself.
Also because I wasn't the only sibling in the family. We did not come from a well-to-do family, it was humble from the beginning. So we were brainwashed to "save whatever we have and share whenever we can". I remembered having to keep all my snacks in my own drawer just so that I do not have to share with my younger sibling. It was quite absurd.
There was once I actually resorted to stealing my cousins' toys and whatnot because of the scarcity of toys that I really wanted to own. Hand-me-downs were common running in the household, so as a child I always felt deprived of such things. Even my clothes were passed down from cousin to cousin.
So as I grew, this primal instinct in me just resisted when I was offered something better than I wanted. I remembered in my high school days, I would shy away from people whom I believed to be of a higher social status as compared to me. I felt inferior as I wasn't as good-looking or smart as them.
This underserving belief has caused me lots of heartbreaks. It was when I hit rock bottom and being offered the unconditional love by The One who created me that I realized how much I had shortchanged myself because of old beliefs that were not even true.
So nowadays, I say "no". I refuse to lower my standards just to fit into someone's life. I refuse to settle. Even though I am a single mom, it doesn't mean that I need to resort to lowering my standards or look down upon myself. My past has got no power over me, Jesus had already cleansed me of my past life and redeemed me from everything that was in the past. I am a renewed soul and I am a child of God. Nobody and nothing can ever steal this identity I have in Him. There is freedom in following our Heavenly Father.
I pray that all the single moms out there will encounter God in their healing journey and to refuse to settle for second best. Your past doesn't represent who you are right now. You are a new person In Him. Please love yourself enough such that anybody's absence will not trigger you or turn your whole world upside down. God is for you, who can be against you?
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