build your beautiful self

Loyalty is such a powerful word. It is a concept that people flock to.

Loyal Customers, loyal friends, loyal pets…

Loyalty is an important quality to have. The loyal person will stand beside you and have your back. The loyal person will back you no matter what even if you are wrong. They will be there for you without fail. This is an amazing thing.

I am a loyal person.

I learned I am loyal to my own detriment. If I love you/care about you, I will go to war for you. I will fight for you, defend you even when I shouldn’t, and will allow myself to be hurt in the name of Loyalty. I am proud of the loyalty I show to the people I care about.

Life has a funny way of presenting your character to you as well as the character of others, however. Sometimes that bitch slaps you in the face.

I had a recent run with my loyalty triggers this week.

Here is what I learned. I am a subconscious defender. I have trigger points that, when pushed, I go straight to the defense. It happens as a response to my fight or flight mechanisms. I end up behaving like a dog trapped in a corner and lashing out in fear and using bite as its’ defense.  I also learned you can also train yourself and others to believe things and they become the fabric of you (and me too). It all starts with someone planting a seed in the mind. Over the years I have had many things ingrained in my mind and until I learned a different way, they were the driving forces of my life.

I have been made to believe that I was ugly. I have been made to believe that I was fat. I have been made to believe that I was worthless. I have also been made to believe that I can do anything I want, that I am beautiful, that I am smart, that I am amazing. I have felt the emotions of all of those things. There was always something in the back of my mind telling me that those things just couldn’t be true (both the good and the bad) and it pushed me to grow.

I had an experience yesterday that caused me a lot of pain. The pain came from loyalty. Loyalty that I have and loyalty my son has subsequently inherited. It made me realize that there is a downside to loyalty.

The story went like this: my son spends time with someone who was an important person in our lives for a long time. In the short time that he spent with this person, he was made to believe something that I did was mean and wrong and it was actually the complete opposite. It was out of compassion and caring. This person was spinning it in a negative light to the point that my son was angry at me for it. This person he was with was interpreting the story negatively because of their loyalty to another person that the story was about.
All that I have been doing for this other person they were talking about was out of loyalty and sense of obligation. I don’t have to do any of the things I do, and they are sometimes difficult and detrimental to me, but I do them.

The conversation started in a negative tone with my son because he came at me accusatory, telling me that what I did was mean. He was made to believe that it was the truth and that I was a jerk. I had to have a tough conversation with him then tell him my intentions and why I did what I did and he knew I was telling the truth. I was upset because I want to talk to my son about HIS life and I was robbed of that time with him defending myself and my loyalty for this other person.

It was painful. It broke my heart. I cried….for an hour or more.

The pain came from the realization that all that I have done was not recognized. All the pain I have endured out of obligation was not worth doing because it was completely unappreciated and spun in a way that what I was doing was mean. It made me feel low because I have endured it for so long and I learned that it goes unnoticed. Why should I continue? I shouldn’t. Loyalty means being brave and standing up. I must have misplaced my loyalty. My bad.

The pain that my son caused was unintentional and he apologized for coming at me that way but it still forced me to look at a few things. That looking lead me to this post and showed me the areas of my life I need to remove. It showed me the difference between well deserved loyalty and loyalty that is still there because, well, you’re STILL loyal! No other reason.

I have other stories of my loyalty causing me to stick with people even when I knew it would destroy me. There are many stories like that in my life. You CAN be loyal to a fault.

I am not bashing on loyalty. I am honored to have loyal people in my corner and I return the loyalty I am given. It is a fantastic thing to know that, no matter what, a person or people have your back. What I am saying is that you really need to be conscious of the people you are giving it to. Sometimes they don’t deserve it. I also know that it can be very difficult to cut the tie that binds you. This is what I am working on currently.

I am evaluating any time I get emotional now and the reason behind it.  I am going to work on visualizing myself breaking out of the loyalty chains that I have put myself in. I hope that works…

If you are finding yourself lost in this web also, reach out! I want to talk to you about your story!

Cheers to cutting the ties that bind!