Forcing Yourself To Fit In

When I think of self-erasure it comes up for me as a theme in relationships. In this way, our concept of relationships is moulded by the people around us during our development years. As a result, we copied their communication style, learnt from their emotional neglect or emotional nurturing and will spend our adult lives replaying those same patterns until we decide to change them.

Self-erasure comes up for you in relationships with your caregivers or community members who taught you through their actions that you were more palatable when you were less of yourself. You may have possibly had people around you who downplayed, belittled or talked down to authentic expressions of your personality. These actions deemed your self-expression wrong, causing you to erase those parts of yourself for general approval.

It is understandable, considering a child wants nothing more than to be seen as good by those they love. Unfortunately, most older people in certain cultures such as West African culture see that vulnerability and choose to prey on it. They use this as an opportunity to manipulate and mould the vulnerability of children to who they perceive as likeable. That’s why we find ourselves fighting for autonomy when we are older, later realising we never had to fight. I liken that parenting style to emotional colonialism; the occupation of a child's identity with a projection of their own to keep them within their control and their limits thereby stunting their emotional growth and identity development.

Don't you find that unfair, reader? To hinder a free spirit before it has a chance to bloom? To restrict their wings before they have a chance to fly?

A child's formative years are from the ages 0-7, in which a child's brain is like a sponge as it soaks up all the information within its environment. If subjected to relationships with caretakers that seek to occupy their spirit, whilst also subjecting them to emotional neglect and criticism; it is easier to be moulded into young people who will do anything to be seen as valuable in the eyes of their caretakers. This is how people-pleasers are created; people who were raised with conditional love, who had to perform in ways that please their caretakers in order to receive care, love and feel valued. This is why many children are quick to grow up; they realise how to navigate the emotional environment of their emotionally immature caretakers and thus suppress the child in them to be the young adult that ensures everyone else's needs are taken care of. As a result, they create a story that to survive within their world, they have to suppress their needs and take up as little space as possible, but that never works because the oppressors in their environment consistently show through further actions the need for you to erase yourself completely. This limits the younger generation and hinders them further as they venture out into the world going to educational institutions and then professional ones. The generation before them restricts their identity, with some becoming trained in their own act of deception.

How Self Erasure hinders you

Let's say you've become used to self-erasure due to an upbringing in a toxic environment, the danger of that will express itself in your relationships outside the home. One has to remember the increased danger because strangers don't know you so they won't have an ounce of care that a caretaker may have for you despite their toxic attitude. In romantic relationships and friendships, you will first go through the cycle of attracting relationships that replicate the one you had with your caretakers. This will be the subconscious's need to correct the outcome of the relationship you had with them through another person. Thus, you undergo the paper doll effect of meeting the same person in different bodies over and over till you break out of the cycle. People who self-erase are more attractive to narcissists and takers; this is because their self-esteem is rooted in needing approval and needing to be loved and valued. Narcissists are able to spot people with a certain wound that leaves them open to occupying their spirits. When a narcissist first meets their new supply, there is the idealisation stage in which the supply is put on a pedestal and showered with love and affection. This is to lure them in and make them comfortable. After a while, the mask is removed and their real face is revealed in which they begin to devalue and criticise their supply to lower their worth. This can come as a surprise for the victim but because they are used to such acts from before, they find themselves erasing and conforming in order to please.

Once again, we must take narcissism on a spirit level as the act of a lower spirit seeking to occupy the spirit of a purer soul. You would never have been targeted if there wasn't a strong light within you. That's the reason you were scapegoated during your developmental years.

In order to fight against spiritual colonialism, in order to fight against giving up control and self-autonomy; we have to reclaim ourselves. We have to remember ourselves and reunite with the parts of us that fragmented because we wanted to be loved. If one is on the spiritual or self-development path, they will reach a point after recognising patterns in their relationships that give them clarity. They will realise they can no longer do things the way they've always done. So a first step to counter this would be self-reclamation.

Some ways to reclaim self are:

• Getting to know yourself all over again
• Cultivating self-love
• Reuniting with the parts of you people criticised.
• Realising your strengths

Let me let you in on a little secret, what people criticise about you is a personal strength of yours. If they didn't see it as a threat, they wouldn't comment.

You counter self-erasure by being rebellious; by listening only to the voice of your soul.

We aren't here to appeal to people, who most times have zero sense of self, which is why they target you. We are here to appeal to our soul and act in line with our higher self. Anybody wanting you to dim or reduce yourself is an enemy, and should no longer be granted access to you. Remember that by dimming, you bring yourself down to their level, making it easier for them to attack you. That is their ultimate goal.

Self-erasure also looks like:

• Not expressing your needs
• Not expressing your boundaries
• Putting other's needs before yours
• Pouring more into others than they do into you thus leads to imbalanced relationships
• Pretending you don't feel the intuitive nudges that indicate how wrong certain people are for you
• Overgiving and overperforming
• Dimming your light to accommodate people's insecurities

We are worthy of taking up space, voicing our needs and exerting our boundaries. When you have a light within, it's your responsibility to feed it.

Ways to feed your light

• Explore your interests
• Recite affirmations to yourself in the mirror
• Create art
• Shine by doing what makes you happy
• Get to know yourself and embrace all the parts of you
• Accept all the parts of you you rejected
• Forgive yourself for past mistakes
• Embody the wisdom gained from past mistakes
• Be compassionate with yourself
• Be brave and courageous when taking risks
• Express yourself honestly
• Listen and act on your intuition
• Believing you are worthy and deserving of all your desires
• Believing you are worthy of taking space

You are wonderfully made just as you are. There should be no one in your life trying to tell you how to be or enforcing their own limitations onto you. You are your own person.

Be free.