When I was dating a while back I still had some issues around asserting my boundaries and communicating my needs. This is what I was taught and because of my trauma, I had a very hard time feeling like my needs were important. I felt shameful for having needs at all and this was linked to my emotional trauma. Funny isn’t it? How we think we healed enough for a whole lifetime, just to discover we made space for a new layer to make itself known. Baffling and beautiful at the same time.

At the time a very good friend of mine said something that stuck with me.

“A few seconds of awkwardness will save you a lifetime of self-hate”

And it was like someone slapped me back into reality. Was it that simple? No matter how simple it sounded my patterns and negative beliefs made it feel so crippling. I felt needy, who the hell convinced me of that?!

I learned that to grow spiritually is to grow as a human and needs are something we have to deal with. What if someone started shaming us for having to pee?

I feel it is crucial for us to stop shaming our children. It should have stopped a long time ago.

The time has come to start to normalize our humanness and stop pretending we can just transcend anything related to the physical that makes us uncomfortable

I was dedicated to self-love and was ready to take on this new challenge. It started little by little, I would say how I feel and what I needed. I slowly started to understand that I had taken responsibility not just for how I was feeling and needing, but also the people around me. But once I became braver it became clear that not only was I enabling people by taking that responsibility. I also never gave people a chance to meet my needs.

Think about it, how many people don’t walk through life belittling themselves staying in all kinds of unhealthy situations just because of the shame they might experience if they changed?

Shame is powerful and primal, it makes us feel like we are in danger and will be cast out of the tribe, something we will never get away from.

But the thing is, the moment you bring light to the thing you have been taught to be shameful about, it ceases to feel so scary. You start owning it and also give other people a chance to respond differently. This is how we get intimate with each other, this is authenticity. Be brave enough and watch how others follow. They start feeling safer to share just by having someone demonstrate that it’s okay.

It is important to play with open cards when you do anything in life, especially relationships. That way we know what to expect from each other and what we have to deal with. This allows us to make a conscious choice. How many times haven’t you seen people automatically change or scale themselves down when getting to know a person, they act like someone they think will get them the most approval from whoever is on the other side.

But what happens along the line? We can’t hide our true selves forever and our needs and wants will slowly creep up in manipulative ways. Then everyone starts feeling duped and shameful. It just won’t hold up.

First, we need to figure out what our wants and needs are. We need to develop an intimate relationship with ourselves and then be brave enough to share it with someone. This is freedom, this is how to know compatibility in all relationships. Because of course you will feel restricted and stressed if constantly having to pull off some act just to have the other person pleased. . Anyone that has a problem with you asserting yourself or has any resistance to communicating about it, is not somebody you want to keep in your life anyway.

Every person has their place in this universe. Some come to stay a long time in our lives, others just brush by shortly but powerfully enough to make an impact on us. Others, unfortunately, come in to hurt us, but it is from that pain we have a powerful choice to make. Grow or die.. kidding it’s not THAT dramatic but grow or die being stuck at the same place with the same lessons and same people while you all grew apart from each other a long time ago.

In Buddism, they have the belief that desire is the root of all suffering, but if you ask me the real root is attachment. Don’t hold on to things that are preventing you from going towards the sun.