With All Due Respect (to MySelf)
In 2019 I had many realizations— about mySelf, the world around me, others, and all those interplays & interactions. The most glaring realization I came to is that I had grown to be a people-pleaser with a really unhealthy sense of boundaries because I’d been subjected to the oppression of narcissism throughout my life.
Narcissism is, by definition, excessive interest in or admiration of oneself and one's physical appearance, but that definition feels very clinical. Narcissism can show up in so many different ways, but we are made to see it primarily as pomposity. It is really any form of self-obsession, be it positive or negative. Self-victimization and abasement are just as much forms of narcissism as boasting and preening. There’s no monolith of expression for narcissism, as it is a way of Being as opposed to a definite action. Because it can suffuse even the most innocuous of actions, narcissism’s pervasive nature is dangerously pandemic. It may show up and feel so differently than we would have ever expected it to, but that doesn’t make it any less present or abusive.
Narcissism feels entitled to every inch of you as it robs you of your agency & personal power. It’s not just the invasion of privacy, it’s the obliteration of it. It’s someone reading your diary without your permission. It’s picking the locks on your doors. It’s not allowing you to determine for yourself who you are because your only purpose in Life is to be a manifestation of them. It’s telling your people you both know personal (and even untrue) things about you without your permission. It’s projecting your own sense of unworthiness onto others and making others accountable for all of the promises to yourSelf that you broke time and again. It’s making everyone around you responsible for your own happiness because you’re too cowardly to accept the responsibility that comes from true Power— personal Power. It’s the parasitic sapping of another’s Power because you can’t face your own. It’s the destruction of any sense of boundaries so that the parasite has complete access at any given time to the host. It’s fostering codependency with your energetic host in order to give yourself a limitless supply until, perhaps, you decide to move onto another victim, which would then leave the host with a confusing sense of loss despite their knowing that it was ultimately for the best. It’s a spiritual vacuum— a void that can never be filled with artifacts of the material world. And we have all at some time or another experienced and then replicated it.
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In 2019, I did a free write in which I said that I had an unhealthy relationship with boundaries and was re-learning intimacy because I felt that I was ill-taught. Since the dawn of social media in the mid-2000s, I had built my personal brand on my toxic lack of boundaries & need to be accepted (read: loved), dressing it up as vulnerability & fearlessness. Really, a lot of it was my crying out for help because most people in my life could not or would not acknowledge my suffering. I don’t blame anybody for this as I now know that it’s outside the capabilities of people largely ignorant of their own suffering to consciously do much real work to absolve me of mine. That aside, the Work was and remains my own to do; the Healing would have to come from within. All the same, my (subconscious) plan worked! I poured my guts out online— despite castigation— and the Internet gave me something altogether invaluable. I was able to find and build a community of like-minded & spirited individuals sharing in similar circumstances, doing their best to transmute and release trauma in healthy, effective ways. I started learning about mental and emotional health, which I would not have had access to had it not been for my refusal to be silenced. I began to feel less alone, and with that, I was able to take less drastic measures to be and feel seen & heard.
I’m very much seen & heard these days. People listen to what I have to say in ways that I wasn’t used to. People value my Voice & Presence, as opposed to ignoring it or making me feel like an existential burden. There had been one too many partners who I flat out told, “I don’t even understand why you want to be with me if you dislike everything about me so much!” I could guess superficiality was why they wanted to be around me so much, but only through Shadow Work was I able to understand that it was a perpetuation of an abusive cycle of verbal degradation that cycled through my thoughts as I had come to believe it was true. I had spent so long vying for love from sources that weren’t even capable of giving it to themSelves, and there I had felt at home.
In the past year, I’ve learnt to acknowledge, accept, and maintain gratitude for my Voice, my Presence, my Power. It felt like entering into a foreign land. Accept & use my personal Power? Unheard of! Worthy of punishment! Disrespectful! I tore down the structure that felt like home, understanding that it was not nor had it ever been a safe space for me. I began building mySelf a new home— one founded on Love, Peace, Joy, Honor, Truth, and Respect. Only those who could abide by my rules would enter, and that included me. Even if I was not embodying it at all times, the Intention was always there, and I was always working towards it. This renovation proved a difficult undertaking, as it went completely against my sociological programming.
I had to spend a full year learning how to use my Voice and Power effectively by unlearning fear of it. This was a tricky task because it meant a lot of things that had benefited from my lack of self-efficacy & respect had to leave my Life, and I had become unfortunately attached to those things. Regardless of how much I knew that the disIntegration of all of these connections was beneficent, it was painful and heartbreaking. The Work required a self-alienation that was divine in nature because it recognized that I had been lowering mySelf to meet others at their level, which was disrespectful to who I am at my Core. It required my seeing the ways I had let mySelf down by playing small to placate the insecurities of others who were still under the illusion that they had no Power, that they were insignificant. It required my acknowledging that those people were not for me and that that was okay— it wasn’t anybody’s fault. It just was. The Work was ugly, frightening, gut-wrenching, exhausting, but I would not trade anything for the sense of balance and ease I now feel within mySelf.
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In 2019, I reached a pit of depression that was frightening to me— one I hadn’t been in for a while. An overwhelming exhaustion sat heavy on my body, cosmic & karmic in nature. It held me down and forced me to realize all the ways in which I was not receiving the respect that I deserved, all the relationships that lacked reciprocity, all the energy vampires who suckled at my teat and then turned their salacious tongues on me after they had been nourished by my Light. I began to ask mySelf this: what will happen if I stop showing up as fully as I do? What will happen if I start showing up at the same level as everyone else? People had already formed expectations of me, the young overachiever who felt they had to fight so hard to get mere scraps because they were undeserving of Love otherwise. Nobody else needed to make any effort because Vei would do it— people knew this. And what was I left with? Nothing. Not even enough of me for mySelf.
Exhausted on every level, I found mySelf almost completely without genuine support when I needed it most. People who I had held Space for, held vigil for, poured out my Gifts and my Power for were nowhere to be found when I asked for the same; in fact I was often met with debasement. To be fair, it was my own overzealous projections of my personal selfhood onto them that fooled me into thinking they would be capable of offering me any sort of reciprocity at all. So what would happen if I stopped overextending mySelf to fill those gaps for everyone else, allowing them to show up fully as their best Selves without my pushing them to be more— and by more, I mean more like me? Instead of attempting to make the world in my perceived image of perfection, projecting my desires for people to show up fully, I would meet people where they were at. Instead of giving people who would not or could not return my level of energetic generosity, I would be unwavering in who I was and what I stood for. I would stop making excuses for why people gave me peanuts over pearls, and stop casting my own pearls before swine. I would allow others to do that labor for once.
What happened when I stopped pouring my energy into others and started cultivating that Love and Care for mySelf? A lot of people became indignant. That’s the go-to for narcissists— indignation. “How dare they take away my Source of divine resonance?! How dare they act with care and respect for themSelves, leaving me to wallow in my own piteous self-loathing?!” I can answer this now— I dare because I can. I can do what I want, just as anyone else can. I choose to be the person I am, just as those people chose to be the people they were. It is always a choice. Every moment of our Lives is a choice, and the moment I began to choose mySelf was the moment that the narcissists in my Life began to clear out. At first, it hurt terribly, but I now realize that it is a wonderful gift! The emptiness is no longer a pit of despair but a sanctuary of Self, to be filled with that which truly honors my Being. Having made more peace with mySelf than ever, I am proud to say that I enjoy my own company much more than that of anyone else. This was never something I expected considering how I once decorated my Life with such unhealthy relationships to everything around me. I am grateful and honored by the Space that was cleared in this time of Death & Rebirth.
In stepping into my Power, a burning white Light destroyed the ill-formed tentacles of false love, destroying as many vestiges of my past Life as an Ingrate so unaware of their True Nature as possible. Many connections (to any number of nouns) would fall away in this time. My heart, my person, my being often felt cavernous, the sense of emptiness echoing personal failure. Why had I allowed people to treat me so badly? How could I live with such little respect for myself? Did I truly believe that I was worth so little? The answers to these questions were simple— yes, I had held such little value (read: love, appreciation, respect) for mySelf because I had been forced onto my knees in submission all of my life. I had learnt to play into my subservient role well, as I had a strong aversion to pain. So when called to take up arms to protect mySelf from exploitation, I would freeze in fear of any manner of retribution, be it physical, emotional, or spiritual.
Being transformed in my Power meant un-learning that fear, which meant facing it. It meant not running and hiding. It meant interacting with it and getting to know it on a very real, intimate level. It did not go down easily. I very literally cried at the thought of advocating for mySelf, my body being wracked with sobs as I forced mySelf to exercise my personal agency. I would psyche mySelf up for interactions. If it was digital, I would stare at the screen for a few minutes before hitting send, then I would turn my phone on airplane mode and throw it across my bed. If it were IRL, I would have to fight against my nervous system churning bile in my gut, screaming at me that I was in mortal danger. And like a fool, I rushed into the lion’s den only to find boxes of kittens. As a child, you don’t have much control over your Life and those fear responses are very real. As an adult, I’ve found that many of those responses are exaggerations I learnt from trauma. I bested the funhouse versions of mySelf and the shadows masquerading as ghouls, finding that I could and would survive anything, even the most human of fears— rejection! And because what is for me will always be for me, I learnt to see no’s as gifts turning me in the direction of what is for me..
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It took over a decade of excavating and learning to love mySelf for who I am in all the glorious multiplicities of my person for me to even acknowledge what I already knew — I was constantly being used & taken advantage of by abusive, manipulative sociopaths because they saw my Value when I didn’t. But I could not interact with that reality until I got to a place where I did see my Value, where I did appreciate my Value, where I did have respect for mySelf. Then— and only then— would I be able to act with respect towards mySelf. I was not a failure. I was successful. I knew it in my bones, my blood sang with this Truth, and I allowed mySelf to mourn what had held the sacred spaces that lived within me, now freed.
Acting with regard for who I am, at my core— a divine Being who is not apart from the Power and majesty of the Universe but a part of it— was the painful part. It required dedication & practice on a daily basis. It required being conscious of my actions, thoughts, and feelings. It required vulnerability which required honesty which required a helluva lot of courage. Those were my daily battles with my karmic, lifelong demons that had rooted themselves not only in my mind but in my DNA— in the literal fibers of my being. This wasn’t just me I was fighting for. It was and is for my ancestors who had been raped and murdered. It was and is for my nieces & nephews & potential progeny who deserve to live a Life free of the suffering I had to experience. And like many others who have suffered narcissistic abuse, doing this Work for the sake of others empowered me to continue doing it.
The practice of being in Alignment with my Higher Self— which is resonant with God Energy— is a Lifelong process that requires the dissolution of the past structures that imprison me in a trap of victimization and the creation of something altogether new — a me that had not yet existed in this current matrix paradigm. A me that is in divine resonance with their Higher Self and enacting their true destiny and inheritance here in this reality. A me that lives in the frequency of Love, which begets prosperity & abundance by acknowledging that we are at one with all that is. A me that lives in the frequency of Peace, which begets ease & flow. And all of this requires acknowledgement of and respect for mySelf at my core!
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It’s not worth getting into all of the specificities of the trials and tribulations I surmounted because they only matter in as much as the Lessons learnt — it’s an actively-made decision to not ruminate in the sensations attached to them. The Lessons are what mattered, and here’s what I learnt:
1. Most people tend towards narcissism because as a Collective, we have been ill-taught and therein malpractice Love & Intimacy. Yes, even these words evoke romantic partnerships, which speaks to the unhealthy hierarchy of interaction and relativity that we as a Collective engender. We have all been indoctrinated into this system of division and vampirism, none of us are exempt from it. The difference is in who is willing to do the Work versus those who are not. Neither being better than the other, though demanding conscious boundaries and interactions.
2. For one's own Healing and Peace, learning and practicing not only Forgiveness but Atonement are an absolute necessity. Not only in regards to others but also for oneSelf. We must begin to give ourSelves the compassion we so naively try to give to others because as long as we are unable to access that grace within ourSelves, we will never be able to effectively grace it upon others. As long as we are disconnected from the eternal Source that is unconditional Love, we will never be able to love anyone. And if we are cutting it off from ourSelves, we are therein cutting it off for others. So Healing through Self-Love is neither selfless nor selfish — it simply is, identifying as Being because there is only the illusion of self.
3. We are most powerful in the present. We don’t need to carry around ghosts with us everywhere we go; we need to turn around and face them. We need to interact fully with them, being strengthened in our contention. We need to sit in the discomfort that they bring in order to see that we can do so and survive. We need to absolve them, freeing the past so that we may be fully concentrated in our Power in the present. This is the only way that we can effectively create the future in tandem with the Universe— by being fully conscious of that which was, is, and will be based on who we are NOW. Our past pains are valid, but it is on us to find Absolution and Healing in this Life for our own benefit. That Journey can be treacherous, but it is worth traversing if you truly want Liberation.
4. There is no destination, only the Journey. Life is a practice of Being. Being well is not a passing fad but a lifestyle that must be embodied in every aspect of your Life, in your unique way. It’s not just an aesthetic, it’s really heavy Work. You must hold yourSelf to a higher standard in every aspect of your personhood, with respect to your humanity. No, you’re not always going to meet that standard. Sometimes you’re going to fall far below it, but it’s not really about that. It’s about having something to reach towards and doing it, knowing that there’s no real destination. There may be no awards or accolades, but the Work is for you. And you feel the rewards of a job well done.
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After yers of studying, praying, sacrificing, fasting… after years of vigorous Work for Clarity, for Peace, for Love, I am free. The spaces once occupied with my spiritual demons are vacant, and I intend only to fill them with that which I asked for — Clarity, Peace, Love, Respect. In practice, this means having and holding standards for Being with mySelf. It doesn’t do to be rigid in your structures, but what does even less is to be absolutely at the behest of circumstance.
I choose mySelf now, as a factor of expunging codependency. In practice, creating, holding, cultivating, and maintaining Space and Love for mySelf means doing so with my boundaries. Staying in tune with my feelings allows me to create or dissolve new boundaries and structures when I see fit. It means protecting mySelf as fiercely as I would anyone else, and giving mySelf the parenting my Inner Child needs to grow and develop. That means that even if others don’t like it, I do what I have to for my own wellbeing at any given moment. It’s nobody’s job to take care of me anymore. It’s nobody’s job to do my Healing, to teach me how to Live and Love. It’s my job, for which I take full accountability. This is the repossession of my Personal Power that was robbed of me over and over again, and it is a sacred act of reclamation. It is the utmost act of Self-Love, and is the best gift that you can give to the Collective.