Attitude and Altitude

Last week I wrote about how to make certain aspects of your life better. I gave examples of the things I have done to improve my experiences; work, home, and DMV visits, to name a few. I felt like it might be time to stop dwelling on the struggles that got me here and start talking about the adjustments I have made which will take me farther.

Tonight, another gigantic breakthrough. I allowed myself to be very angry at the person I am closest to. I allowed myself to express it. I gave him the chance to handle it. You know what happened? Right after I expressed my anger, it evaporated into thin air. We hugged, talked about it, and moved on. And that was it.

This has not been my practice for most of my life. For most of my life, I have been afraid to show my anger to the people who I love the most. Afraid to let them know I am hurt, or scared or vulnerable. I have stuffed my anger because I was afraid that if I expressed it, I would not be as lovable. I was afraid, as silly as it might sound, that I would lose them.

But is that silly? That belief came from somewhere; somewhere down the line, I was taught that if I did not go along to get along, I would not be lovable. This is bullshit, and it is just about to change my life. In fact, it already has. 

Two years ago today I visited the site of the place where I first let people know, in an incredibly constructive way, that I was angry. I let them know it was not okay to treat me as if I was a rug beneath their feet. I visited that place in defiance, because, you see, I am banned from there. Yes, believe it or not, there is a place in this wide world from which I am banned. I have to tell you, it is something of which I am extremely proud.

Proud because I did not believe their assessment of me. I did not believe that I deserved that treatment. Not only that, what I did about it made me an outlaw, a rebel. It is rare for an opportunity like that to come along. I look back on it and smile with pride and gratitude that I took the opportunity to stand up for myself and show a person who treated me badly how wrong that estimation was. I wish I could write about the details here, but I can't, I signed a piece of paper saying that I wouldn't. Yeah, that is how badass I was when I stood up for myself. That is how badass I am.

So when are you going to stand up? When are you going to stop believing the bullshit that everyone piles upon you because they think so little of themselves, and prove your worth? When are you going to tell the people who believe that you are nothing that you are in fact, something else? 

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As it turns out, the only person who has to believe it is you. Not another person in the world is required to see it. Only you. And when you believe it, you are free.

As I might or might not have said, our society relies upon our fear, so everyone is to some extent afraid.  In this country, we are trained to believe that we are not special, that we are not lovable. That none of us is enough, just as we are. This keeps​ us in our places and keeps us buying useless stuff in the vain hope that it will improve our worth.

What this does on a social level is it keeps us being shitty to ourselves and each other. IT KEEPS US BEING SHITTY TO EACH OTHER. So in order to combat this, the best thing you can do is adjust your attitude. Change your mindset. Start to see that you are enough. That you are beautiful. That due to the fact that you are a human being, you are epic. 

It is the hardest thing to do in a world full of messages and people telling you that you are unworthy. But it is possible. It just takes practice. It takes your commitment to not give up. It takes a commitment to you. From there, once you have committed, it is not easy, but it does feel better and better as you go along. So go ahead, take the risk and make a commitment to yourself that you are going to change your mind. That your attitude will be one of defiance. That you will, against all efforts to the contrary, like yourself. You will in fact, love yourself. Not the flowery love you see in movies or read about in books. This love is the badass, gritty, stick it to the man love that will liberate you from your fears. It will free you from your anxiety. It will create a world for you where anything is possible.

Don't believe me? Give it a try. I dare you.

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