How to choose yourself - might become a book

Reading time: 5min

I have a book to write.

It was August last year when the title came to my mind. Or at least the topic I should write about.

I was not searching for a book to write.

It came to me. Multiple times. At first, I tried to ignore it — it's just a thought.

But it kept coming. Again and again. Until I understood it has to be written.

Elizabeth Gilbert says in her book "Big Magic" that we don't find ideas. Ideas find us, and if we don't execute on them, they go and find other people who will bring them to life.

I know this book that came to me has to be written—not because other people need to read it, but because I need to write it.

Have you ever been advised to “choose yourself”?

If you relate to some of my writings, it's very likely that you've heard some version of "choose yourself" as advice about a shitty situation you found yourself in — either professionally or personally.

I know I heard it multiple times. And to be honest? It makes perfect sense. It was always the "right" advice in every one of those situations.

But the point no one ever cared to make is this: How do you choose yourself if you don't see yourself in the first place?

How do you choose something you can’t see?

When we abandon ourselves in favor of others, it is clear that we see them. We see their value. We see all the ways they are deserving, and all the ways we can be understanding, and all the ways we must subject ourselves to certain situations because of another.

But when we hear "choose yourself"—how do we do so when we don't see our value, when we're not understanding with ourselves, and when we unconsciously assume we're not deserving?

It took me 13 years to learn how to see myself clearly — and it still is a daily practice.

This is what I was told to write about: how to see yourself clearly — so you can choose yourself.

I have no idea how I’m going to do that.

And frequently I get thoughts that say “who do I think I am to tell others how to see themselves?”

But that’s the point - it’s not about others, it’s about me.

A book for my younger self.

I'm considering writing a storyline in which I go on a walk with the 20-year-old version of myself, telling her all the things I learned and wished she had realized sooner.

Someone asked me “why 20 yo?”

It's an intuitive guess, but I think that I wouldn't have been able to understand what I have to say before that.

When I was 20, I was in between two hurtful relationships.

I was 18 when I had my first romantic relationship. It lasted 1 year and 4 months.

I know this because from the 4th month onward I would end every day crying on my bed. I was cheated on left and right, I was blamed for that, I was constantly threatened with a break up, and every other day I was reminded of what a shitty person/girlfriend/woman I was. He set me apart from my friends—even my family somehow. I started covering my body more than what I was used to. I became afraid of saying hi to male friends I would encounter in the street—because just the thought of it would make him explode and go down the spiral of what a shitty girlfriend I was. I don't even dare to write down the names he called me.

This was my first romantic experience.

How was this possible? Why she didn’t leave? How she didn’t see? - you might be asking yourself. These are questions I’m ready to answer in the book - and they are not straightforward as you might think.

My second romantic relationship started a year later. “He treats me like a princess”, I used to say. He was much older than me, catered to all my wishes, took care of me, paid for everything. When I was with him I didn’t have to worry about anything because he took care of it.

But I didn't notice when he started making fun “with” me by covering my face with his hand—and my dad had to have a conversation with me about how that was not right—or when he exploded in restaurants or public places because I dropped the fork on the ground, how I was constantly reminded of how reckless I was and berated in front of anyone who was there. It lasted 3 years and by the end of the third year I was merely a ghost of myself. I didn't move, I didn't speak, I was quiet; anything could trigger him, so better be quiet. I was constantly on high alert.

And still, I thought so highly of him. Maybe because my first relationship had been so drastically fucked up, he felt like heaven somehow — at least he didn't cheat.

Most people will hear these kinds of stories and question "how could they act like that?"

But I learned to ask myself a different question in the last year: "How could I allow myself into a different but still similar situation again?"

Why some people don’t take shit from others, why they have strong boundaries in place, why they don’t think twice about leaving something or someone who is hurting them, while others keep going until they have lost almost their entire sense of self?

This is not only about romantic relationships, it’s about any relationship - especially the one we cultivate with ourselves. I burned out 3 times at work between my 20s and my 30s because all I saw was the work, the needs, the boss, the clients, the pressure - but I didn’t see myself.

I don't think my 18-year-old self was ready to understand what I now have to share with her. Having that first relationship experience would give her valuable material to reflect on—and perhaps she could have navigated the second relationship differently. Not completely differently, as I've learned that some insights require time and experience to truly sink in and create meaningful change. But a good foundation would have made a significant difference.

What leads to someone being blind to themselves

One of the key aspects for a healthy and mature development of children with a strong sense of self is having their feelings and emotions mirrored back to them.

As babies at first, we are not aware that we are separate people from our mothers. We think that whatever we feel and think, others feel and think too.

As we grow older, we start to figure out that our individual experience is not necessarily shared with others. A healthy and strong individuation happens when we have our experiences and feelings mirrored back to us. This is called attunement. Think of when a child is crying, they hear "oh, I see you're angry?" or "oh, you're sad?", or just receive a hug and embrace to comfort their feelings. This helps the child understand that independent of others' experiences, what is going on for them is valid and real.

But not all of us had this growing up. If we constantly had our experience not acknowledged or invalidated by most often than not hearing things like “stop crying", “you're overreacting”, “there’s no need for this”, or by having to deal with the emotional world of caregivers first, the message children get is that their experience or whatever they are feeling is not matching the “real world”.

This child will constantly look into the eyes of others to gain understanding of what is real or not, even if the response they get clashes with their perception and senses. They will trust the information that comes from the outside over their instincts.

Knowing who you are

This child will grow into an adult who seeks constant validation from the external world. To gain understanding of their reality, of who they are, and if they are doing life right, they will look around them and exert the best of their abilities to perform what is asked of them, with the secret hope that they will finally be told who they are—they're good people, they're special, they're loved, they're seen.

The problem with relying on others and external validation to feel a sense of who you are is that you don't know yourself, and your boundaries—physical, emotional—your needs, your wishes.

Knowing who we are in the world is such an important need, because it makes us feel that we're real. We can connect. We belong.

But this pursuit of ourselves through external input can cost us a lot — we submit ourselves to situations of abuse, disrespect, complacency… not only caused by others, but many times caused by ourselves to ourselves.

We hear from our dearest friends messages of encouragement, "prioritize yourself," "choose yourself," "know your value," "you don't have to submit yourself to a situation like this," "be kind to yourself," and other forms of these sayings.

We listen, we agree, and yet we fail to execute them. The reason why many times these "suggestions" don't stick is because we're missing the underlying answer to the question: who is this "self" in you?

How can you choose something you don't see?

It took me 13 years to figure out how to see myself, and break patterns of people pleasing, impostor syndrome, and self-abandonment.

This is what I need to tell my younger self about.

I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences on this.

I’m still exploring and thinking what should be addressed and what angles to cover. So, if this touches you somehow and you’re kind enough to share your view and experience, it would help me tons develop further the concept and approach.

With Love,

Nat

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