I’ve been feeling like I’d lost my lightness of being, my sense of happiness and contentment. Wondering why, I started to ponder. I met someone a few months ago, started dating, started to fall in love with him. And then started to feel…dependant on him I guess. The relationship didn’t feel as good as it had at the beginning, and I wondered why. Overanalyzing is my speciality so I pondered deeper – what had changed? what could I do to get things back to the way they were at first? Was he losing interest in me? Had he realized that I wasn’t all that great after all?

And then today I realized what had happened – I entered into the relationship a whole person, complete in myself and happy with my life. And then I gave away my sense of self worth, stopped looking inward for validation and started defining my worth by whether or not this person liked me. This created a void which required the other person to fill it. When he didn’t do so in the manner I wished him to, I started to question my own worth and attractiveness. Looking back I can see how when I was complete in and of myself, I was kinder, happier, had peace of mind. I was able to look outward and interact with others from a position of confidence. I was grounded. Giving away that sense of validation, creating that void, had left me in a place where I became needy and bitchy and jealous, all feelings of despair based on a need for someone else to like me so that I would feel whole and worthwhile again.

When that revelation came it was an ‘ah ha!’ and also a ‘d’oh!’. It’s not about him, it’s about me. It’s also not a game to play, to try and win affection or attention by acting a certain way or retreating. It’s about defining boundaries and having a clear sense of self worth. Being an island so to speak. Independant of what anyone else thinks of me, what matters is what I think of myself.

And now, I’m off, to practice reclaiming my internal validation, thereby filling the void and eliminating the problem.