Hi all. Your friendly mid-30s homegirl here, with some hard-earned wisdom to impart. Here it is:
Self-respect is a behavior, not an attitude.
Guess what? That hot guy who is sometimes an asshole, who you can’t seem to quit at 24? He’ll still be hot at 30. walk away anyway. That ex boyfriend you’re waiting to be totally over? He’s still gonna be unfairly sexy in 5 years. Block him and go no contact anyway.
Do it before you want to. Do it because getting hurt, well, hurts. Do it because saying no to hurt is the behavior that builds self respect.
And pretty soon you’ll start to notice this glimmer of self regard. Like, hey, I’m capable of walking away from what I want when it’s not good for me. I’m capable of walking away from a drop dead hottie rather than shrinking myself to keep him. It is in the action of Choosing yourself over maybe the most desirable man you’ve ever known, choosing even when you’d take a bullet for him and you don’t want to go, that you demonstrate to your brain that YOU are worth more than the most you’ve ever wanted a guy.
And once you do that, girl, you’ll have no fear setting your standards, telling men you want relationships, etc, because you’ll have earned your own trust. Youre proving to your brain that you’ll choose your own experience, even when it means walking away. Even when every day is hard.
Nobody sat me down and told me that being a “chill girl” is shrinking to be amenable to men and just gives up your power. Nobody told me that’s subconsciously teaching your brain not to value or trust yourself. So consider this me sitting you down and telling you. F*ckboys don’t get less hot in your 30s, but you learn that choosing them comes at the ugly price of disregarding the quality of your own hours and days.
Self respect comes from the doing, from the leaving and staying gone, before it feels like something you want to do, before it teaches you self-love. 💋❤️