What we choose to tolerate will continue. This applies to our relationships as well as ourselves. By tolerating any behavior or situation we don’t want to tolerate, we are showing ourselves and other people that what we say is intolerable, actually is tolerable, because we aren’t doing anything about it.
Let’s start with what you choose to tolerate within yourself. Anything you choose to tolerate will not be something you are motivated to change inside yourself. But the truth is, the only thing standing between you and what you want is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself.
We all have creative narratives as to why our lives are the way they are. We rationalize our behaviors and thoughts so that they fit our story – or what we believe about ourselves or our situation. The problem is that by creating all these little narratives, we end up creating limiting beliefs about ourselves and stay stuck there.
Let’s look at it like this. How does your bullshit story work for you? What do you get out of it? Perhaps by telling yourself all the reasons why you can’t do something, you never put yourself in the situation to even try so you don’t have to experience rejection or failure. Or maybe it allows you to not have to take responsibility for yourself or where your life is. Your bullshit story keeps you shackled and holds you hostage – and it doesn’t have to.
Here are five steps you can take to eliminate limiting beliefs you have about yourself:
1.) Name the belief. Be brutally honest with yourself about what you really believe about yourself or a situation. Say you struggle with believing that you deserve a healthy relationship. Write it down and expose it.
2.) Acknowledge your feelings about the belief. Own it. Why do you believe you aren’t worthy of a healthy relationship? What causes you to believe that about yourself? Write it down and expose that, too.
3.) Be gentle with yourself. So many of us have limiting beliefs about ourselves. Chances are, those beliefs came from a place that hurt us, or caused us to cast doubt on ourselves. Show compassion towards yourself about your experience.
4.) Understand the byproducts of these beliefs. Once you started telling yourself you didn’t deserve to be in a healthy relationship, what happened? How were you affected? What other narratives were added to your bullshit story that confirmed this belief?
5.) Rewrite your story. How does your story look if you do believe you are deserving of a healthy relationship? Rewrite yourself as the hero who has overcome the limiting belief. Make that your new narrative. For example, you can say to yourself, “For years I didn’t believe that I deserved a great relationship. But I know who I am now and what I deserve. So I won’t be settling for less anymore.”
When it comes to our relationships with other people, what we choose to tolerate in our relationships will continue. By tolerating any behavior or situation we don’t want to tolerate, we are showing that person that what we say is intolerable, actually is tolerable, because we aren’t doing anything about it.
We can struggle with tolerating nonsense for many reasons. Mine have been the following:
- Feeling guilting setting limits and boundaries or that I am being unfair by doing so
- Wanting to save someone or seeing their “potential”
- Fear of being alone
- Poor self-esteem and self-worth, like not believing I deserve better treatment
- Overall insecurity with myself
The truth is, even the kindest person will unconsciously assess what their partner will and will not tolerate. It happens on an unconscious level and is reflected in how they treat you consistently. It is up to us to set appropriate boundaries and love ourselves enough to walk away from a relationship that continuously causes us harm.
If you are an empath like me, you might have challenges with knowing what your non-negotiables or deal breakers are in your relationships. We really have to be able to define those things for ourselves because they are the foundation for our boundaries and us communicating how we wish to be treated.
How you begin to define what are non-negotiables for you is really asking yourself the hard questions about what is important to you in a relationship. Be honest with yourself with what you feel comfortable with and what you don’t. You also have to know what your core values really are. Those are going to guide you as to what is okay and not okay for you. You should also know what things are “nice to haves” but you are willing to compromise on. And these things may evolve and change, just as you do through different stages of your life.
