Member-only story
Enabling is not love. It’s fear of abandonment.
Do you think you really love the people in your life? That will depend on whether you accept, love, and trust yourself. We create our own resentment when we search for trust, love, and acceptance in other people. We’re hard-wired to do it, but I’d argue it’s best to find yourself a bit first.
If I love you my heart is to help you in any way that I can. I want everyone in the world, even people I don’t know, to have happy and thriving lives. However, I cannot have a happy and thriving life if I enable others to make me feel sad, resentful, angry, hurt, and down all the time.
And yes, it’s my fault. If I allow you to disrespect me it’s hard to build self-respect. I will make the decision aligned with self-respect every time, no matter how sick my stomach feels. No matter how much imposter syndrome I have to battle. I will know my worth until the day I die. And if I ever do get to come back that lesson will be deeply ingrained day one.
If I don’t set the example of how to have a happy and thriving life what business do I have trying to teach others how to do it? If I am enabling you I am not coming from love. I am coming from fear of abandonment. Teaching you it’s okay to use, disrespect, and manipulate me is not very loving to you when you think about it.
