I wonder if you are like me and contemplate your value. If you wonder what stature you hold in others' lives? Do they think of you when they are making plans, or are you just a convenience in their lives in their time of need? This is a hard pill to swallow and it makes you question everything. It affects your motivation, discipline and focus. Because you will find yourself consumed with answering this question, what's even worse is you create scenarios in your head that take up entirely too much space.
Generally this is a behavior that you have grown over time. All the times that you felt pushed aside or forgotten in your life all combine to create this mess. In my opinion there is no worse feeling in the world than being ignored or pushed aside and forgotten. The sad thing is that we always go back for more, and the cycle repeats. But each time it repeats it takes a little more of you with it.
Now I am not innocent of this, in fact I sometimes feel like I wrote the book on this. If I could have back all the time that I sat wondering and yearning about if I am important in someone's life I would have an entire lifetime ahead of me. The truth of the matter is that you are important to someone, but that is never good enough because we want to be important to the ones who do not reciprocate. We waste all our time and effort in chasing the ones who do not want to be chased, when the relationships we should be nurturing are right in front of our face all along.
I could give the rah rah speech about it only matters that we feel important to ourselves, and the I am good enough, smart enough cliché tag line. But we all know that is bullshit, we are human and it is human nature to want what we can't have. So what is my advice? It's simple: don't stop living your life, even though it does not involve the people you want in it. Take inventory of the relationships that you have that are positive, and stop creating scenarios in your head about the others.
If you know that you are important then act like it, and reciprocate the negligence that others show you and your feelings, ignore them and let them come to you, or let them fade away. They will if they do, or did care about you at one time, or they won't but at least you will know. When you make yourself available indefinitely to these people they take advantage of you, and you end up torturing yourself. Is it worth it? I think not.
The philosopher Seneca has a great quote that I believe embodies these feelings: "We suffer more often in our minds than in reality". The scenarios that you are making in your head seldom reveal themselves as truths. But harboring on them just increases the power that you give to your absent relationships.
I am writing this as a witness to this, I am not innocent in this and I should practice what I preach and swallow my own medicine. But as I write this and hopefully as you read this I am making a covenant to myself, as should you as well, to heed this advice and put it into practice. I hope you do as well. You are important to me and hell I haven't even met you, but if I did not feel that way, then why would I write this?
Do this with me. Put this into practice, let's become important in our own lives and put the time and effort needed to nurture the relationships we have in our lives that are positive, healthy and encouraging and share this journey together of becoming REBILT "Never Broken".