'Twas the End of a Decade, and Lessons Were Learned

And here we are. The final month of the final quarter of this decade! Whew! That’s a mouthful!

This month closes out a chapter—a decades worth of lessons and experiences. Can you think back 10 years ago to 2009? Where you were, what you were doing?

Growth is inevitable, but not without learning the lessons.

What has this year taught you? Relationships were the recurring theme for me this year. Some fractured, some broken, and some questionable. I learned how much I’ve tolerated from people; boundaries I’ve allowed people to cross. I learned who’s real and who’s a fraud; who celebrated me in my good news, who I could lean on in my bad times, and who showed up when it was convenient for them.

I questioned why I allowed myself to be part of a circle of people who didn’t really like me—they liked the convenience of having me around. The dependable one, there when everyone needed her, the one that could be counted on to respond timely, to drop whatever I was doing to be accommodating. And yet, there was an imbalance of reciprocity.

As I became aware of people’s true colors, it dawned on me…I was the convenient friend, family member, and business associate. Used at the convenience of others when it was convenient for them. I didn’t like being the seasonal person, and I would no longer be that person to those people.

I am a giving person by nature, but I had to learn who to give to. Not everyone deserves your gifts. And so, I learned to stop expecting me from them and to start treating them like them! The irony is, when you start treating people like themselves, they have the gall to call you out on your behavior. It has been an awakening to say the least.

The truth is, I had no business in a circle of people who were not my tribe. But of course I didn’t come to that understanding until I became the observer; talking less in social settings and listening more. I noticed how unnoticed it went that I wasn’t contributing to conversations, and how much no one cared whether or not I did. Occasionally when I would chime in, I usually got cut off or the subject changed. So I talked less, and half-ass listened, and the more I allowed myself to sit in certain settings, the more I found, meh, these ain’t my people.

There’s a saying that goes, what you don’t like about someone else means you don’t like about yourself, or, there’s a trait you’re lacking within yourself, thus your attraction. For years I believed that saying to be true for me. Why did I hang around people whom I vastly differed? Intellectually and values wise. Why did I continue to dumb myself down around certain people? I thought there was something about their personalities that attracted me to them. Something about their extroversion this introvert needed.

But if the saying was true, why did I apply it to me lacking something in myself and not the other way around?

Growing Pains

You gotta pay attention to the phrases in between the words spoken to you. The directly speaking to you about you indirectly. The digs on my intelligence, “Everyone can’t be like you Gill,” (you’re absolutely right! Everyone isn’t nor can!); the smart commentary on my education and my feeling as if I needed to apologize for having worked my ass off to obtain it because an educated person was a thorn in the side of someone who wasn’t; how my resilience during adversity rubbed folks the wrong way, or my refusal to settle for mediocrity and always striving for more was given the envious side eye, how my life experiences was perceived as me coming across as a know it all or a one upper. People showed me how they really felt about me through the in between phrases.

I had an aha! moment: It wasn’t me who needed to gain something from them, on the contrary; it was them who needed to gain something from me. Pay attention to the people who keep you around because they crave your energy, your inspiration, your motivation. They are the ones who take more and give less.

It took me a lifetime to figure that out. I’m grateful 2019 taught me a valuable lesson in learning about the types of relationships I don’t want, and the types I want to surround myself with moving forward. I will no longer give my energy to relationships that don’t value me. I welcome finding my tribe.

Lessons are Opportunities to Grow

If we don’t take the time to be still and reflect on the lessons we’ve learned this year, surely the lesson will repeat itself until we face it head on. Let’s not start a new year, a new decade even, with the same ole behaviors, same ole mind set, same ole toxic people who have been holding us back, same ole ideologies…the same ole shit that takes too much from us and doesn’t allow us to step into our greatness.

Out with the Old

When I consult a client on decluttering, I probe into the psyche first to get to the root cause. Your surroundings/environment is a direct reflection of what’s going on internally. It’s not enough to just clean up the exterior without first getting clear about what needs to be cleared from within.

This includes the types of personalities we surround ourselves with. Decluttering also means getting rid of the people who weigh us down. The toxic ones, the ones who don’t clap when we win, who conveniently change the conversation when we share good news, who are unsupportive, the energy vampires. Most of the time we’re not even aware the company we keep might be the reason why we haven’t progressed.

I implore you to use this final month of the final quarter of this decade to grow from any challenges you encountered this year. Learn the lesson, forgive yourself, and close out that chapter. A new beginning awaits us at the start of a new decade.

“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ~C.S. Lewis

Have the happiest of holidays!

XO

-Gillian