My 2025 Promise

My life has almost never been easy, but 2024 hurt so bad, in the most unexpected way.

My core wound is abandonment, and while I cannot recall when I experienced that trauma for the first time, I absolutely recall the first time I remember it happening to me. It was in the middle of 7th grade. My best friend at the time, Tzirel Deutsch, stopped talking to me from one minute to the next and didn't tell me why. We had been best friends since the 1st grade. To this day I have no idea what happened. I remember feeling INCREDIBLE shame, and not knowing how to process it. Of course, I had no one to process it with either. My school had no idea that having school counselors was a smart thing, and neither of my parents were people that I looked to for comfort or understanding of what I was experiencing in life. I want to take a minute and acknowledge this. I had no one in my life to process anything that I was experiencing at any age, especially not my parents. I grew up in chronological age, but not in emotional age.

2024 saw a rapid increase of people in my life who I loved deeply, stop talking to me. Some of them told me why, and some of them didn't. I know the current mentality in the world is that no one owes you anything and that if something doesn't feel good/work for you then you are free to drop it or whatever, but I consider that incredibly harmful and not the world that I want to live in.

Possibly the biggest ache that I experienced with these friends no longer choosing to be my friend (and not only the ones that left me in 2024) was that I would never do it to them. I embrace almost everyone I meet with a deep openness and allowance to be as weird and flawed as possible, and I put in SO MUCH EFFORT to repair if there is a stumble or a fallout or something. But I have finally come to realize that most people are not like that. This brought me a lot of anguish this year and in the years past.

I have always struggled with trust and believing that I could rely on my friends, especially after losing my family, but I realize that isn't the case at all, and while it hurts, I may need to change how I approach people in the future.

I wasn't sure how to go about this, but I believe that my instinct took over for me until I started becoming aware of things.

Things I am now aware of:

1. If I need to pretend to be someone I am not in order for you to hang out with me, then it's a no from me.

2. If I experience anxiety or fear before or while I am hanging out with you, then it's a no from me.

3. If you use my limitations and flaws against me, instead of understanding them and working with it or teaching me better ways I might be able to exist as, then its a no from me.

4. If you can't take accountability for the ways in which you hurt me, then its a no from me.

5. If you apologize for something hurtful that you did to me, but the friendship is never again the same, then it's a no from me.

6. If you only hang out with me in isolation, then it's a no from me.

7. If you are friendly to me in one setting but then ignore me in another setting, then it's a no from me.

8. If I am usually the one bringing it to the friendship, food/drink, invites, opportunities, help, a listening ear, whatever, then it's a no from me.

   
   

   Understandably, all of the above mostly depends on whether we've had conversations about behaviors that are not working and whether efforts have been made to rectify them. In addition, I am learning to differentiate between people who are just using me and people who show love and care differently than I do, and that's often a struggle for me if it isn't pointed out or reminded to me.

So you might be wondering what prompted me to write this. Well, tonight I attended a virtual Vision Board Party! It was a lot of fun and one of the things I did was write out a list of qualities that I am manifesting in a partner for this year. I did it mostly as a gag but afterwards it made me realize. If I don't reflect on the things that I want or don't want, how can I know? And how can I know when I am tolerating shitty behavior from others? I love and care deeply about others, I would like to be loved and cared for deeply too.

It's a brand new year, and sometimes people like to set intentions. Well if you're one of these people or you're someone who would like to try something new, try your hand at vision boarding or manifesting,

See if this blog post is helpful to you, and let me know what it is you're manifesting this year!

Happy 2025!