When The Heart Deceives

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. “
— Dr. Maya Angelou

Much of the hard work we focus on in therapy is the self; the roles we play in our own life story, the traumatic situations we need to process, or the labels we need to shed. If we spent too much time pointing fingers, nothing would ever truly be resolved [lets also not forget the importance of personal accountability]. People pleasers like myself enjoy this part of keeping the attention on ourselves instead of others, because our inner children chastise us for being “bad” if we speak ill of other people and we are able to avoid how terrible it feels to realize how many of the bad things in our lives happened to us and not because of us as we have allowed ourselves to believe. This is not at all to say we cannot discuss how much our mother-in-law drives us mad or how we almost ripped our hair out at little so-and-so’s new Sharpie mural — because we can and we do. However, the work is mainly reflected in instead of out.

I found myself feeling a bit frustrated about this while reflecting on my trauma therapy and codependency recovery recently — putting in so much effort while those around me continued behaving in the same harmful ways. Could they not see how hard I was trying? I thought once I changed, my circumstances and the people around me who were normally negative or toxic would change with me, but the exact opposite happened. It was as though an amplifier was placed on hurtful words or the distance I found between myself and others I thought would be in my life forever. Why me? What am I doing wrong here?

In come the ever wise words of Dr. Maya Angelou, wrapped in the warm, reassuring love I needed right in that moment.

While I did have responsibility in targeting the continued codependent behavior which interfered with my ability to sometimes separate self from others, holding firm to the understanding that once the one who tries to be everything to all is that no longer, people begin to show the face they had been hiding in order to keep them that way — it was the opposite of doing something wrong. Each person at one point in my life, showed me who they were and that I was not their priority. I simply chose to not believe them. So when the time came that I no longer fit in this all-giving box, of course I would be demonized or abandoned like a useless toy on the side of the road. No amount of therapy or self reflection is going to change someone else. Life simply does not work that way.

Wouldn’t it be so much easier if it did though?

This realization brought a lot of pain but it also brought great relief — I was beginning to sever the unhealthy ties created by trauma that connected my worth to the feelings and behaviors of others — and, my radar [along with my ability to truly accept] for genuine connection is back online!

Question to the reader:

If this resonated with you, in what ways has your heart deceived you out of pain and/or trauma? What red flags have you ignored/or are currently ignoring? And what would your life or relationships look like to lift the veil? Note: If you are not currently in therapy, I highly suggest going over your thoughts with a professional.