Hi [FIRST NAME GOES HERE]

I hope you've had a lovely, restful weekend.

It's a stormy Monday morning here and I'm sitting down to write you an email about self-abandonment and self-respect.

A lot of us learned that the way to get someone to love us is to self-abandon. To become less of our authentic self, to sacrifice what we really need, to plead with someone to give us the bare minimum. To wonder what more we need to do to get them to change.

This dynamic can take on an almost addictive quality, and it's really easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. (Been there, trust me).

I think on some level most of us know that begging someone to show up for us in a particular way is not a very empowering approach, and yet we feel so stuck in that disempowerment that we often can't see another way.

Here's the simple truth: people respect people who respect themselves. Who hold high standards for how they will be treated, what they will and won't tolerate, and who they expend their time and energy on. And diminishing yourself by repeatedly pleading with someone to treat you better (all the while treating yourself with very little respect) tends only to entrench dysfunctional and imbalanced dynamics.

Now to be very clear, that's not to say that it's your fault that someone is behaving in a certain way towards you.

But it is your responsibility to choose how you will respond. And unfortunately, many of us have learned to respond to being hurt by desperately trying to get them to change — even when the same thing has been going on for months or even years.

Personally, I find that when we obsess over trying to get someone to change their behaviour towards us, it's because we don't trust ourselves to do what we need to do if things don't change. So we funnel all our energy into making them treat us better instead.

Of course, this isn't to say you should abandon ship at the first sign of rupture or disconnect.

But sometimes, the self-loving thing to do is uphold clear and exacting standards for what you will and will not tolerate — and that can mean doing the hard thing and creating distance between yourself and the person whose behaviour is causing you ongoing pain.

Big breaths. I know how hard this all is, and I'm sending you lots of love if you're in it at the moment. Remember, we don't have to make drastic changes overnight. But we can make a little decision to set ourselves on a different course, and commit to growing our capacity for a new way.

Love

Steph

PS. My 28-day Secure Self Challenge starts today! If what I've shared above resonates and you'd like to commit to 28 days of building self-worth in a supportive community setting, join the challenge here.

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