Be Good For You First

I share my experiences about how I have always put other people before myself as a way of life. I am learning about what is best for me and building my life around taking care of myself first. I am learning about people pleasing habits that I have taken on and how to reclaim my free will again. I am taking the time to learn from my past experiences and explore what will help support stability and balance in my life.

Transcript

Hey everybody,

This is Alyssa.

And today I wanted to talk about the subject,

Being good for you first.

So the reason that I would like to talk about this is because I'm learning more about this lesson recently about being good for me first.

And the reason that I say that is because I feel like for most of my life I've put everyone else's needs before mine.

I've always put everyone before myself.

It was very easy for me to sacrifice myself and my life for others.

I think that when we're born into this world,

It's easy to serve the will of other people around us and somehow forget that we have a will of our own when we have certain expectations and responsibilities placed upon us,

Whether,

You know,

Those responsibilities are really ours to take on or not.

It still happens.

And what I'm learning more in my life right now about being good for myself first is that I'm taking the time and space that I need for me that's best for me in my life.

And I feel like it's been a healthy thing for me to have more alone time to figure things out and take the time to do what I actually want to do and not rush to each next thing just because there's something that someone expects of me or I'm doing it just because somebody else wants me to.

It's easy to keep going to the next task just because it's there without thinking about why am I doing that?

What's motivating me?

Is it because I truly want to do it?

Is it because I feel like I have to to not hurt someone else's feelings or I somehow feel obligated?

So I feel like it's been a great thing for me to take more time and space to be alone to understand whenever I do have people,

Places,

And situations that come into my life,

I want to take the time to choose what I do and don't want in my life,

What I do and don't have time for,

Setting boundaries and speaking up for myself when I need to,

To say,

You know what?

I'm doing the best I can to manage what I have going on in my life right now.

I actually don't have the time and energy to make these plans or make these arrangements or maybe go do something that's social.

I need to be able to know how I'm feeling.

So for example,

When I do decide to go make plans or do something to be social,

I know that I'm in a good headspace where I can be present and show up in a way that I want to show up.

I feel like most of my life,

The ways that I've showed up for other people,

I feel like I was,

I guess you could say more in pieces.

Like I feel like myself was more in pieces and I was just giving these,

You know,

Shards of what I had left to give,

Like my cup wasn't full basically and I was just spreading myself too thin.

And I feel like for most of my life,

I've spread myself too thin to make sure all these tasks are completed.

You know,

Whether it's doing something for someone else,

Showing up for someone else,

Taking care of someone else's needs or whatever it was.

I just got in this cycle where I was taking on too much all of the time with people,

Places and situations and my life became so full with all of these things that I was so stressed out and had so much anxiety just to make sure all those things got completed.

And I wasn't thinking twice.

I felt like,

You know,

I was a hamster on this wheel just going and going and going,

Just,

You know,

Making sure that everything got done.

And at a certain point,

I had too much stress that I couldn't manage my life anymore.

And I basically just stopped everything that I was doing.

And I'm not saying,

You know,

That was healthy or anything.

But at that time,

I stopped everything that I was doing and I was able to sit with myself and slow down for the first time,

Actually just slow down and stop.

And when I did,

I noticed the thoughts that I was having was these racing thoughts going from one thought to the next.

And it was,

I need to do this for this person.

I need to make sure this person knows they're cared for and loved and just going and going and going on this constant thought process cycle of me wanting to do everything that I could for everyone else around me all of the time.

And that was anyone who was in,

You know,

My near surroundings to in my life,

Any person,

Place or situation that was in my surroundings.

I was always so motivated for making sure everyone else was taken care of and everyone else's needs are met as if that was my will,

As if that was my destiny and what I'm here for.

And I realized that me thinking so strongly in that way and that being and that is what I was driven by as the main goal for my life just left me in pieces.

And I realized that it had become a way of life for me to put everyone else first all of the time,

No matter what that meant,

No matter what that meant for me.

It wasn't even a thought.

It wasn't even a thought of how that affects me.

It was just I felt that I needed to make sure that everyone was happy,

That,

You know,

That whatever I did wasn't going to make waves and whatever actions I could make to create the best outcome possible of,

You know,

People's happiness and the best outcomes for other people.

That's that's how I was motivated to constantly make my decisions and my motivations and my goals towards how I could always make other people happy all the time.

And I've had to realize that it isn't my job to make other people happy.

It's great,

You know,

To have a great time with people,

You know,

And have fun with people and have a good time,

Of course.

But other people like other people have to make themselves happy at the end of the day.

It isn't my responsibility to make other people happy.

And somehow I have taken on the role that it was my responsibility to make other people happy as if that's what I'm here for.

And I realized that,

Yeah,

That led me into a really rock bottom kind of place in my life at one point.

And I'm still working on this people pleasing pattern.

I'm still working on that because I would like to have more balance in my life and do what's best for me first and make sure my cup is full first and then be able to give to others in a way where it's healthy for me and my cup is full.

I would like to be able to have other people in my life in a way where I am not completely overwhelmed and drowning in the decisions that I had made and how I choose to show up for people.

So that's what I'm learning right now is that I would like to,

You know,

Slowly have friendships in my life at some point.

But I need to watch very carefully how I do that and how I'm motivated so I can start to build healthy relationships in my life and build a healthy balance that works for me.

And that's going to look different for everybody.

Some people might need a lot of social time,

You know,

For their life to be full and happy.

And for me,

I think I need a minimal amount of social time for my life to feel balanced and happy.

And I would like to learn more about what's best for me so I don't give too much of myself away.

And I don't make decisions based on what other people want from me instead of what I want for me.

And it's up to me to know more about myself and what my limits are and what my boundaries are so I can say,

You know,

This is what's going to work for me.

Is there a way that we can make a compromise,

You know,

And things like that.

And right now I know that I am doing the best that I can to manage my life now with what I have going on and understanding things that I need to understand right now without adding more factors into the picture in my life.

So I know that,

You know,

It may be hard sometimes like for other people to understand,

You know,

About like what my boundaries are,

What I need,

But I need to make sure that my cup is full.

I need to make sure that I'm taking care of myself in the ways that I need to.

So when I do decide to go be social or when I do decide to show up for other people,

I know that my cup is full and I can be there in a healthy way for everyone,

You know,

And that's for anything.

For the workplace,

For social interactions,

For events or whatever it is that I would like to show up in a way that is good for me and take those proper steps to do that in my life and set that foundation first before I add anything else into my picture.

So right now I'm doing my best to maintain and stabilize what I have going on right here,

Right now,

Get my life back to where,

You know,

It's more full for me,

Where I can enjoy my life and what I have here without adding anything else to it.

And then when I am ready to add something else to it,

I took that time and space to lay a healthy foundation for myself and figure out what does and doesn't work for me.

And when I have more of an empty space in my life,

I am able to maintain and understand better of what does and doesn't work for me.

So I do not end up in that same experience where I had so many people,

Places and situations going on in my life that I was drowning in it.

And,

You know,

A lot of it had to do with the way I chose to be in the world.

And that was putting everybody else before me,

Putting everyone else first.

And that's how I learned how to be growing up.

And then,

You know,

That transferred into my adult life.

And I realized that,

Yeah,

At a certain point,

I really hit rock bottom with that.

And I'm learning from that.

And I realized that you don't have to fully self-sacrifice yourself all of the time to be a good person.

I'm not sure exactly why I held that belief.

And I know that sometimes people's feelings will get hurt.

And if I'm making choices for myself that are healthy for me and setting boundaries I need to set,

And it happens to hurt somebody else's feelings,

I know that that's something that I'm going to have to accept and be like,

You know,

Sometimes that does happen in this world that,

You know,

Other people's feelings are going to get hurt.

But if I was choosing to do what's best for me without going out of my way to intentionally attack somebody or harm somebody,

That's something that I'm going to live with.

Because I know the consequences of trying to please everyone all the time and where that led my life to.

I know the outcome and I know those consequences.

So now,

With that information from my previous experiences,

I want to make new decisions now where I accept the outcome of choosing myself first and putting myself first and then giving what I can give,

What I know I can give,

While still making sure my cup is full and being there for myself first.

That's something that is really huge for me about putting myself and my needs first,

Learning about myself,

Learning about what my needs are.

And I know that I don't have to feel guilty for that or feel any shame for that.

And I realize that I do have my own will and my own will isn't what everybody else wants me to do all the time or what's best for them.

I have my own will.

So I'm tuning in more to what my own will is for me to have my own free will and know that that is mine.

And I came here with my own free will.

And now I'm claiming my free will again because I felt like it got,

You know,

Lost for a while when all of these expectations and situations came into my life that I felt like I didn't have my free will anymore.

And now here in my adult life,

Taking this time and space for more of my alone time that I'm understanding I do have free will.

What do I want to do with my free will?

And I'm claiming my free will again,

Reclaiming my free will.

And my own personal power in realizing I don't have to bow down to other people.

I don't have to give all of myself away just to make somebody else happy.

I am just as important as any other person.

I am an equal.

I do not have to put myself beneath anyone anymore just because I learned that that's not going to be a life sentence for me.

And I will not,

You know,

Suffer under all of the weight of the world that I can't carry.

And now since I carried too much in the past,

Now I'm realizing I don't have to carry as much and I can learn from what my past experiences showed me and live a better life for me now.

So this is what I wanted to talk about today about being good for you first.

And I just wanted to share my thoughts and experience experiences of how I'm learning that and how I'm going to create the life that I want today based on my own free will and what I would like to do with that.

Thank you all so much for listening.

I super appreciate you being here today.

Thank you so much.