You have to be Important to Yourself
About two months ago, a lady walked into the office and demanded for my time. We sat and exchanged pleasantries. I can’t forget it easily, her voice texture happened to be one of the finest I've had conversations with that time, well filtered. I complimented, but her response did not commensurate my altruistic praise. At least, I deserved “thank you Sir” Or, remove the sir “Bros, thank you”.
I was worried why a grown lady like her did not understand etiquette. She asked, are you Christopher Peter? I said Yes. She continued.. “I was listening to you yesterday morning on radio (Love Fm) when you were talking on parenting, and something told me to come talk with you”. She started her chronicles; suddenly, her voice went dim and finally mute, her skin turned reddish, eyes swollen, body shaken, it wasn’t strange to me, so I encouraged her to take a deep breath and rest for a while.
When she sum up courage and forced the words out, they splashed with tears and cry. The few words I could pick from the mixed sounds were: “I love easily, I trust easily; I believe, forgive and accept people easily, but they always betray me. They always take advantage of my soft heart and make me look stupid”. She ended with “I’m always vulnerable” and her tears rolled down her chicks.
Huh...
I hate seeing people cry especially males, but along the way I got used to it reason been that it happens almost everyday around me.
I pleaded with her to look at me, which she managed to, and the only thing she could see was an indisputable smile glowing round my countenance, She brashly asked “what is funny?”
I replied, “the whole situation is funny, I was once in your shoe, I was more vulnerable than you, this smile you see is the only way I could express my victory over those weaknesses, and it’s also a smile of a new beginning for you”.
I could see her tears disappearing speedily like those escaping from crocodile smile and python dance.
I asked, "how old are you?"; she answered: "thirty two". I shook her hand and told her, "calm down let’s talk like mates, I'm also thirty two". She smiled and mistakenly exposed her well arranged white dentition which gave me another opportunity for a genuine compliment.
I asked, “how do you maintain these other thirty two?”. She asked “Which thirty two?”. I told her, “your teeth, they are amazing”... Behold, She started blushing lavishly and appreciated my sense of humour.
Na then I remember say “na condition make grayfish bend"
The therapy began.
"You easily trust people, do you easily trust yourself? You easily forgive and accept people; do you easily forgive and accept yourself? You easily admire and respect people; do you easily admire and respect yourself? You fall in love with people easily, when last did you fall in love with yourself?
You are always ready to do anything for anybody, when last did You sacrifice for yourself. You give value to others and devalue yourself, You put people up there and You down here, why should they stick to You?"
I was still talking when the heavy rain came pouring, but this time it was not even cloudy, there was neither wind nor thunder to give a sign before the fall. That was how profuse her weeping was as she saw the genesis of her problem.
I continued.
“People go to those who give them what they want, but stick to those who have what they need”.
The people that used you and dumped, only saw what you gave to them and did not see those things in you; so there was a room for uncertainty - if you were real or pretending, or you had ulterior motives. So don’t blame them, you were the problem.
If those respect, those trust and those love you gave out were found in you, those that needed them could have come to you instead of you going for them. It’s neither pride, arrogance nor selfishness, its self love.
“The problem is that we need people’s attention without even giving ourselves direction”.
I counseled her and finally gave her a plain paper to go write down twenty things she knows and loves about herself. The next day she brought the paper, alongside her friend. We picked the top ten, typed and printed it out. I told her to paste it on her wall mirror. She asked why mirror? I told her - so that each time you go to the mirror to look at yourself, you can see your complete self... Your all round beauty... physically and internally.
She and her friend smiled.
I told her to read those ten things as many times as possible everyday.
I just spoke with her now, I couldn't control my joy, so I decided to put it into writing, and she permitted me to share it on social media...
She is free at last, free from the past, freedom at last.
Have you ever been vulnerable, or seen somebody facing vulnerability?
How was the experience?
Tophas.
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