Permission to Stand Up for Yourself
You don’t need permission to stand up for yourself and I don’t need permission either, but for some reason, I really appreciate being told I have it. I’m assuming it’s because I grew up in a Patriarchal system, but perhaps that’s wrong and there are loads of cis men out there who also like being told they’re allowed to stand up for themselves? If so, welcome dudes. This is a big enabling chat about why you can and should stand up for yourself.
Do you let people walk all over you? Are some of your relationships one-sided or a bit dysfunctional? Do you constantly ‘let things slide’ to keep the peace? Maybe you’re like me and you have some areas of your life where you’re brilliant at standing up for yourself and other areas where it’s not so easy. When there’s a power balance at play it can be more difficult to stand up for ourselves. It can feel, or be risky for us to speak out to someone like a boss or landlord.
We’re doing ourselves a grave disservice when we don’t stand up for ourselves, we’re lowering the bar of what we’ll allow and essentially digging an unhappy pit for ourselves to sink lower and lower into. I once had a friend who would call to my house twice a week. Over time she called more and more often, usually around meal times. Then she started bringing her children as well. It got to the point where I was buying groceries for myself, my five kids, and her and her two kids as I knew they’d be at my house for several meals a week.
I let the situation get really out of hand, even though I was feeling invaded and I was heavily out of pocket supporting her family. At this time I was on a minimum wage job and was struggling to make ends meet myself. I allowed her to take advantage of me because I placed a higher value on generosity than I did on my own emotional and financial well-being.
I imagine most people have had a friend or relative who’s taken advantage of them at some point. We don’t let people take advantage of us unless we get something from the exchange as well. In my example above, I was getting to feel like a generous and supportive person. That was all well and good until my ‘friend’ kept taking it further and further. She started leaving my house with food leftovers, toilet paper, and other household essentials that she said she’d run out of and had asked could she borrow some of.
This lady had a wealthy family that she could call on and yet she was draining me of money and resources. I can’t blame her though, because I let her do it. My values were messing me up and it took me a long time to learn it. Eventually, I started to feel so cross and taken advantage of that I told her the friendship was over. I didn’t want to be friends with anyone who thought that it was ok to treat people the way she was treating me. I felt incredibly relieved to be free of her and had to think long and hard about why I’d kept her in my life for so long.
If you have a situation in your life where you feel that you’d like to be able to stand up for yourself, think about what you’re currently getting from that situation. Does it make you feel like a dutiful daughter? An easygoing co-worker? What story are you getting to tell about yourself that you feel is attached to a ‘good’ quality? Like in my example, generosity but perhaps for you, the story is I am a caring son, I’m a generous person, etc. Take some time to think about that.
Now ask yourself, is having that quality or being able to tell yourself and others that story more important to you than your own well-being? If you find that it’s not, then consider how you might create better boundaries for yourself. What might you say, how will you communicate it? Standing up for ourselves can feel incredibly scary, but every time I’ve ever done it I’ve found the rewards were so much greater than the discomfort.
Every time I think about my ex-friend, I feel a sense of relief over her not being in my life, and it’s been over a decade since I knew her. Not having that draining and demanding friendship in my life opened up space for new more aligned friends to come in. I can’t think of one time in my life where I stood up for myself and it didn’t eventually turn out to be a win. If you need a nudge or some encouragement to stand in your power, then here it is, I’ve got you — you can do this. I believe in you.
