Long ago I had heard in a life class that the Universe always gives you signs. It’s like a big mirror and it reflects your thoughts and feelings. So, during those three days, I reflected about what signs the Universe was giving me.

I realised that there were many small and big signs that I had refused to see until then—like losing a job, a friendship and a relationship. I had told myself that these are just phases… until debt came over, took me by the collar and had my attention. I realised I was suffering from a disease called “over-giving.”

So how did I land myself in this awful situation

I was brought up by a single mother along with three other siblings. I was the youngest of three daughters. It was a hard life and I only got attention when I was either sick or created a crisis. So somewhere I created this story about myself: “If I stay sick and in a bad state I would be loved and taken care of.” I also felt I was not good enough the way I was, which led to over-giving, in order to earn appreciation. To add to it, I was/am a sensitive girl and an empath; it was in my nature to give.

Childhood passed but sadly the pattern remained. I continued to over-give i order to receive appreciated. I became an agony aunt who was always available and people started dumping their toxicity on me.

Giving is not bad, but the law of nature dictates that there must be a balance—to receive you have to give, and vice versa. I was completely closed to receiving. I was in an underpaid job, was involved in too many voluntary activities and found myself surrounded by a lot of needy people. The Universe could not have held a better image than that one for me to face my reality. I sought therapy.

From then, life started changing for the better

My therapist told me that I had a 100 taps open with not enough in the reservoir. I could not even sustain myself, yet I was constantly giving. So, it showed up as emotional debt in my life. No wonder sickness came and with it came financial debt as well. It baffled me that people who were less hardworking or educated than me were in better positions in life. I slogged, did good to others but continued suffering. Little did I know that I was living my childhood story of lack.

Making the change was not easy

At the age of 30 my friends were settled—financially and personally. And here I was, beginning to relearn the ways of life. It brought in a lot of anger, guilt, fear and the need to blame. The first lesson was to accept total responsibility of myself. In a gist, I had to accept that I was a fully functional adult with freedom of choice.

The next step was self-parenting. It meant that I gave myself the care I expected my parents or my guardians to give me as a child. I started to tell myself good things and I did so every day. I told myself I was beautiful, brilliant and deserved better.

The third thing I did was to let some people go. I believed in always staying in touch, no matter what. But when you hoard on to what is now useless [even though it once served a purpose], it starts stinking. I started choosing people. With deep humility and grace, I asked a few to leave. Of course that caused commotion but I stuck to my guns.

The fourth thing I learned was to ask for what I want. Now I hear the other person out, but I make sure that I speak out about my needs and reach a happy middle ground. This has come from a place of self deserving. I learned that we only ask for what we think we deserve. I left my job and got a better deal. The Universe always helps when you intend to grow.

As, I made these changes, my environment started responding. I started getting work that satiated me. I was paid for every little piece I wrote—there was no more free work. Today, I am surrounded by happy healthy people and it’s been a while since I faced a crisis.

Commitment is the key

It takes commitment and effort to break your patterns. I realised that my patterns had come from my grandmother, through my mother to me. Though it may seem like a family thing, my siblings did not carry it. If I look back at life, I see so many crises that I created, all for the need to be loved and heard. Now that I love myself, I am loved, honored and heard everywhere I go, just as I am.

Have I learnt my lessons? To an extent yes, but I am still a work in progress, till I see the manifestation of a fully abundant life, in every way possible.

The post Breaking patterns: My journey from debt to abundance appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Mummy, you are your daughter’s first role model

When a girl is born, the first woman who is close to her and the one she trusts with all her might is her mother. She watches her every move and imbibes whatever she sees, without filtering. How you treat yourself is exactly the way your daughter will learn to treat herself. If you are over critical about yourself or if you always have negative things to say about yourself, know that your daughter is mirroring herself in you.

I have a friend who is obsessed about her hair. No matter where she gets it groomed; it is never the way she wants it. To us, she has perfectly silky hair. I met her mother a few months ago and she too has the same issue. So, that is where the daughter inherited it from. You as a mother are her first scale to confidence, if you are okay with who you are, she will be too.

How you treat yourself is exactly the way your daughter will learn to treat herself

If your life is full of tiny lies that you speak to yourself every day, for sure, this is what your daughter will learn as well. And no woman has ever built self confidence with lies imbued within her system of values. With your lies, you are destroying her self-esteem bit by bit. If you have promised something, then keep it. If you could not, explain why.

Daddy, you are teaching your daughter all she will know about men

Daddy is the first man a daughter is close to. It is her first non-sexual close relationship. You are mapping the way she will deal with other men in the future. Treat her with love and care and she will learn to be with men who treat her same. Appreciate her; tell her she is beautiful, she will grow up with confidence.

If you are criticising her all the time or are cold to her, later in life she will take criticism or coldness from a man as the norm of any man-woman relationship. If you are violent, she will learn that violence is okay and acceptable in a relationship. If you love her and tell her so, she will grow up to be a woman with healthy self-esteem, walking tall in the world. Whatever you say to her when she is a child she will process it deep down within her and one day manifest it somehow in her life. Your approval and love will give her the sense of being worthy, or else she will run after people to give her that sense which often ends in disaster.

Research shows that a girl with a loving father who is involved in her upbringing, finishes school, performs better at work and is less likely to date an abusive man. If you are a dad, just love her and tell her so, that will take her places.

Treat her with love and care and she will learn to be with men who treat her same

Give her positive images

It’s no rocket science that self-esteem grows with positive images. At home, what are the images you portray in front of your child? Do you always have negative stories to discuss with your daughter, like the friend who hurt you, the relative you hate or even worse, do you criticise your spouse? If you do, you are already schooling your daughter with distrust and the belief that relationships hurt and are bad. When she grows up, no matter how far she goes, forming intimate relations would be a task for her. And no woman has been confident with a bagful of broken or hurt relationships.

The greatest blunder parents commit is to tell their daughter who she should not be. Rather, all that energy should be vested on ‘what she could be.’ With what ‘not-to-be’ you end up creating a confused child, but when you give her an image of what she can and should be, that boosts her self esteem because she will have clarity, and clarity always boosts self-esteem.

Let her find her skills

Every child has an area of interest where s/he has an advantage over others. Let your daughter find her skill. It might be a hobby class or a gardening session. Anything a child is good at boosts her self-esteem. Do not choose for her; let her find it for herself. It might be a trial and error method, but she will find it. That way she won’t fear making mistakes in the future and also won’t take a failure as personal defeat.

The greatest blunder parents commit is to tell their daughter who she should not be

When she is very young, keep her away from popular culture

If we see what popular culture has to offer, the women are most certainly objectified sexually. They are thin, fair and sexually alluring. These are the figures that basically do the rounds. A stereotypical kind of beauty is talked off. It seems that if a girl does not fall into a pattern, she is not beautiful. So, the best way to deal with the invasion of popular cultural values is to nurture her inner qualities and appreciate her for it.

Appreciate and cherish her

This is the golden rule of parenting. Appreciate your daughters. They will blossom. Keep away that criticising metre. With each word of criticism or mockery, you break a tiny part of your daughter, who blindly believes in what you say and creates a negative image for herself that might haunt her for a lifetime. The worst thing you can do is to brand her as ‘lazy, weak, sick, mad, stupid etc.’ With each word you affirm, you put that feeling of unworthiness in her. Later in life, that feeling may leave her, but not very easily. It reflects in her relationships and work place.

Children are not soldiers from destiny to fight your unfinished battles. They are gifts to be cherished. Cherish your daughter, have fun. Hug her a lot, tell her she is worth the world and more, and one day she will prove that she is.

The post Equip your daughters to take on the world appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.