the shadow side...

  I am at a point in my life where I am putting up tons of boundaries around me and asking for what I need. This isn't the easiest thing to do at time.  It also is a place where I ask in more of a demand or ask in a snippy way.  I have discovered that if I don't ask in a more demanding way I might not be heard.  I have asked for my needs to be met in the past and I felt like no one was listening...  I had learned to shout or say nothing at all.  
  I have begun to learn I can ask for what I need and have people hear me!  It is such a refreshing and amazing feeling.   
  There are people I can no longer have in my life if I feel that my needs and requests can not be respected. I know there are people who will be able to full fill my needs with respect.  To those people I thank them.  To the other people I have to take care of me and leave that relationship behind me.  It feels confusing on one level.  It also feels so incredibly self loving and healing.  That is what I want right now.  That is what I am asking of myself and others.  
  I am excited to see when the day comes that I am able to soften, and shout less when telling someone what my needs are... I can feel it is right around the corner...
   I know that a lot of this has to do with the fact that I had needs and wants in the orphanage.  They were probably met only a small percentage of the time. I know and understand that I learned to meet my own needs and let my body just take over.  I would love to have a telescope that allowed me to look back at the little me.  Did I fight?  Did I just give up and then after I gave up I was noticed? Maybe both?  I know that some of those reactions are still with me today.  Sometimes I think it is the strangest thing... sometimes I think it is the most amazing thing how incredibly resilient little me was.  Babies are pretty amazing in that way and know how to get their needs met.  That's probably why I still work with children to really get that lesson drilled into me.  I thank them for those reminders... It teaches me that you can have both... needs, wants and to be loved for all of who you are!