Did you know that you matter? You’ll say, “Of course!” I said, “Of course!” The truth is that down deep I didn’t believe it, understand it or know it. I wasn’t really aware that I mattered at all. Due to my upbringing with a mother who took up all the space, I was conditioned to dedicate my life to her needs and wants. Mine were neglected. This primed me to marry someone exactly the same, even worse to be honest.
This translated into having a childhood, followed by a marriage where I spent 45 years of my energy creating positive, loving, outward focussed environments for the people I loved. This also and especially included my two girls Grace and Marie. The difference between children and adults is that children are MEANT to have their needs attended to. They are meant to have energy focussed on them; therefore I enjoyed putting them first and it felt right to do so.
Adults on the other hand that was and is a different story. It has taken many years to understand that it is our responsibility as adults to create our own joy and happiness. We are responsible for our own lives and therefore should not expect others to rescue us, fill us nor create the lives we want for ourselves. I didn’t know this until I began the self-help journey post divorce and estrangement.
Have I lost you yet? Are you asking yourself, “What the hell does that mean?” I’ll give you an example of how other people mattered more than myself and how ingrained it really was for me. After I divorced I returned to teaching and we had to hire on a new teacher for the 6th grade team. To accommodate our new colleague to be, we divided up the 6th grade subject matters. Our new colleague wanted math, I agreed to social studies, our third colleague wanted English Language Arts and our fourth taught science. Essentially we created a mini-junior high situation with the students rotating between teachers and classrooms. Instead of 30 students in one classroom, we now shared nearly 90 students between us.
My fellow 6th grade teammates and I were desperate for a teacher with whom we could work well. He had worked at our school in the past and he seemed pleasant and excited. So, we took a chance and decided he was more important than having self-contained classrooms in which was the model we had previously enjoyed teaching.
The first year was manageable, but I didn’t enjoy it and neither did one of my other colleagues, Martha. I loved having 30+ students all to myself; it allowed for deeper connections with the students and more flow and less structure within the day. Martha also felt the same as I. The math teacher, however, was in his element. He was doing exactly what he wanted and couldn’t be happier.
After the first year was up, we agreed to try it out one more year. Perhaps we just needed to iron out some kinks. Perhaps it could make our lives easier once we figured out how to manage the paperwork and structural differences. Perhaps the students were benefitting from this environment. Perhaps… Do you see the excuses? I created a list of 1,000 + reasons why it could potentially work better in the future while ignoring my intuition. Instead of standing up for what I knew and my colleague Martha knew to be true for us (it wasn’t working), we made the choice to try again and were hopeful we could make this work for Mr. Math. Because, really, how could we make the math teacher unhappy? He loved his job this way!
This is called ingrained people pleasing for which both Martha and I were accustomed. It was more important for us to be sure to make Mr. Math happy than ourselves. This behavior to put others first at all times (I call it an addiction) is so strong that it doesn’t even occur to you that there are other choices. The desire to avoid conflict or someone else’s displeasure is so powerful you’ll stop at almost nothing to keep the environment smooth, not for YOU but for someone else.
This addiction to please spreads into every facet of your life–work, relationships, even people in the grocery store line you give cuts to because you feel bad for them if the line is long and they have less items to purchase. Yup! I used to think of strangers’ needs and wants more than my own. The most fascinating skill that is developed with the need to please is the level of self-deception and betrayal you create in your mind in order to make the environment you dislike doable. You take lemons and create lemonade in your mind not in your reality! I call it mental gymnastics. However, that second year was so miserable I could barely stand it. I stopped being excited to come to work. I worked harder than ever and I saw no better results for the students and to boot I became increasingly more stressed. This is not what I wanted to do ever again.
The turning point came as we were nearing the end of year two and our team sat down to have the talk about going forward in the same way for year three. Because I had hit my rock bottom, I said no and asked if Mr. Math couldn’t perhaps try a self-contained classroom. You know, try it our way. That seemed fair and reasonable after trying it out his way for two years. His response was “No.” He could not because it would be too stressful for him.
What was my response? “OK I’ll teach a new grade level,” I said. If it weren’t for Martha who asked me the question after our meeting, “Tina, you’ve taught at this school and at this grade level for years. You have seniority. Do you really want to just step down and walk away from the position you have loved?” Holy cow! I was struck by thunder and lightning simultaneously.
Just like my childhood and marriage I was about to contort myself and fit into something I didn’t want in order to avoid conflict with our newest team member’s wants. My addiction to please another was insidious. Mr. Math didn’t have to quit or lose his job were he to teach in a self-contained class. This was his choice and I was ready to accommodate it until that pivotal question.
This is when I discovered math–my people pleasing math equation. I realized I have never been part of any math equation. The numerals 2 + 2 were not me. I wasn’t part of the equation. I wasn’t even a numeral. I was just floating out in space. But that question, “Is this what you want?” kept entering my mind. No, it wasn’t what I wanted. I had finally realized I spent a lifetime living the way my mother wanted (I had no choice; I depended on her to survive.) I spent my life in a marriage creating the lifestyle my former spouse wanted and make his dreams come true. (I had a choice, but I didn’t know I did.)
This time, however, due to therapy, books and podcasts I realized I had a choice. I could let Mr. Math be happy and continue as it was, or I could stand up for myself and let him know that I wished to return to teaching in a self-contained classroom. I had the choice to swallow my truth and remain silent or I could speak up. I was not powerless. I had choices too, but most importantly I now knew that I mattered. My desires mattered. My seniority mattered. My stress level mattered. I belonged in that equation. It was now up to my principal to decide our fate and what was best for our students.
I found my voice. I put myself in the equation. Mr. Math was a two and I was a two. I made it into the equation for the first time! I had awareness that I mattered. My needs and wants mattered. Mr. Math’s did too. Not more than me, not less than me, we were equals. We were both twos.
Nowadays I place myself into all the equations I encounter in life. My goal is always shooting for a win-win-win (2 + 2 = 4). In this case I wanted what was best for Mr. Math, myself and of course the students. As it turned out Mr. Math took a job at a junior high so he could teach math all day long forever. I decided I wanted to try new curriculum and teach 5th grade and as for the program the principal decided it was best for students to return to self-contained classrooms until junior high school.
“Wake up!” I say to you. You matter! And, you always have! You just had that awareness either beaten out of you or you were raised to believe you didn’t matter. I’m here to say that from now on you need to look at that grocery store line and not worry about the other person standing behind you. Focus on yourself. Don’t think about making everyone else’s lives more comfortable, at least not for now. Break your addiction to please everyone else but you. Take some energy now and spend it on yourself and create a life that makes YOU happy.
I’m not saying become self-centered. I’m still kind and let the person with one item ahead of me at the check-out line, of course! But I’m no longer obsessing about making everyone else’s life more comfortable at the exclusion of myself. I now enter situations where I think, “How can I win, how can the other person win, how can the community at large win? Can we all win without excluding any of us?” All people matter. And now it’s time to live a life in which you matter too.
Hugs!