One empath struggle I constantly battle with is always feeling responsible for how I am treated by others. When someone does or says something hurtful to me, my first thought is that I caused it. "If I had respected myself enough to establish boundaries, X wouldn't have had the audacity to do this" "If I had worked harder on my career, I wouldn't be here to receive X treatment" The crazy list goes on... Once in a while I speak up immediately but most of the time I blame myself. I always expect more from myself and feel I shouldn't have put myself in a position to be hurt. Writing about it now makes me realize how hard I am on myself. It just doesn't make sense to be hard on the one person that you have. The one who's been with you true thick and thin - YOURSELF. How hard can it be to be kind to yourself?
I was just a tiny girl who enjoyed scribbling stuff on paper. So you can imagine my excitement when I made my first income from writing blogs. As much as I enjoyed the taste of financial independence freelancing gave me in my undergrad, I wasn't totally happy. At some point I hated the idea of writing, especially on topics I had no interest in. Imagine having to write about stuffs that are only available in the USA when you've never been to even Togo. Yes, turn your passion into profit. But it's not that simple. These challenging topics made me question my passion. I doubted if I truly loved writing. "Loathe" might seem like a strong word but it perfectly describes how having a deadline, writing on unfamiliar topics and receiving money for the one thing I loved the most made me feel. Motivational speakers made us think that making profit from our passion is automatic. Well, I have learned the hard way. Fairy tales of magical fixes for life exist only in books. ...