The realisation that you are not as important in someone’s life as they are in yours can be quite crushing.
When you love, appreciate, value & prioritise someone in your life, you tend to think that they too hold you in that same esteem. So naturally when you come to the realisation that actually that isn’t true, you can feel a whole range of emotions from hurt, anger, betrayal & even shame &/or guilt. You can feel that you let yourself down or that you aren’t worthy of their time and then angry that you even want their time. The rollercoaster of emotions that hits you, ends with you questioning how you got into this situation & how to avoid it happening again.
The natural reflex is to throw up a wall, become independent and say that you don’t need anyone. However, this is just your wounded self responding & trying to protect you. The operative word there being “trying”. That response isn’t actually protective because you avoid questioning yourself & getting to the root cause of the problem. You need to understand what it is you’re actually feeling & why you feel that way?
For example when this happened to me I realised that I felt invisible & the reason I felt invisible was because whenever I was asking for an emotional need to be met, it wasn’t. Understanding that during my most vulnerable state, requiring an emotional need to be met was going ignored, meant that I was able to change how I looked after my own emotional needs. That meant instead of asking certain people to do it, I did it for myself by changing the company around me for those times. I understood that for whatever reason they were unable to meet that need of mine. It wasn’t a priority for them.
Once you understand what you’re feeling & why, you can decide how to handle it. This can only happen when you are honest & allow yourself to be vulnerable with yourself. Then you can create the best strategy & protection for yourself going forward as you will be operating from a much calmer & honest standpoint. Just because you aren’t a priority in someone’s life it doesn’t always mean you have to completely cut them off. You were hurt because you put them on a higher pedestal than they put you, however that doesn’t mean you need to demolish the whole temple.
I didn’t remove anyone from my life, instead I redirected my energy & prioritised myself. I no longer placed my emotional needs in their hands. Did the relationship change? Absolutely, but I no longer felt invisible and the relationships were much more balanced with me no longer overextending myself for them. Just because someone doesn’t view you as a priority doesn’t mean you shouldn’t view yourself as a priority. It starts with you & what you allow.
Realising that you aren’t a priority is actually the first step to repairing the relationship with yourself in these situations. These dynamics always have one person doing more than the other & that person is you. You have made them a priority but it’s not reciprocated so stop and redirect that energy to yourself. Some relationships may end but that may not be a bad thing as your mental & emotional well-being come first, that’s why you have to make yourself a priority.
CHARMED RELAXATION 