Building A Tribe

Let’s talk a little bit about who we surround ourselves with. The people we share our time with says a lot about us as well as how we feel about ourselves. It can also have an effect on our spiritual growth and where we’re going.

People with high levels of self-esteem and self-love don’t spend much time around people who treat them poorly. It doesn’t feel good and why subject yourself to things that don’t feel good? Especially with all the wonderful people and places to experience in this world!

It’s a very simple principle to grasp once we understand we’re not supposed to “like” everyone. We can love everyone from a soul perspective but we don’t have to like everyone from a personality perspective. There are over 8 billion of us and we’re all unique…we’re not all supposed to think the same way, do things the same way or enjoy spending time with each other.

We can also hang out with different people for different reasons. Sometimes we can hang out with people to enjoy like-minded conversations and perspectives. Sometimes we can expose ourselves to new people and perspectives and sometimes we can hang out with people to simply relax, have fun and not be so serious all the time.

Whatever the intention is, pick people that treat you the way you’d like to be treated…with respect. No one likes to be disrespected. Respect is a foundation for any healthy relationship. We are not “martyrs” if we spend our time with people who put us down or don’t appreciate us…we are simply low on self-love. If there is enough self-love we don’t put up with poor treatment and the help we do give others is actually appreciated.

Be honest with yourself, are you being treated the way you want to be? If not, it’s time to set some
boundaries and see who can make the adjustments and who will fade away. To be clear the way others
treat us is our responsibility, we have to set the standard. It’s not another’s responsibility to figure us
out, or to “use common sense” like many seem to say. That’s just passing the buck. Other people are
living their lives from their perspective and we’re living our lives from ours. It’s our responsibility to
teach others how to treat us. They can’t stop their lives every time they interact with us, climb into our
shoes and determine how to treat us. What is capturing their attention at any given moment is quite
often different than what’s capturing ours because of our different perspectives. Also, most of the
world is functioning from an unconscious place…they’re not fully aware of what they’re doing or why
they’re doing it. They may be unconsciously putting you down as a defense mechanism because they
don’t have confidence in themselves. Boundaries can still be put in place to handle this scenario.
Once boundaries are in place, it’s amazing how someone’s behavior will change…or they simply seem to
not be around as much…which is cool too! Everything in spirituality is a win/win…that’s how you know
it’s dealing with the eternal and not the transitory. When you set healthy boundaries people either
treat you better or they’re not around…either way it’s a win/win! Why would you want to spend much
time with someone that doesn’t treat you well? Because they are family? A friend? You’ve known
them a long time? There is no good reason to be treated poorly. If they’re incapable of respecting you,
there’s no reason to spend a lot of time with them.

Continuing to spend time with someone that doesn’t treat you well even after boundaries have been
put in place is simply keeping you stuck. It is you choosing to accept poor treatment and that is only a result of low levels of self-esteem and self-love. All work is inside work. Work on yourself, raise the standards for yourself, require healthier treatment and fill your tribe with people that help you expand!