Self Worth

It's been said that people will only treat you the way you allow yourself to be

treated. If you're in a bad relationship, or if your friends rip on you all the time,

you must not like yourself very much. If you did, you wouldn't be in that

relationship, and you wouldn't have those friends.

Though you can't control how any certain individual treats you, you can control who you allow to be in your life. Those who are closest to you affect your world. Jack Canfield says that the 5 people closest to you ARE you. If you combine the qualities of all of them, you get you.

Think of who is closest to you...who you talk to every day. Are those people happy, successful, in loving relationships, positive about life? If not, why are they the closest to you?

Some people feel that it's more important to be needed than to be happy. They usually get treated poorly. They have the kind of friends who thrive on drama, or need money they never pay back, or favors they never return. You can tell a lot about a person by their friends.

This is not to say that the minute a friend of yours has a problem, you should never ever talk to them again. It's great to help people, but the drains should never be in your closest circle. You'll spend your whole life so worried about helping them be better, that you'll become more like them in the process. You won't have much positive to say. You'll lose focus of your own hopes, dreams, and goals, and you won't be much fun to be around. Then, when you need something, those people just won't be there. They're too used to you being the strong one, the provider, the shoulder to lean on. It may not even occur to them that you would ever truly need anything. Don't be an uneccessary martyr.

When you speak to someone on the phone, after you hang up, how do you feel? This is the easiest way to tell who is a drain and who should be in your closest circle. If you feel lifted, happy, make more time for that person. If you feel deflated, worried, or even a little depressed, allow some distance to develop between you and that person. You're not abandoning anyone, you're just letting them find their own strength, rather than being there to wipe their nose every time they sneeze.

Self-worth means that you would never allow anyone to treat you worse than you would treat them. Not even if you really really love them.