Saturday, July 13, 2019

Finding Strength Within

Finding Strength Within

Hello guys! My name is Aspen Anderson and I am one of Mitchell’s “sisters”. This week I decided to give Mitchie a much needed break and takeover the blog. He is currently in North Carolina right now on vacation and I am here in boring old Columbus, Ohio. Just kidding, it’s not too bad *insert nervous laughter*. Anyway, I think this blog is an awesome platform Mitchell has created and I am honored to be able to partake in this component of his Greattastic adventure. In this blog, I thought I would share a bit of my experience when it comes to relationships with others, but most importantly yourself.


I am relatively young, and hopefully still have a long and eventful life ahead of me, but so far one would think my mistakes and obstacles have been/are at a minimum. I suppose this is true, but recently I have been analyzing my past decisions and choices, not to define myself by these, but to observe, learn, and grow from them. One that stands out to me in particular, would be when I made the decision of entering into an unhealthy and toxic relationship, which I would later learn taught me one of the most important lessons of my life so far.


Relationships are a necessary and essential aspect in one’s life. People are able to connect on an emotional, spiritual, and physical level, allowing growth both as individuals and as a society. However, on the other hand relationships can also turn into harmful situations, similar to that of the self centered relationships we see today. First relationships always have that negative connotation of being awkward, short, or experimental but my first relationship was unfortunately, not like this at all.


The guy I was “dating” was involved in the wrong crowd, the wrong substances, basically the wrong everything. Needless to say it took a toll on my health in all aspects; it ruined friendships, it broke bonds with family members, loss of work, and the list goes on. Despite all the chaos my life had now become, I found peace and strength not only through God’s blessing of an amazing support system, but also accepting that this awful situation taught me more about myself and that it needed to happen in order for me to get to where I should be; mentally, physically, and spiritually. I am still working on getting to that point but this relationship and its after effects allowed me to grow in ways I never thought possible. For example, the relationship was based on both parties, but mainly myself, being extremely insecure and feeling like I needed the toxic relationship as a result of him making me feel wanted, beautiful, and worthy. These attributes are something that another person cannot give you. They might be able to give you a false sense of security, but if you are not happy with yourself, then how can you expect to be happy with someone else?


To some degree, we all struggle to love ourselves. In our society, it is hard not to be insecure especially with the unreachable standards we feel compelled to follow. This relationship allowed me to see that the relationship with self is so important, if not the most important relationship. I was able to realize my worth, my value, and learn to respect myself.
 It was through that difficult and unfortunate situation that I was able to grow and try to help others see their value as well. In conclusion, know that you are an amazing individual that deserves love and respect from others, but most importantly yourself.

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