"Never, not ever again," is what you swore the last time this happened.

A few weeks ago I watched this bizarre movie, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I wasn't really a fan of the movie; honestly, it was weird and boring. It did, though, have a few significant points in it that turned out to be significant life lessons. There was one quote in particular that I've been thinking a lot about. At one point in the movie, Hermione (that's not her name in the movie, but being a Harry Potter geek I can't think of her as anything else) gives a speech about how horrible she's been treated. 

The response she gets cut me to the core. 

He could have said something along the lines of, "because those people are awful, all men are jerks, people suck," that sort of thing. Instead, he points out that we choose to let people like that in our lives. If we are surrounded in people who treat us like we're nothing, it's because we think we deserve to be treated the way they are treating us. We have power over being treated like dirt. We can choose to not allow people in our lives who belittle us. The answer is confidence. We have to demand respect. If we think so little of ourselves as to believe that people who lie to us, cheat on us, and walk away from us are people who "love" us, it is because we don't have the respect we need to have for ourselves. 

I have been through a lot lately. I have been lied to, cheated on, belittled, and ridiculed by people who I thought "loved" me. I've been hurt. I've spent nights laying awake wondering why I wasn't good enough. I'm the kind of person who loves with my whole heart. When I commit, I am 100% in. I would do anything for the people I love. Lately, that love has been mocked. It's been taken advantage of. My heart has been stepped on and my soul has been crushed. I don't mean to be dramatic, but I've been treated so bad it almost felt like people in my life were out to hurt me intentionally, like a sport. A game. 

I allowed myself to believe it was something that was out of my control. That the universe hated me and wanted me to be miserable no matter how hard I tried to do things right. It handed me everything I wanted and then ripped it away time and time again. I couldn't understand it. 

After hearing that quote, "we accept the love we think we deserve", I realized it wasn't the universe at all. It was me. It was me allowing people in my life who treated me like I was nothing. It was having such low self esteem that these people who so-called "loved" me treated me terribly; it was the love I thought I deserved. 

I've come to realize that I deserve better than that, we all do. I deserve to be loved genuinely, for exactly who I am. I don't have to look at the other people around me and wonder what they have that I don't. I am enough. Anyone who doesn't believe so doesn't deserve a place in my heart, and they don't in yours either. I have a lot of love to give, but I deserve that same love in return. Never again will I settle for those who treat me like I'm nothing. If we think we deserve to be treated like we're nothing, that is the type of love we will accept. At the same time, if we think we deserve the world, THAT is the type of love we will accept. I deserve the world, and so do you.

Think about it.