Dear Anita

”I am thrilled that you started your own thread. In the past, when I read your posts in others’ threads,  I thought of you as an exceptionally decent, kind, generous and intelligent person, and I wished that I could communicate with you. My wish just came true and therefore, I am thrilled!”

This is so kind – thank you. The feeling is mutual. The time you take to help people is extraordinarily generous and your insights are so on point. Thank you for taking the time to piece together all the information from my posts, I am not surprised it took you hours! It was helpful for me to read as a collation.

I agree that the attitude of being grateful for everything and not expecting too much needs to be put to death and I like those choice of words. In fact I was just reflecting to a friend last night that, again, I have had enough of settling for scraps, not only in terms of romance but basic accessibility and supports. The context was that I had showered and got into bed and was saying how nice it was to be able to do so because  last winter I was having to use the showers at my workplace because I didn’t have a shower I could use at my own home. Wheelchair accessible housing is almost non-existent here and I couldn’t find one to rent, so I had to settle for an apartment with a non-accessible bathroom until a friend of mine happened to have a room come up in her accessible home (Which her parents own and renovated for her) where I now live. Anyway, I share that because my instinct again last night was to feel gratitude for no longer having to shower at work, but I am tired of having to be grateful for having my most basic of needs met and that same principle transfers to relationships too.

So next question is, how to start killing this attitude off? I started reading a book on self love that suggests that the key from going from “I have had enough (of having low self love) to “I am enough” is to imagine oneself in a situation where self worth is low, then imagine the same situation but in a state of “I am enough”; to think about how one would be moving, what one would be saying and how, how one would speak, how one would be breathing. And to repeat this 10 times daily, the idea being that this will “rewire” the brain and eventually you will actually act feel like that in that situation. I am keen to give this a try but also feel such exercises don’t acknowledge the structural barriers perpetuating this attitude. For example, the government continuing not to invest in accessible housing to me says “People like me don’t matter” on a structural level, so how do I reconcile “I am enough” when the way the world is built says otherwise? Your insights welcome. No rush to reply though. Thank you again for taking the time!