Respect Yourself

Respect Yourself is a song title by the Staple Singers from back in the 70s.  And its not a very easy concept to apply to real life.  One of the hardest things we do, or don't do, is respect ourselves.  There are moments when it is very hard to draw a line and say "enough!" 

If you disrespect anybody  

That you run in to 

How in the world do you think  

Anybody's s'posed to respect you? 

I was thinking this thought at 4am as I have a friend who I believe is disrespected by their spouse (based on things I'm told).  And in my opinion, needs to stand up and say "respect me, or I'll leave" -- and then follow through.  Thinking that brought my back around to my own divorce.  At what point in a relationship do you finally realize that the lack of respect for you also means you're lacking your own self respect?  When someone treats you badly on a regular basis, and you accept that as how things are, isn't that the point when you've lost your self respect?  

When I finally decided to leave my ex, it was because his behavior made it a choice of my own self respect, or accepting how I was being treated.  It came down to this:  Do I stay and let the person who is supposed to be my most significant be the one who causes me to be someone I don't like any longer?  Or do I leave, standing up for myself and the respect that I deserved from a marriage?  

On Wikihow, I found this:  A person with self respect doesn't allow others to treat them badly, and would rather not associate with someone who is disrespectful. This might seem obvious, but there are many times when we accept being treated badly (in both big and small ways) because we believe the person doesn't know any better, or because we're not willing to let that person go, or because we're too down on ourselves to believe we deserve better. When someone doesn't give you basic respect, you need to be able to say, in one way or another, "You just disrespected me and that's not acceptable to me. If you don't respect me, I won't spend time with you anymore."

What's worse for my own self respect is finally realizing that after all this time, I've been letting a friend disrespect me, and that I allowed it, thus disrespecting my self as well.  But I chose to accept the reasons, the excuses, the omittance of facts and ignored my own values for a while.  Eventually it all comes down to a choice:  your own personal values and morals, or theirs.


The more you understand about yourself, the more you'll see and appreciate how unique you really are, and the more you'll respect yourself. Discover your principles, personality, and talents. Stop pandering to other people's approval and start developing your own standards.

Respect Yourself!

(ok, 430am, time to go back to sleep!)