By Lady Saoirse
Bright Blessings,
I don’t know about you, but I’m sick to death of seeing people make stupid decisions, get screwed for it, and then say that they were just “trying to be nice.” I hurt for people who have been taught from the time that they were children that they have to accommodate everybody to their own detriment. It also makes me sad to see people who don’t know the difference between self-sacrifice and lack of self-love.
Let’s break down what it means to actually be nice and then what it means to say you’re being nice but it’s actually not nice. Being nice is just being considerate. It is important to be considerate, and caring, and courteous of other people’s needs, views, and feelings. That is being nice. When doing things for other people compromises you so badly that it’s not nice to you, you’re not being nice to them, you’re either being stupid or you’re being taken advantage of.
Growing up, I was taught that my personal needs did not matter at all, and it was selfish and unkind of me to think that they did. So, I get it. I’ve been there. There comes a day when you have to wake up though and realize that you matter just as much as anybody else. Someone who tells you that there are degrees of importance that different people take is full of shit. They are not qualified to decide things if that’s their attitude, so don’t listen to them.
So if somebody tells you to “be nice” and have sex with them when you don’t want to – don’t “be nice” and give in. If somebody tells you to “be nice” and eat their birthday cake when you’re not supposed to have that cake, don’t “be nice.” If somebody tells you to “be nice” and not take up for yourself, don’t “be nice.” Take up for yourself.
Being courteous of other people has to balance with being courteous of yourself. If things that you do for other people compromise you, it’s not being nice. There comes a time when we do have to make sacrifices, but people will push your boundaries if you let them. Your family member who would rather stay stoned than work will take every last penny you have if you will give it to them. They will not care if you can’t pay your bills, and maybe some other family members who want to enable that won’t either. You are helping anybody and you are also not pleasing any god, even the Christian god, if you turn yourself into a doormat. Remember he said not to cast your pearls before the swine.
I spent more than 30 years of my young life being overly accommodating because that is how I was programmed to be. I’m not sure what the wake-up call was. I don’t know what event caused me to be sick of it, but I’d say by the time I was 40, I was done, and it was no more “Miss nice witch”. Don’t get me wrong. I still like to do things for people. I still like to make people happy, because I appreciate it when people do things for me. I am not going to be used, abused, or disrespected by being a doormat, though.
You shouldn’t either.
So, how do you know how to balance doing for other people with not being used? You can always ask yourself if what they want you to do is really necessary and if you’re the only one that can do it for them. You could also refuse to do things for people that they would refuse to do for you. You could also ask yourself if you really want to do what they’re asking, and if you don’t, tell them you’re sorry and perhaps someone else can help them. One of the ways that people sucker us into doing things that we don’t have any business doing for them is that they convince us that we’re the only person in the whole wide world that can help them and if we don’t their life will just be destroyed.
That is almost never the case, but if it is, well maybe that’s ok. See? I told you it’s no more “Miss nice witch” for me. I was someone who would be woken up out of a dead sleep when I had to work the next day to do something that didn’t need done for people. I’m someone who married an abuser- and is thankfully divorced from him. I’m someone who would put strangers in my car and take them wherever they wanted to go because I felt like I had to do things for people.
If I can pull myself out of that mindset and think of myself as often as other people, anybody can. It’s very difficult at first and the guilt might feel like it’s killing you. It won’t kill you. Just tolerate it for a while. The right people will recognize that your needs matter and respect you. Your life will get better because that’s the way magic works when you know the difference between actually being nice and being used.
So, no “Miss Nice Witch”, ok?
Blessed Be!
Lady Saoirse has studied magic and lore for most of her life but started walking her own magical path after being spiritually reborn in the desert. Today she is a High Priestess for The Temple of the Goddess, she is a psychic advisor and spiritual counselor, she is a member of the spiritual family at the Magical Druid in Ohio, and she shares her gifts as a Psychic and Content Writer for SpiritualBlossom and Mysticsense and she writes for PaganPages.Org emag.