I posted something on Facebook recently that came to me as part of something else. It was “A taker can never receive what has not been given” and I should have added “freely” to that. It came from another thought: “I belong to me exclusively / I can share myself if and when I choose / No one can take what is mine.”

Remember when in Dracula movies he always had to be invited in? That was a creative way of saying that no one can take your power without you being willing to do so first. I’m talking about people who have convinced themselves that someone else has control over their lives. That control was given by you and no one else; the person was no one with extra powers of persuasion or charisma. You were first of all seeking whatever was being offered – which is what drew that element to you in the first place.

No one person can start a relationship – that’s called stalking. It takes someone offering and the other accepting to form it. It’s why abuse works. Sometimes it can be said that the abuse comes unexpectedly. In that case, the wise thing to do is end it immediately, no forgiveness and understanding involved. Why? Because that forgiveness and understanding gives consent for the abuse to continue and eventually escalate.

No one can affect you emotionally or verbally unless you yourself believe whatever it is that is being said or done (because secretly it’s what you want to hear). The Cinderella syndrome and other similar ideals have a lot of people caught off guard because of the belief in finding happiness and a wonderful life through someone else. There is not one soul to bring you that happiness because they exist – many more factors go into that, the strongest of course being love.

I always believed that no one can truly love another without a willingness to be everything they can be (not something fake) to not only fulfill their own goals and desires, but to share and include that love with others they care about. Pretending does not make one happy if having children, for example, is not what you want but is what your partner wants; and you desire more to make your partner’s goal come true than you desire to make yours come true. Don’t do it – you will hurt everybody in the process, yourself included, and especially that child that you did not want.

Make sure you know in your heart what it is you want out of life before including others in it.