Sunday Morning Coffee Musings: Beg No One

Beg no one for anything, especially love. -Toni Morrison

Can I tell you something? When I was younger and crazy in love (See, that was the problem. Crazy and love do not belong together), I begged a guy not to leave me. Why would I tell you that or anyone that? Because there are many who have begged someone in more ways than literally begging. And because I share it to let other women and men, young adults know that you should never beg another human being for love or to stay in a relationship or marriage they don’t want to be in. I want them to know that self love, self esteem isn’t something that you either have or not. I want them to know that some people believe they love themselves and have a healthy amount of self esteem until they find themselves losing a love they thought was solid. Self esteem and self love can be built and rebuilt.

Love is in the air. Let’s start there because Valentine’s Day is this week. Why do people beg a person to stay? You may think, desperation. Low self esteem. No self love. And you may be right. But people may beg because of the pain they feel is unbearable. They may beg because what they saw as stable, is becoming unstable and they become unstable. They may beg because, “How could you do this to me, to us, the children?” They may beg to not see their family or heart torn into pieces. And note, some don’t beg literally. Some beg by throwing temper tantrums. Some beg by cutting off financial streams to provide for the family. Some beg with anger and lashing out. Some beg by doing something absolutely foolish and destructive. And sometimes this works because the other person wants the drama to stop and sometimes the other person is just as chaotic as the person they are trying to leave and it becomes a dangerous game of break ups and make ups.

Let’s be clear. “Please, don’t leave. Can we work it out?” is not begging. “Why? What did I do? Is it me?” is not begging. “Please, don’t tear our family apart” is not begging. If you have ever been blindsided or if you have problems in your relationship and you two can talk or work it out, it has to begin with a conversation. Saying I am sad, this hurts is not weakness. It is not begging. Having a broken heart is not weakness. It’s when a person has laid out why or simply, “I don’t want to be with you” is how things can become ugly if you lose your center. If you become ungrounded, you become unglued. It is when things get “clouded” when people lose their way. Even allowing a heartbreak to cause you to become jaded and guarded for the rest of your life is a sad way to live in my opinion. You may say, “I was angry. That’s why I did this or that.” I agree. Pain can facilitate anger. We say and we do things we may have never said or did out of anger. We say and we do things we would never do if we knew how to handle it better or if we were simply more mature at the time.

I wish I could tell you it was the last time I begged. And I can’t tell you why other people begged or did things out of anger. I can only speculate. But when I first looked back on those moments, I cringed. Now, I don’t because I know why and I know others keep this part of their life secret because they, too, cringe. Women aren’t the only ones who do things out of being “scorned”. I have been on the other end of someone begging me to stay and some very serious stalker situations. And yes, some very scary anger situations from a few guys.

I can tell you when I first started doing the brave work to understanding myself better, when I started to grow as person, when I started to do spiritual work and to read books, I started to see the gaps in my life. I started to understand how I felt and why I felt it. I started to realized what my problems were when it came to many things and especially when it came to love. And I can tell you when you start to explore certain things about your behavior, thought process, and do reflective work, it can be complicated and it takes years to understand yourself because we are complex beings and yet, simple. I had a self love and self esteem problems. It wasn’t until I was 30 when I vowed to never, ever, ever, beg, act desperately, or do something crazy or against who I really was at the core, to KEEP love.

Check out my series about a deeper self love on this blog

https://nikkisconfettilife.com/2022/02/01/28-days-of-real-self-love/

It starts with day 1 and goes to 28.

~Nikki