I always used to think actually, I still think sometimes that why do people treat me like a piece of garbage?

Why do I end up being the one people talk down to, take for granted or simply walk over as if I don’t have feelings?

I mean, I’m not treating them that way.

I try to understand where they’re coming from.

I try to be patient to see beyond their words, beyond their behavior.

I tell myself, “Maybe they’re just having a bad day” or “Maybe they didn’t mean it like that”

I try to hold space for people for their pain, their flaws, their chaos.

I listen. I forgive. I let go.

And even when I’m hurting inside, I convince myself that staying kind, staying calm is strength.

But deep down, I often wonder – why does it feel like I’m the only one who tries?

Why do people take my silence as weakness, my kindness as naivety, my forgiveness as permission to keep doing it again?

Why does empathy start feeling like self-sabotage?

And one day, the answer hit me because I allowed them to.

It wasn’t an easy truth to swallow. It still stings every time I think about it.

Because it’s not like I woke up one day and said, “Sure, go ahead and disrespect me”

No, it happened in small, quiet ways.

It happened when I laughed off the rude comment instead of addressing it.

When I said “it’s fine” even though my heart was screaming “it’s not.”

When I prioritized peace over boundaries not realizing that peace without boundaries is just silent chaos.

It sounds harsh, doesn’t it? Like I’m blaming myself for how others behaved. But I’m not.

I’m just finally realizing that when you don’t draw the line, people will keep crossing it.

When you don’t speak up, silence becomes your language.

And when you keep choosing to understand others while neglecting to understand yourself, you slowly disappear in the process.

Every time I said, “It’s okay,” when it clearly wasn’t, I was teaching them something.

I was teaching them that I’ll stay. That I’ll tolerate. That I’ll keep showing up even when they don’t.

Without realizing it, I was setting the standard for how people could treat me.

And that’s the hardest truth to accept that what you allow is what will continue.

The Subtle Ways We Teach People to Disrespect Us

It never happens overnight.

It’s never one big explosion that shatters everything, it’s a slow burn, a gradual erosion.

It starts small.

A sarcastic comment you let slide because you don’t want to seem “too sensitive.”

A small lie you choose to ignore because “everyone lies sometimes”

An apology that never comes but you forgive anyway because holding grudges feels heavy.

You tell yourself it’s not worth the drama, not worth the fight, not worth losing someone over.

You convince yourself, “It’s not a big deal”

And maybe it isn’t, not that first time. But the thing about small cracks is, if you don’t seal them, they spread.

So you bend a little. Then a little more.

Until one day, you realize you’ve twisted yourself into shapes just to fit into spaces that were never meant for you.

And the worst part? You start thinking that’s normal.

You start showing up for people who never even look for you.

You write long texts that get one-word replies.

You apologize for things that weren’t your fault, just to keep the peace.

You over-explain your intentions to people who were committed to misunderstanding you from the start.

And slowly the light in you, the one that once burned bright with self-worth starts to flicker.

You tell yourself this must be what love looks like: effort, understanding, sacrifice.

This must be what friendship feels like: one person giving a little more, forgiving a little faster, staying a little longer.

You start believing that maybe this imbalance, this quiet ache, this constant explaining is just part of being a “good person”

But it’s not.

It’s not love. It’s not understanding. It’s not kindness.

It’s exhaustion. It’s self-abandonment dressed as empathy.

It’s the silent deal you make with yourself to keep everyone else comfortable, even if it means you stop being at peace.

And that’s the painful truth when you confuse understanding others with betraying yourself,

you don’t lose them first.

You lose you.

The Awakening

The shift happens quietly.

It’s not dramatic like in movies no big confrontation, no sudden burst of rage, no teary breakdown.

It’s subtle, almost invisible.

It’s that one ordinary day when someone crosses the line again, says something careless again, takes you for granted again and instead of getting angry, you just feel… tired.

Tired in your bones.

Tired of being the one who understands every time.

Tired of overthinking what you could’ve done differently.

Tired of shrinking yourself just to keep the peace.

Tired of losing pieces of who you are in the name of being “good”

And that kind of tired isn’t just about exhaustion, it’s about awakening.

Because somewhere between all those deep breaths and forced smiles, something shifts.

You stop waiting for people to realize your worth.

You stop hoping that one day they’ll see how much effort you put in, how many times you stayed silent, how often you chose kindness over pride.

It dawns on you almost painfully that you’ve been waiting for them to change when all along, the real change was supposed to start with you.

You realize that “understanding others” doesn’t mean excusing their behavior.

That “forgiveness” doesn’t mean continued access and that “kindness” doesn’t mean sacrificing your peace.

That’s when the definition of boundaries starts to change in your mind.

You stop seeing them as walls – cold, rigid, isolating. You start seeing them as doors with locks.

Doors that you control.

You decide who gets a key.

You decide when to open, when to close and when to never answer again.

Because protecting your peace isn’t selfish, it’s sacred.

It’s the quiet art of loving yourself the way you once loved others – unconditionally, completely and without apology.

The Philosophy of Allowing

I’ve learned that life always reflects what we tolerate.

It’s a mirror – one that doesn’t lie even when we wish it did.

This is Kaliyug. People think they are gods. That whatever they say, whatever they do, however they treat others is automatically correct.

They don’t even realize that in the process, they’ve lost what God intended for humans to be.

We all know that Narayan took human avatars to teach humanity how to live, how to behave as humans.

But did we learn? No.

We became gods and God became a murti. We started doing pooja, rituals, chanting mantras but never once took the teachings to heart.

We never behaved like humans.

And the most painful part? This loss of basic decency isn’t coming from the uneducated or the unaware.

It’s coming from the highly educated, the privileged, the ones who have everything they dreamed of yet cannot remember how to be humane.

The ones whose achievements and knowledge have made them forget compassion, humility and empathy.

And here’s the connection I’ve realized: life mirrors exactly what you tolerate.

If you allow disrespect, it threads itself into every conversation, hidden in jokes, disguised as “just how they are”

If you allow inconsistency, it slowly becomes your normal, you start adjusting to absence, normalizing silence, convincing yourself that uncertainty is better than loneliness.

If you allow chaos, peace begins to feel like a luxury – something meant for others, never quite within your reach.

But the beautiful and brutal truth is this: the moment you start honoring your worth, life starts honoring it too.

The universe doesn’t listen to excuses, apologies or rationalizations. It listens to energy.

And when you quietly shift your standard, when you decide you’re no longer available for half-hearted efforts, one-sided relationships or conditional love – the entire rhythm of your life begins to change.

It’s like telling life, “I’m done settling. I’m done shrinking. I’m ready for what aligns not what almost fits”

And life, in its mysterious stubborn way rearranges itself to meet that new frequency.

People fall away, yes but so does the confusion.

Doors close but only so better ones can open.

Because when you rise in self-respect, everything that doesn’t match that energy naturally falls away.

It’s not about becoming cold; it’s about becoming clear.

Clarity has a warmth of its own – quiet, steady, grounded.

It’s not about revenge; it’s about recognition – recognizing your own patterns, your worth, your breaking points and your boundaries.

It’s not about building walls; it’s about building wisdom, learning where to pour your love and where to pause it.

Because peace isn’t something you demand from others.

It begins the moment you stop negotiating it within yourself.

And this Diwali, I choose light for me.

God gave me a second chance to choose peace, self-respect, dignity and love and I’m not letting it go not even for the ones I truly love and care.

Because this time, my heart is my guide, my boundaries are my lantern and my soul is no longer for anyone else to dim.

Healing Is a Form of Remembering

Healing isn’t just about forgiving others.

It’s about finding your way back to yourself, the parts of you that you buried to make others comfortable.

It’s remembering who you were before the world told you to quiet your laughter, to dim your light, to make yourself smaller so someone else could feel big.

Healing is rebellion in the softest form.

It’s looking at the mirror and saying, “I deserve to take up space”

It’s choosing to open your heart again but this time, with wisdom, not wounds.

It’s learning that your softness is not your weakness; it’s your superpower.

It takes strength to stay gentle in a world that tried to harden you.

Healing is loving people deeply but also loving yourself enough to walk away when love starts feeling like pain disguised as loyalty.

It’s realizing that staying silent to keep the peace only creates war within yourself.

It’s understanding that you don’t have to earn kindness, chase affection or prove your worth through endless patience or availability.

Because you were never meant to beg for respect.

You were meant to embody it – quietly, powerfully, unapologetically.

When you start valuing your energy, you stop over explaining it.

When you start listening to your intuition, you stop accepting things that make you question your peace.

Healing isn’t loud. It doesn’t always come with closure or apologies.

Sometimes it’s just a quiet moment – a deep breath, a new boundary, a softer “no.”

It’s when you stop chasing what breaks you and start choosing what builds you.

Because the moment you stop allowing what hurts you, you start allowing what heals you.

And that’s where real peace begins not when life becomes perfect but when you finally remember you were never broken.

“What you allow is what will continue”

It sounds simple, almost too simple but the truth usually is.

It’s uncomfortable because it holds a mirror to our own choices, the kind we often avoid looking at.

You can’t always control how people treat you – their words, their moods, their patterns.

But you can absolutely control what you accept, what you respond to and what you keep making excuses for.

Every time you let disrespect slide because “it’s not worth the argument,”

every time you forgive without change because “they didn’t mean it,”

every time you silence your pain just to keep the peace, you teach people that it’s okay to cross your boundaries.

And slowly without realizing it, you start normalizing what should’ve never been normal in the first place.

You can’t rewrite what happened.

You can’t go back and unlive the moments when you stayed quiet or kept giving chances that drained you.

But you can decide what happens next.

You can decide that you’re done mistaking endurance for strength.

You can decide that being kind doesn’t mean being a doormat.

You can decide that peace matters more than pleasing.

Because when you change what you allow, you change everything.

People start noticing the difference not because they’ve changed but because you have.

Your silence turns into boundaries.

Your patience turns into standards.

Your energy becomes sacred again.

And yes, it’s not easy. Growth never is.

There will be guilt, there will be doubt and there will be moments when the old you wants to come back just to keep everyone comfortable.

But that’s exactly when you remind yourself – you’re not doing this to be liked, you’re doing this to be free.

Because the truth is, peace doesn’t arrive when life stops being messy.

It begins the moment you stop tolerating what keeps you in chaos.

✨ Peace begins where your tolerance ends.

And this Diwali, I choose light for myself.

God gave me a second chance to choose peace, self-respect, dignity and love and I’m not letting it go this time.

Because the brightest light isn’t in the diyas we light outside, it’s in the boundaries we honor within 🌙✨