In my opinion, we all want love, to be respected, to be seen as a valued member of society, to be 
included in life. It’s as simple and can be as difficult as that!!
It can also feel though that you have to give up something of yourselves in order to get one or all of those wants met.
Similarities
I don’t know anyone who, at some time or another, has not had issues with their partner or their parents or their children or their job or living life in general.
So these are also similarities that we all have.
Empower
And some of us empower ourselves by using whatever our issues are with ourselves, and also others in order to be more of ourselves in the world.
Choices
How this comes about is by you making your choices, whether right or wrong, and taking responsibility for them. It’s about you stopping blaming others or the events in your life or using your stories to tell yourself or anyone else that you or they can’t risk doing whatever it is they want to do!!
Your roots or your past are what made you, however, much you may try to deny them and so it is then your choice on how you turn your face to the world and move on in whatever way you choose to do that.
Tough Love
After my time in Intensive Care, I needed to turn my face from the world for a while as I needed to withdraw from life. I needed to do this in order to heal and the ordeal I’d been through caused me to find the anger, or caged tiger, within as I saw more clearly the meaning of my life. That time of withdrawal has given me gratitude for life, and also the courage to challenge the system or the norm and come from a place of ‘tough love’. It means that I do care and I’m not attached to that caring. Those who know or work with me may not always like this because I don’t express the normal way of caring. I don’t play the game anymore!! I know that I come from a place of love and hold life as sacred and want for you to live the life you are capable of and not hide yourself away. This is my want for you!!!
So remember that You are unique – there is no one else like you and what you are here to do is express that uniqueness by being yourself. It is so simple and we make it so complicated.
Thanks for sharing this Irene. With similarities, I often wonder what people observe and what they assume. As in “Oh look, that person has a red dress on, they must like red and if they like red they’re just like me a red dress, loving vegetarian that eats chicken…”. Does one similarity mean many others are assumed in finding that common connection?
What a good question, Sarah, thank you. Yes this can be an assumption made and that’s why we can feel let down when the behaviour doesn’t match up to our expectations and can be so pleased with ourself when it does! It may even cause dislike of the person/thing because of the thread matching/not matching. We are so complicated!! xx