"I find with Baggage Reclaim, that there becomes a theme to the types of stories that people are sharing with me or a common thread in what it is that keeps each person stuck with their thinking and behaviour, and so far this year, that theme is obligation and entitlement. We’re either feeling duty bound even when we’re not, or we’re cycling through a thought process that rests on this sense that we’ve been and done all of the things that we feel that we’re ‘supposed’ to in order to have got what we desire and it hasn’t worked out, hence we conclude that we’ve either been robbed or that it must be due to us not being “good enough” in some way.
Due to having an overactive guilt thyroid, many of us end up being burdened with duties and this perennial sense of obligation to be and do the things that will ‘please’ others, often at our own expense. This in itself actually taps into the issue of entitlement, what we believe certain things that we are or do give us a right to receive or do. For instance, when we’re a pleaser, there is at the bare minimum, an underlying expectation that in exchange for suppressing ourselves and catering to other people’s needs, expectations, feelings, opinions, and wishes, that in turn, we will receive validation, attention, love etc, or we’ll at the very least minimise or outright avoid conflict, criticism, disappointment, and rejection. We spend our time being and doing the things that we feel constitute a “good person” or a “good girlfriend/boyfriend”, even if some of those things involve us not having boundaries, and then we feel cheated that we’ve gone to these lengths and that people haven’t reciprocated to the same degree.
Many of us carry the belief that if we love someone, that it entitles us to their reciprocation, especially in situations where our lack of boundaries is causing us to effectively punch below our weight with someone who doesn’t treat and regard us as the worthwhile and valuable person that we are. That’s why, when they move on, it’s, What the what now? I can’t believe that you don’t want me! There’s also the belief that love gives us the power to change a person or that if a person claims to have feelings for us, that this ‘should’ give us the right to change them too."
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