Gratitude and Trust: Six Affirmations That Will Change Your Life

Change, Emotions, Letting Go, Longing

GOLDEN CRUMBS

 

Many years ago I had a friend named George. George had been through a lot of therapy. It was before most people had. He was full of ideas and theories. And despite his own life being a bit askew he always had a cure for yours.

Sometimes you just had to let it go in one ear and out the other. And there were other times where George was the conveyor of some true wisdom.

I remember once when I was stuck again in yet another dead end relationship. I was unhappy yet trying to justify the other person’s poor and neglectful behavior. George looked at me and said

“When are you going to stop settling for golden crumbs.”

I had never heard this phrase before. Golden crumbs. He continued. Now with more enthusiasm and a deeper baritone, as I was actually listening to him for a change. “People toss a few golden crumbs your way and you go about trying to make a meal of it. You will never get what you want from them. Yet you settle for these little nuggets, and turn them into gold. It will never work, Tracey. You deserve more than crumbs. But until you believe that crumbs you will take golden crumbs.”

I have gone back to this time and time again over the years. While I listened to George in that moment; It took me many years of my own therapy until I was able to take what he said to heart and implement it in my life.

But despite all these years there are times when I still do it. There are relationships in my life I am so desperate to work out the way I want, I take every crumb tossed my way as a sign that the person might be different than who they are. And with just a little patience and more understanding and accommodation from me those crumbs will suddenly turn into a giant cake.

Well, you know what – it just doesn’t happen.

It only happens if the person doling out the crumbs decides to go to the cooking school of life and learn how to cook authenticity and empathy.

There are people capable of giving others a full course meal and for whatever reason they just don’t feel you worthy of their emotional culinary skills.

Either way, you only have two choices. You come to the conclusion that you are worthy of more than crumbs and you take yourself elsewhere for nourishment. Or you accept the crumb tosser’s limitations, and understand you are never going to get from them what you need and merit.

But don’t sit around expecting it either.

It’s always in the expectation that the pain lives.

The two word text our mind can turn in to a sonnet.

The lie we know is a lie but we pretend is the truth.

A few moments of someone’s time that we hold up as a sign of their devotion. And end up making excuses as to why they are so busy they cannot possibly have time for anything, us included.

And today with all the technology golden crumbs are easier to manufacture. Phone calls don’t have to be made. Language, one of the great transmitters of feelings and intent has been reduced to letters.

A belly laugh is now LOL. A heart felt thank you. THX. CUSoon.

I love you. Xoxoxoox. And then those stupid mojis. Smiley faces have stepped in to express our feelings for us and make them all generic.

The point is, how many of us undervalue our worth and accept golden crumbs?  How many of us want something so badly we are able to let our imaginations spin those crumbs into cake?  How many of us have lived on golden crumbs from all sorts of people in our lives and wondered what is wrong with us? And why are we always hungry for more?

So take a look at your life and the people in it.  See if you can identify the crumb tossers.  If they are important to you, then you need to find a way to deal with them and lower your expectations.  If they are not vital to you then you don’t need them around.

Man cannot live on crumbs.

Souls cannot be nourished by crumbs.

Even mounds of crumbs eventually crumble. That is what they are meant to do.