Even kind hearts have limits you can give, forgive and show up for people time and time again but there comes a point where enough is enough, writes Ruta Mave.

You hit your tolerance level and you can no longer breathe so as the airline says you have to put on your own oxygen mask first before you can help anyone else no matter how much you care.

Being a good person doesn’t mean tolerating disrespect or being taken for granted. Eventually you have to protect your own peace despite how much you give. Walking away from something does not make you cold. It means you finally chose yourself and there is nothing wrong with that. Kindness is not a weakness to be exploited. It is a fundamental element of humanity that we are slowly losing in our bid to be the best.

You can be going along on the same train in the same direction, sitting in the right seat at the right time in the right carriage, while tolerating disrespect, disloyalty and bullying until the build-up of them all flicks a switch that can shut your door forever, and no amount of apologies can reopen.  

Once someone feels truly disrespected, something inside them shifts and once it does, nothing can bring back that trust that was broken. It is like the slip switch on the train track engages and with a simple pull of the stick the track moves across to another track and your carriage uncouples from the other carriage and changes track. You may still be going in the same direction but you are no longer hooked up together, there is a space between the two tracks that can slowly widen. 

Maybe the two tracks come back together again at some stage, but it will be a long way down the track, and its possibility will only exist after a series of side track destinies have been met first. 

Once the initial boundary is crossed, they will never be the same person who was on the original track and carriage. Consider this carefully, some people think they can say and do whatever they want, and fix it with a simple sorry, but what they don’t realise is that some doors close for good.

How can you come back into a situation after the trust and respect has been broken? If you lower your expectations, if you hold back giving your whole self for protection and as a measure of only giving the amount that is valued. Nothing more nothing less and it is never 100 per cent ever again

Can there be a more damaging way to get off track with a partner, workplace or team? Sadly yes, it is the silent let go. They don’t fire you they fade you. They don’t terminate they transition. They don’t dismiss they diminish. You’re not laid off just left behind. A work place that chooses slow dismissal over honest conversation destroys more than just careers, it destroys trust.

This workplace is a result of our parenting. In general boys have been raised to conquer and girls are raised to concur, but who benefits when girls stay polite? He does.

Men are taught that success is taking control, being chosen and winning. Women are taught success is being agreeable, being chosen - by a man and staying. 

Little boys are praised for being bold, brave and unapologetic, he is taught to go after what he wants, to take up space and to dominate.

Little girls are praised for being nice, for being polite, for playing small just enough to make someone else feel big, and saying yes when they mean no, or smiling when they are uncomfortable. This is why they fall victim to abuse so easily because they were told to listen to the authority adult figure – mainly males and not trust their gut instinct. 

So when they grow up, he expects to lead and she’s expected to compromise. He decides, she apologises. He confuses control with love and she confuses peacekeeping with intimacy. She goes along with things she doesn’t agree with and ignores her gut feelings, she tolerates what she should have questioned because she was taught harmony matters more than honesty, that being chosen matters more than choosing herself. 

Boys are taught to go after what they want, girls are taught to accept what they are given. 

But what if we change the narrative? What if girls are taught to lead, to question, to say no without any guilt or fear. What if women were taught to conquer their own lives instead of making room for the other person. We don’t need more agreeable girls, we need more girls who won’t let her heart, mind and soul be trodden on and abused, we need girls to conquer.