I enjoy the website Baggage Reclaim. Natalie has a lot of great articles and I would highly recommend the site.
I thought the intro of that first link was particularly relevant for me: “A few months back when I began to come to terms with the fallout with my father after my wedding, someone told me that raking over and reliving a rejection again and again is like repeatedly going back to look at your own vomit.” It really does feel just that gross, too. Past a certain point of natural reflection and emotional processing, it just feels like you are picking the scab off a wound for no reason. I have a small scar on my left elbow from where I accidentally cut myself. It’s finally getting to the point where it’s fading away. The last thing I would want to do is cut it open again and make it even worse. Yet we do that stuff to ourselves psychologically all the time. I describe it as being like an elephant. It starts out with just the trunk. Then the head and big floppy ears. Then before you know it, the entire fat-ass elephant is in the room with you and the small negatives become huge.
This part from the 100 tips also resonated with me:
“8. You have to take care of yourself every single day. Looking out for you is a job that you should not offload the responsibility of to someone else.”
I have learned that one the hard way. Waiting on Prince Charming to ride up on a white horse or some Captain Amazing to stroll into your life and take all of your troubles away is a truckload of BS. That episode of Family Guy with the fake ad about the businesswoman was on last night. It’s the one where the guy walks up and says, “All of your problems can be solved by my penis.” LOL. How often do we get blinded by lust/infatuation and imagine that a dude from a fairy tale is going to solve our problems? Sweep us off our feet, charm us, say and do the right thing, give us a free pass out of CorporaPe America, tell us he loves us so much that we can do whatever we want and have a dream life.
“9. If you make someone or something the sole source of your happiness, you will feel unhappy if you don’t have that someone or something and feel dependent on them when you do.”
Boom. I am way guilty of this one. I have, in the past, allowed way too much of my world to revolve around other people. My BFF, a boyfriend, whatever. That never went so well.
“16. One great way to improve your self-esteem is resisting the urge to take things that happen to Dynasty level with lots of drama and instead realising that we have a lot of control over how much we let stuff impact us.”
Guilty of this, too. When my friend called me on VD to tell me my ex had moved away, I had a full out angry Hulk Smash meltdown after we got off the phone. It was not a pretty sight. I’m glad that his broke-ass moved away; I just didn’t much appreciate her calling me on VD to tell me about him. F*ck him.
“20. If you don’t know what your boundaries are, you shouldn’t be dating. Some is obvious and some is subtle but if you have no limits and you haven’t the vaguest idea, start with the stuff that in hindsight you recognise was unacceptable and inappropriate for a healthy relationship.”
Amen and amen. There are a whole host of things from my dating dynamics that I would stamp as unacceptable and inappropriate. My relationships have often been shitty moments punctuated occasionally by nice ones.
“21. Listen to yourself as your body and your reactions tell you how you feel about the situation. Recognise when you feel anxious, afraid, wary, cautious, disappointed, quietly angry, reserved, happy, sad. If you ignore how you feel, you’re ignoring yourself.
22. Listen to your gut. You 100% need this because it is a combination of your sense of self, boundaries and values at work. If you ignore it, it’s like saying ‘I don’t like and love myself enough to trust myself.”
As my anxiety lady told me, “I think anxiety is sometimes a warning signal that something IS wrong. Sometimes it is not a baseless emotion but it is a way of getting your attention.” Yes, it is. One lesson I have learned for the future is that if someone or something is setting off my alarm bells, don’t probe—just walk away and be done.
“37. Arrest your thoughts. One of my major self-esteem builders was interrupting my thoughts. Until I took the time to listen to myself, I had no idea how much negative garbage was going around in my head. Me imagining bad situations, another voice telling me something was my fault or that it was bound to go wrong for me – jaysus, no wonder I was quietly miserable! I started interrupting my thought process and challenging it, literally saying something else out loud. Annoying initially, it doesn’t last long because your confidence builds and you naturally develop a more positive voice as you train your mind that if it thinks negative stuff, you’re going to jump in there. I no longer have a negative voice as a constant companion dragging me down on my life journey.”
“92. Stop with the ‘Coulda, woulda, shoulda’ – it is what it is. You’re getting yourself trapped in the past. Let it go as you have a present and future to live and if you live in a what if mode, your present and future will become coulda, woulda, territory. What could you, or would you, or should you have done? Do it now! Apply your knowledge in the future.”
That is actually where I am at right now in my healing process: thought stopping and perspective changing. When you listen to the negative “torture reel” in your head, it can be quite shocking. Some of the shit we say to ourselves is terrible. It’s stuff we would never say to someone else but we don’t even flinch to say to ourselves. That’s a horrible, horrible experience. I’ve been through so many “If only I had . . .” sentiments. But none of them are true. I think in some ways, it’s worse for women because of how superficial and looks-oriented our culture is. If only I:
Lost 10 lbs
Had bigger/smaller boobs
Had a bigger/smaller butt
Hadn’t been needy / hadn’t ever expressed myself
Had been 100% myself / had been someone else
Had been conservative / had been liberal
“39. Keep a note of what makes you feel uncomfortable and why. This will ensure that you don’t get selective memory about red flags that you may be tempted to tune out to have a happy illusion.”
I did this to an extent in the last relationship. Unfortunately, I ignored it. Most of it had a consistent theme: disappointment, neglect, and a sheer lack of enjoyment.
“42. Stay in on a ‘date night’ not because you have no date but because you can. Something else I did regularly, it taught me to love my own company after being scared of ‘missing out’. I almost started to love my alone time ‘too much’. It’s very empowering to say ‘Actually, I’ll pass on going out tonight’ and then putting your feet up and chilling out.”
This is a truly wonderful feeling. I find myself experiencing the same things. You get spoiled to being on your own timeline and doing what you want to do. You become much more selective in what you say “yes” to. I’m at a point where if I don’t feel like the invitation is worth it, I don’t go. I did enough “going out for the sake of going out” in my 20s.
“45. It takes a lot more energy to resist something than it does to accept. Much of the angst in relationships and with ourselves is refusal to accept and when this happens but the truth remains the same, we become very unhappy. Accept the reality so that you’re in a position to do something instead of being trapped in the frustration of illusions and expectations.”
I have learned this one the hard way, too. It seems a law of the universe that as soon as you get comfortable, a curve ball gets thrown. In my last situation, my boyfriend was going to leave town. Period. Whether it was by Dear John letter, a phone call, or a disappearance, he was leaving. Deep down, I knew that was inevitable but I hoped and hoped and hoped that I could convince him to stay. It was a futile fight.
“50. Learn how to relax. Set aside time in your day and week to just relax. If you don’t know how to relax, it may be an idea to check out books or a class on meditation. For me, I know a quiet soak in the bath, losing myself in a book, sewing, or even getting out for a walk clears my head and winds me down.”
Much to my surprise, I have taken up knitting and I’m pretty good at it. It’s a little weird to be a meathead weightlifter and a demure lady who knits at the same time, but hey. That’s me.
“52. Who can you be yourself with? It’s good to have at least one friend who accepts you as you are and who you can be honest with and not pretend that you’re fine when you’re not.”
I am very blessed to have people in my life who accept me and let me say whatever is on my mind. Sometimes, those things can be pretty acerbic. I’ve called several of my friends more than a few times and said, “I just need you to listen. I need to vent and I just need you to lend an ear.”
“56. Harsh as it may sound, people who are genuine assclowns don’t choose just one person in the universe to be an assclown to. This means that while they’re still out of order for treating you poorly, instead of taking it to a micro level of there having to be something wrong with you, recognise that they are this person anyway.”
It took me a long time to understand this concept but it’s true. Someone who is avoidant, abusive, whatever, was like that BEFORE you got there and s/he will be that way AFTER you are gone! You didn’t cause it or deserve it. The best thing you can do is move on. Chances are good that if you could interview this person’s ex-mates and ex-friends, you’d find that he was an asshole to them, too. There’s a reason why they left and a reason why you left, too.
“57. If you know that the sky is blue and someone tells you that it’s purple, rather than lose your mind over the fact that they’re saying it’s purple and turning it into a vocation to prove it to them, recognise that the fact they don’t know the difference between right and wrong or can’t empathise or whatever it is, is a red flag.”
You aren’t a treatment center or a mate’s psychiatrist. A sociopath is a sociopath and you can’t change that.
“63. Accept that you cannot control everything especially people and things that are outside of your control.”
Word up. And if you keep trying, as I stupidly did for many years, you will not feel very good. Frankly, if you feel like you have to control someone or change him/her in order to have a friendship or relationship, it’s not the right fit anyway. If someone says, “I want you to accept me” and you can’t, move on.
“66. Accept that no matter how well you ‘get on’ with someone, a difference in values can make friendships and romantic relationships difficult when you hit differences and rocky patches. It helps to write down the specifics of why you are frustrated because you can see the difference in your beliefs and attitudes, which is your value system.”
When the lust goggles come off and things get difficult, you want someone with a similar code of ethics. If a guy is going to cut and run at the first sign of a disagreement, he’s a coward and not worth the time.
“82. Be careful of taking on too much, in fact, internalising societal noise. Much of this noise is generated by people that don’t know you. Society whether that’s your peers or media loves telling you how to live your life, what you should look like, or who and what you should be. Filter and live your own life and make your own decisions based on your values.”
I think one of the worst things we can do is buy into society’s timelines. It’s important to have goals and I think it’s important to act like a damn grown-up. But thinking you must be married by x age and you must have all of your career goals met by x age is not a good mindset. I would so much rather be single than be with a jerkwad who poisons my self-esteem, lies to me, cheats on me, threatens me with violence, etc. Society seems to push for romance a hell of a lot but how many marriages now actually last? Very few. That should tell you something.
“93. Don’t pretend. You’ll get get trapped in your own very bad movie where you forget who the hell you are. What are you pretending about? Why? What do you think is going to happen? Is it happening? Do you feel good? How exactly are you going to keep up this pretence? Recognise that if you have to pretend, something isn’t right. Breathe out and be real and get into your own reality. I stopped pretending that dates were more wonderful than they were and saw them for who they were, but it also forced me to remember all of the times I had secretly heard the words ‘assclown’; ‘tosser’ or ‘jackass’ in my mind and then smiled sweetly at various boyfriends and reminded myself how lucky I was to be with them…”
It should be very obvious to my readers that I did this. I turned a socially retarded assclown into Mr. Darcy from P&P. BUT HE WASN’T. The only place he was charming and debonair was in my head.
“99. Let go of and grow up the child within you, otherwise you will approach emotional situations as if you are a child of a certain age that is likely tied to a specific period in your life. Nurture that child but get a rational adult perspective and give yourself some love and step into adulthood where you get to be in control of your own life.”
This sounds a bit New Agey, but it’s true. If there is some part of your emotional or psychological development that hasn’t caught up, work on it. Figure out what needs to be done to make progress. If you feel like your dating sensibilities are stuck somewhere around age 15, work on your expectations and beliefs. If you don’t do the work, you will probably repeat the same crappy patterns over and over again. And who wants that?
Although it’s become a cliché, I think “living well is the best revenge” is solid advice. Looking good, feeling good, enjoying life—these are things that very effectively communicate, “F*ck youuuuuuuu” (as sung in best Cee-Lo voice). Getting to that point where someone has become irrelevant and immaterial is a great place. Time passes and you heal. Then when someone calls you with news, it’s like, “Who cares?”
