I know you might be wondering how I am going to get back to where I started, the lyrics. I’m about to tell you. That exploration is actually going to be a two-parter. The first part is what I’ve been talking about thus far, the criticism of oneself. The second part is going to hone in on others’ responses.
So, I left you hanging a little bit. I told you that I wanted you to begin to challenge your reaction to a thing and they whoosh, I vanished. That’s not such a bad thing. I often think that the best thing that could happen to you would be for you to find your own way to do this after I share that I’ve done the same. I fuck things up all the time, so I’m no expert. I can’t prescribe a way of doing things that is going to result in magic every single time, or even a little bit of the time. No way. But I can tell you what’s working better or best for me. I can do that. Then you have to sort out what it feels like for you and understand where you need to change and tweak to have it best serve you.
It’s like jeans. You can ask me the best jeans for short women with muscular thighs. I can tell you what I’ve found works. But then, you might need to get them hemmed or the waist taken in or maybe you like that brand but you need something with a little more stretch. This life stuff is not one-size-fits-all by any stretch. I’m just trying to find common ground so we can stumble next to each other, or maybe I can make it a little easier for you along the way.
You have gotten to the point where you are asking yourself brutally honest questions regarding your response (likely negative) to a person or persons or situation. Your answers to those questions attempt to be just as honest. You might fail a little because it is hard as shit to admit these things, but you try. Really hard. You draw upon your flaws and mistakes and insecurities and bad experiences. You dig deep and keep going, even when it feels icky.
What happens at the end of that exercise? Well, I have found that you either go one way, or the other. Maybe you have a hybrid experience or something altogether different. Again, this is my view only. Sometimes we are able to make peace. We understand that we’ve changed but we don’t actually hate what we’ve become. Not at all. Maybe we thought we did, but then we give ourselves some space to acknowledge the twisty road that is life. In other words, we tell ourselves that it’s okay to mature. That’s how it works. We have responsibilities now and obligations. Maybe there are people who rely on us, personally and/or professionally. We might feel that wistful tug that comes with looking back, but the judgment of who we’ve become is entirely misplaced. We’ve just grown up. That’s okay.
Maybe it has nothing to do with growing up. Perhaps we are able to acknowledge that we were in a survival mode of sorts. This one feels super familiar for me, because I’ve had some trauma in my life. I may not love how I worked through things, but I know that I didn’t have much in the way of options. At the time, it felt like the only way I was going to push through, and so, I did what I had to do. We don’t spend a lot of time chastising ourselves for not choosing another path, because we are able to understand that at the time, there was no other path. The choice was fail or flourish. The means might have been a little gross, but the ends were well worth some moments of ‘oh geez’.
The other way? You mourn the person you’ve become. You are able to see, perhaps for the first time, that you’ve changed in a way that doesn’t suit the life you want to lead. You are frustrated by the journey you’ve taken, but more than that, you are dissatisfied with where you arrived at the end of that journey. No matter what you tell yourself, there is no part of the reconciliation process where you are pleased with the result. You just feel upside down and regretful.
Well, first things first. I can’t stop you, but I strongly encourage you not to dwell too much in the space of regret. A long time ago, I talked to you about a friend who often reminded me that if I wasn’t able to do things, I might experience remorse (or FOMO). I shared with you back then, and I’m going to share with you again, that I don’t think those feelings ever lead to something positive or meaningful. Feeling shitty about what you didn’t do, doesn’t encourage you to do things differently next time. It just doesn’t work that way. What it does is plant a seed of negativity. You shame spiral. You feel depressed. You self-flagellate. So yeah, don’t bother.
But, let’s say you aren’t a happy camper at the end of the exercise I’ve suggested you indulge in. It happens. It does. I know I sound a bit redundant, but this is where more choice comes in. That’s right. You can be unhappy with the result and somehow learn to live in that sad space (people do this all the damn time) OR you can decide that this thing happened to you to motivate you to change. It’s time for you to begin to look at things anew.
Few meaningful changes in life can be rushed, so I don’t imagine that you would decide to change and then just plow forward accordingly. Rather, you would begin to make a plan. Small changes versus bigger changes. Short term versus long term. You would contemplate possibilities and try to envision how you would contend with such.
I know you probably want specifics here, and I don’t want to deny you that pleasure. So, let’s go back to Starbucks (I know, for someone who loathes it, I seem to be journeying back to that reflux inducing space pretty often). The girls are there, you’ve had a reaction, you explore your reaction, you decide that you are negative about them because you’ve lost your ability to spontaneously enjoy life, and then….
x
L.
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