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Ah see, I knew you was still in there somewhere Kkasxo!! And how awesome to have one of your best friends as a living example right in front of you – life is strange like that, it seems. Your quote is another good one – especially poignant given the recent death experience you’ve been through. Life really does fly by and it seems it only gets quicker as you get older. It’s funny actually, once you start doing all those things ( speaking your truth, not giving a sh*t about things that aren’t important and all the rest ) you start to wonder why you were quite so afraid of doing so in the first place. I certainly learned the hard way that it was only by being myself that I could really trust anything else was real. Afterall, if I was pretending to be to the world what I thought it wanted me to be – how could I believe what the world was showing me was true. But it was so damn scary being myself, if people rejected the ‘pretend’ me, who cared, it wasn’t me. But if they rejected me, now, that’s a whole other ballgame. Plus after so long of pretending, being a people pleaser, following the unspoken rules and expectations of my upbringing, my environment – it was really hard to know who I was anymore anyway.
And perhaps that’s as good a place as any to start on this journey – spending some time getting to know yourself again, what you value, what you stand for, no emotions attached either way. There are no good/bad answers – everyone is individual and it will be different for everyone. You don’t need to share on here unless you want to but make some time for yourself, get outside into the sunshine and just give yourself the freedom to ignore all your current circumstances and breathe freely. Let go of all those expectations for now. They can come later if/when needed. At the end of the day, this is all about gaining the strength to take control of your own life and be ok with events that you can’t. The wisdom being in knowing which are which – bit like that AA prayer.
If you haven’t already come across them, two books I found eye-opening/inspirational at the time were “You Can Be Happy No Matter What” – which sounds incredibly cheesy but was one of the best ways in to understanding the difference between thoughts and reality for me. Plus Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s “The Invitation” – also sounded way too ‘hippie’ for logical me but something in it rung true towards an authentic life, to being more how I wanted to be. A more modern version is Mark Manson’s blog “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck”, which I usually love reading but he’s not going to be everybody’s style for sure…
Shelby m’dear – understand entirely and very happy to see you being honest about it. It’s hard enough as a naturally private person for me to post some of these things, so I’m glad you understood. Talking in person is always easier for sure. And yes, you can have a lot of very well-meaning people trying to help but absolutely agree, everyone has their own history, their own biases, their own current understanding of their world view which will colour their advice however well-meant. And a lot of people will try to get you to adopt their values, either with or without knowing it, as it validates their view of ‘they are right’, makes them feel more secure. But not necessarily helpful to you! Part of what I had to work through was recognising this, no longer accepting everything at face value but assessing if it was something I also considered ‘true’ or not. So I entirely get the wariness and tbh, would be concerned if you weren’t.
It’s good to hear you are interested in the idea of strengthening your inner self, in whichever way you find works for you. Obviously it’s not a “hey everything’s amazing all the time” thing, it doesn’t stop life throwing cr*p at you, but it does give you this weird sense of stability within, no longer looking to the outside world to fix things or wasting time on unhelpful anger, emotions no longer buffeted all over the place. Very handy for rolling with it when travelling!! It’s not that I’ll no longer discuss your relationship but more that perhaps I can help look at different perspectives, different ways of responding as a stable-attachment type – positive actions/thoughts. That sound helpful?
X – nice to hear from you – means a lot to know my experiences can help others. Like I always say, I don’t have all the answers, no one does, but if it helps others at all, that’s worth the sharing to me. Sounds like you are a little down the path of figuring yourself out which is good but still some way to go on valuing youself enough to attract the ‘right’ partner. At least you now know enough to identify those you know won’t be a good healthy match. My best advice, continue to grow and be the strong authentic version of yourself as you can – if I’ve learned anything it’s that the more you know what you want, the greater the chances of it happening as all your actions line up behind it.
Take care all – look forwards to hearing back.