No slamming doors, look both ways, save it for a rainy day, don’t sit so close to the television. The one I missed: don’t fall in love with love. It’s as dangerous as mercury.
Falling in love with love is an illusion. It’s your grown up imaginary friend. I know I’m prone to it because I’ve got a record. I literally have journal entries from years ago, describing the exact feelings I face now. I read them shaking my head. Oh my God, I haven’t changed. This passage, are you looking? This one, right here. Then I press at it hard, the tip of my finger turning white. Oh yeah, big time. You could slap it onto your condition right now, down to the minute. It’s all recycled and familiar, and familiar is dangerous because it’s often pathologic.
Men who love me get frustrated, worrying if they make me happy. They make me afraid to be sad near them because they question themselves, question if they satiate me, if they even make me happy in the face of my sadness. They want to give up. I’m too difficult.
I worry I’m the only one feeling things. I’m anxious about one-sided. Nothing in this world scares me more than rejection.
The hardest thing for me to accept is transience. It is harder than dieting, the ability to accept that the things we work so hard on, believe in, and fight for can go at any time. Giving up the idea of guarantees and permanence is harder than giving up French fries with mayonnaise. But, the sooner I’m able to let it go, the easier life’s disappointments will be to bear.
It’s the chorus in my life, the repeated versus, the same theme right down to the words. The only hope I have is, eventually, songs end, and the last line usually changes the meaning of everything that has come before it. And, there’s always the rest of the album.
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The new age response is one repeats the lesson until it is learned. Another point of view is sometimes, we do what we do because it is all we know…..until something inside shifts. until doing the same thing doesn't feel good anymore. but it's awfully hard to give up on how we think things are "supposed" to be
I see you've added funnel cake and sublimation to your 'best of.' Tks.
I do that too… Repeat the same behaviour / feelings over and over again… and it's not any easier the second time around.
And I also face the problem of being too difficult. It is very hard to make me happy.
I do that too… Repeat the same behaviour / feelings over and over again… and it's not any easier the second time around.
And I also face the problem of being too difficult. It is very hard to make me happy.
I like what urbanbarbara said. There are so many cliche sayings we could bring up here. People don't change until the pain of staying the same outways the pain of changing is one. I too repeat behavior. Bad behavior. Emotional pain inflicting behavior. I cope by having faith that things can be better, by being aware of who I am. Of accepting that, letting go and hoping for better results next time. And those results come, slowly.
Doesn't everyone do that? Isn't that one of the main points of psychology, the exercise of applying rational thought to emotions and behavior in an exercise to discover why we do what we do so that we may then attempt to change it? Somewhere we learn our patterns of behavior – how to express love, anger, happiness, etc. – from somewhere. The point is not so much saying that you have a problem. People spend years in therapy doing nothing but that and not actually doing any of the work to change themselves or the bahavior. Isn't there some line out there that says "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."?
Too true Capt. Obvious. And isn't there a philosophy that suggest the only escape from that insanity is a deep felt surrender to the behavior?
You are remarkably self-aware.
I recently had a life-changing experience – one that I believe – that I truly feel – has freed me to be more me and less in the thrall of those compulsive, repeating patterns. I wish that I had had this experience a lifetime ago so that when the love of my life loved me I could have truly loved him and accepted that he loved me without acting out and driving him away. This is not evangelism but a simple testimonial to commend the experience: 8 days residential, hard work, tears, joy, anger, fun, grief, forgiveness, compassion, acceptance: four steps to freedom – awareness, expression, forgiveness, new behaviour. If you're tempted, interested, feel that you're worth it, then check out the hoffman process. The fee is still sitting waiting, accruing interest on my credit card but to be free of those dreary, familiar old voices – to have a sense that for the first time I'm in control of my own destiny – there's no price I wouldn't pay!
I don't just recognize the patterns, I feel the impulses, and for once, I don't act on them. I breathe. I know when I'm being irrational. I sit in the moment and am very aware of what is happening… that's how I know I've changed. I might always have the feelings, but not acting on them has been new. It's work. It really is, harder for me, than, say, running or dieting. But it's a change I want to make, and I'm doing it.
– oh bright new day, we're moving away . . . one of the show tunes / lyrics (from Willy Russell's Blood Brothers) that underscores and annotates my lfe . . . have been on that journey too – and it is work – real, down and dirty, holy work – and I was getting there pre-process but slowly.
For me the first real, conscious step was the day I heard myself yelling at my son – really heard myself – and looked into his eyes and saw his pain and the hurt that I was doing to him – and I stopped yelling – stopped acting out there and then (and never did it again). When I stopped yelling I started being a mother rather than a child and on that day I learned that it was possible to change. In controlling my behaviour so my feelings eventually caught up and one day I just didn't feel mad in the same way anymore. Speaks volumes that the lesson came to me through my son.
So the changes began but what was driving me – the angry, hurting me – has only revealed itself slowly and in fragments: I didn't get the whole picture there and then. It has taken years of painful slog – and along the way I have managed to sabotage my marriage – which hurts.
The joy for me now – tentative joy but joy nonetheless – is that in having had a structured space in which to cathart, I now reach inside to where the anger, shame and the grief used to reside and there is space: the reservoir fuelling the patterns' engine is fabulously empty. And without the fuel, the impulses are gone so that now, in the same old situations, I am conscious that I feel – well I feel nothing that has been familiar – no buttons are getting pressed and there is no compulsion to act out anymore! Oh bright new day! It's still work but it's not so hard – in fact it's not really hard at all.
It is what it is, says love. Good luck!
In order to fall in love and be complete, you need to learn to love yourself first and make sure that you're whole. It's taken me a long time to realize it. But you have to understand why you've got those particular impulses and try to unlearn them. It's the most difficult thing in the world.
You sound like a bloody nightmare. Why are so many New York women like you? Spoilt, self-centred, self-obsessed and having a sense of entitlement that makes normal human interaction difficult. I guess that is why you are so deeply unhappy. Nothing will ever be good enough for you. Good luck with your next three divorces.
Oh for the love of God, I'm not depressed. I'm happier than I've been in my entire life. Please, we all have moments of introspection and sadness. I'm happy and I know it, so I'll clap my hands and give the anonymous inconsideration on this blog the finger. Then I'll blow you a kiss. It's a Rhett Miller day. And I love sunny Mondays!