Quote:
"Growing through suffering requires shifting our outlook from one in which we feel alone to one in which our experiences, even difficult ones, are related to something larger. Removing your pain from your own dark isolation — taking a longer view — will help you put your suffering in a new context, and you will see your life as part of a larger plan."
This is exactly, exactly the way I went from feeling like a "victim", so unfortunate, so put upon and singled out by Life for failure . . . to seeing that what happened to me happens to millions of women every single day, that I am one of many many many. My life is not particularly "bad", in fact, it's pretty routine. Sad to say.
Pain isolates. When I have a toothache, I could give a shit about Haiti (:eek:). That's just natural. Emotional pain does a similar thing, but as time goes on we have more choices.
Emotional pain has a way of leading us into self pity, which is really a huge swamp with lots of quicksand, a very bad place to be. Self pity is very isolating, and pretty soon, it turns other people off, even your own family members. Even people who love you are stressed out by your self pity.
So to take your emotional pain and relate it to something larger gets you out of self pity.
One thing that I have been really hung up on is how much I lost, financially, because I trusted and believed in my exN. I could go on and on about that. Anyway, so I think about other people who have lost everything. I used to live in a flood zone, and the last few years have been bad for floods, and hundreds of people lost EVERYTHING, baby pictures, pets, their businesses, their homes. Usually people who lived month to month, so had little savings and NO ONE around there could afford flood insurance :(
My suffering is not "special", it is human suffering. How can I sit in self pity when what happened to me is PUNY compared to what happens every moment of everyday to someone else? A drunk driver or house fire takes all of someone's children how many times a week, somewhere in the world?
Putting my own suffering in context is a relief, it cuts the burden of it, in fact, it just makes me one of billions, so I am free to pick up and put the pieces back together, just like everyone else has to do.
Exactly. Just read a brief story on the 70 plus women coming out of Afghanistan having set themselves on fire because of the tormented life they are subjected to. What does it take to set yourself on fire?
By accident of the channel surfing, I briefly heard a motivational speaker talk about how we envy those with more when we should be looking at those with so much less and giving thanks. this hit a chord I will never forget.
almostlydia
Amen!
Betty says it a lot . . . it's how you "think" about things. What you pay attention to is what you notice and what preoccupies you. There are so many things to NOTICE that I pay no attention to. Tonight I got a new car stereo installed (last one was stolen on Sunday night GRRRRR) and while I was waiting, the only thing I had to read was the financial section of the Wall Street Journal. If you knew me well, you'd think you were dreaming to see me reading something like that. Anyway, it's all there was . . . and it was surprisingly interesting, maybe even relevant. Not sure, but heck I was being openminded.
I could focus on all the shit that has happened to me, the unfairness of it. I could make a big ass list, and aside from a natural disaster, I've had some shitty shit happen.
While that's all true, I also have many blessings. I think focusing on my blessings at least a BIT more than my curses gives me a more peaceful NOW.
I believe it is a choice we make, whether we know we are making it or not.
People that focus on the negative do so because it brings them more satisfaction. Why else would they do it? Who is making them do it? No one. There is a kind of satisfaction in being a "victim". It gives a kind of "special or unique" sense to how we view ourselves. As a victim, we are kind of blameless. It's not our fault. In fact, it can get pretty comfy. It makes sense out of the shit that happens, "I am just unlucky, I am cursed".
If I focus on the "positive" in my life, I can find just as much evidence that I am living a charmed life. I escaped with my life from a sociopath/Narc. I work in a profession where there will always be jobs no matter where I go. I am healthy. I am a survivor and a thriver. I don't put up with bullshit (for very long anyway :D ). I have children who grew up into great people. I have lots of critters and animals and the freedom and space to give them a good life. I have two arms and two legs that work (my back kills me however). I am respected and liked, for the most part, by people that are important to me. If I want something else, I gotta figure out how to get it. If I keep trying and trying and NOT getting it, I am doing something WRONG and need to figure out what it is. I can do this. I'll make lots of mistakes, but I'll learn from them. I'll still like who I am. I'll still be there for me, no matter what :)
Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmmm. I like the second paragraph better :D
I think you just penned the Eureka moment...
I briefly heard a motivational speaker talk about how we envy those with more when we should be looking at those with so much less and giving thanks. this hit a chord I will never forget.
I wholeheartely agree, that the path to grace is looking at those with so much less and appreciating what we DO have!
My new mantra: The rest is Bullshit
Every day working on bridging the gap between my feelings and my beliefs but I will get there. I have much to be thankful for that I OWN...the Narc had NOTHING to do with it - and I am not even thinking about the material...
Spoke to a old aquaintance from High School who has reached out to me on FB...
She is now a Lesbian...that's not a bad thing
She has a son who is gay that's not bad either
She is disabled that's not wonderful
But...her son was just diagnosed with HIV...
My stuff is bullshit....
And you lived long enough through it to talk about it and have survived....
That is where I'm headed...that is where my passion lies at this moment.
It HAS to be about me.
I was born alone, and might die alone.
In the meantime...gotta do ME!
If you live your life with the intention to grow, and learn to love yourself and other people more, you will NOT die alone, or live alone. In fact, you will wish you would be LEFT alone, once in a while :)
People are instinctually drawn to folks who've "been through the wringer".
Folks who've been through the wringer put out a certain kind of energy, not deliberately, but naturally. It is very attractive.
They sort of "shine". And they don't do anything to "shine", it just happens.
Adversity grows you up, if that's what you decide for yourself.
You can choose bitterness and rage, or, you can choose to see yourself as one of many suffering human beings. Bitterness and rage isolates, and the other integrates and makes you stronger.
I was a very lonely person, for the first half of my life (I'm forty five). I was constantly concerned with who did or did not like me.
I didn't put a single thought into who *I* liked or didn't like, and what effect that had on the quality of my relationships. It was all about "getting", for me, rather than GIVING.
If you want to be loved, then get out there and LOVE someone. If you want your loneliness to be gone, go soothe another lonely person. If you want happiness and peace, do something to bring peace or a moment of happiness to someone else.
If you want to get it, you have to give it away.
Which is why I hang around places like this three and a half years out. I am not one to be flipping pancakes in a homeless shelter, and I don't have enough money to do much in terms of charities. But I can reach out and (hopefully) bring some of the healing I received to others. I'm just passing it on, actually.
It puts to good use my ex-people pleasing tendencies.
My old therapist once told me that my quality of wanting to please others was a truly beautiful thing in this world. I always thought it was one of my character defects. I didn't understand what he meant for a few years. I DO get so much from reaching out to others, it does not drag me down, it builds me up. But that's just me. I also became a nurse so I get paid to do what I do best besides :D
I go to work and take care of sick people. I come home and take care of animals, and now that I moderate here, I come here and try to help. I really like my life. I'm doing what I think I was meant to do.
And I could NOT have done any of this if I had not suffered adversity and long periods of pain.
Even more important than that, if I did not TAKE CARE OF MYSELF FIRST, I am useless and can't do a thing for anyone. So behind this is a very strong drive to look out for Number One.
'Folks who've been through the wringer put out a certain kind of energy, not deliberately, but naturally. It is very attractive.
They sort of "shine". And they don't do anything to "shine", it just happens.'
Can I just say how much you SHINE!
I was a people pleaser too, erm scrap that, at the moment I still am. I'm a care worker, I work with the disabled and elderly who choose to stay in their own homes and keep their independence, rather than the alternative of going into a care home. I love my job, but have lately wondered if I care TOO deeply about others opinions of me. Why can't I just validate myself instead of looking to others to do it for me?
I aspire so much to be like you, how do I "take care of myself first'? I'm so used to taking care of others?
Oh and apologies for gatecrashing Briseis in this post but her response hit a nerve.
Taking care of yourself is very simple . . . mind you, I'm still learning and have a ways to go. But what little I've done has made a big difference.
I set boundaries that are effective and I maintain them. Sometimes, moment by moment with some people. Boundaries are EVERYTHING.
Part of having good boundaries, I've learned, is that other people's opinions of me are "out there". Not "me", but someone else's version of me, which belongs more to them than to me.
This includes when people like me, or dislike me. You know? I certainly prefer it when people approve of me. Very much. When they don't, it hurts, but I tell myself it is their right as a separate human being to have their opinion of me. Just like it's my right to have an opinion about someone else . . . which is more about ME than it is about them.
Although I truly want everyone to love and approve of me, it is not for me to try and "control". Other people develop their opinions with variables so far beyond what I can imagine that . . . well, I just give up LOL :D .
Those are the kind of boundaries I recently began to understand. Opinion boundaries, judgment boundaries.
Which leaves me with this: what I think of myself matters MORE than what other people think of me. Not less.
I am a nurse, and what I have to do sometimes is NOT what the patient or family members want me to do. I have to do it anyway. I've been doing it this way for YEARS, and just recently realized . . . hey, I can do this ALL the time :) I can apply this same "attitude" I picked up in nursing to all of my relationships.
I would be lying if I said I don't care about other people's opinions of me. If I didn't, I would be as Narc-ish and clueless as my ex. I just . . . allow it to be, without trying to do something about it. I "respect" it, whether I agree or not. It's beyond ME. And where I am powerless to make a change (in another person's mind), I just have to accept it, work with it, and keep myself balanced internally.
Hope that big jumble makes sense :D
I have been looking for something like this and could not come upon anything "solid" some of the sites have so many links I can't figure out which way to go, like a kid in a candy store, this is right on target and time, thanks a bunch.
stay~striving
In a nutshell
Exactly. Just read a brief
almostlydia
Almostlydia
Almostlydia
And I will add to my thread and post here
AMEN Brieseis
If you live your life with
Shining :)
Despy
Thanks Michele
stay~strong
Disillusionedx2