I'm reading a self help book...
(Which by the way, if I was helping myself I wouldn't need a book)
The main thing I need 'Self Help' for is relationships and weight...Yes I know I am very different from the rest of America...
But I do have some thoughts on the subjects
#1
Hope is the enemy to truly getting over someone. At the inner most part of ourselves we hope the life 'dream life' we should have had with that person can still exist...As long as there is 'hope' there is no hope of ever being over someone.
In this book it talks a lot about "picture this situation going perfectly" what does the picture look like? If it still you and your ex with a white picket fence and home with big windows then you are losing this battle.
When getting over one of my ex's I realized that my "perfect situation" was us together living the life we had planned...time went by and my new "perfect situation" was he would realize he were meant to be and leave the woman he was with and we would live out the life we had planned...more time passed, and new perfect situations was that he would leave his wife and be single for a while then realize I was the one he really wanted and he'd come back and we'd finally get to live the life we had planned...
Why you ask did I keep my ideal "perfect situation" with this guy who was so clearly never coming back?
Because I DIDN'T KNOW.
Every time I had talked to him, I was his friend and only that. I knew we would be horrible together in the long run, I knew I would never be able to forgive him for choosing her, I knew we weren't meant to be and I knew the life we had planned was no long even possible!
But because I refused to think about what I really wanted, I never figured out that what I knew to be true and what I, somehow, still had hope, for were SO not the same thing!
I know the time and day when my ideal 'perfect situation’ came to light...but that's another story.
But I did realize I was still holding on to that crazy plan. I, even after everything, still had hope...Ugh it pains me to admit it but somewhere deep down in the pit of my mind I was grasping this familiar life plan.
Admitting it to myself (and NO one else, because it was ridiculous) I put the hope and the knowledge in the same space and I realized that being his friend was what kept giving me hope and if I still had hope I'd never be free.
Now I am friends with lots of people I once had feeling for so trust me it can be done...But not if you have hope.
#2
We will always want the familiar.
Pain may be all we know so we go back to it. We keep going back to the crappy Chinese food buffet even though there are millions restaurants’ within walking distance...just because we've been there before we know what it's like. It's familiar.
The unknown is humanities greatest fear.
That's why we hate change.
Our lives, our relationships can suck, royally, but we stay in them, we don't move to a new city, we don't dump the jerk, we just stay with what we know!
Now according to this book we are the creators of our own lives. And can use our lives as a way of knowing what it is we like to create. So if we look at our lives and see crap...then we know that our 'Familiar' is crap.
And we will always go back to crap. Because we have dealt with crap before. We know how to handle crap. And most importantly we know we can survive crap…the unknown however…who knows if we could survive that?
If you don't want crap to be your life anymore, then change what you create.
Focus only on what's good. If you are doing something stupid and you don't know why (like hanging on to a doomed relationship) ask yourself Why?
And not in the self pitying, Why-do-I -always-do-this-to-myself kind of way.
But a ‘What 'perfect situation' am I holding on to and is it really what I want?”
Because, lets face it, if your life is crap right now then the 'perfect situation' you are clinging to is a lie.
And as the book states "You cannot feel comfortable in a lie."
#3
DON'T LIMIT YOURSELF TO ANY ONE THING
Once you figure out that the crap in your relationship is stemming from your "perfect situation" being an unobtainable, unrealistic, lie… change it.
Instead of saying "My perfect situation is that John Doe cleans up his act and comes running back to me, says he is sorry, and we get married and he never does all the things he is in the habit of doing now, ever again. We live together and everything is just as good as it was when he and I first started. So we can live happily ever after."
STOP LIMITING YOURSELF
Say this "My perfect situation is to have a husband who loves me and respects me. I deserve a man who does all he can to make my life better and I will happily do the same for him. I deserve to be loved. I am loved and respected and life is easy."
And that is the kind of thinking that gets you to happily ever after for real.
John Doe may or may not be the loving and respectful husband you deserve.
And that's ok.
If it's not him great! You will be happy with a different person.
If it is him great! You will be happy with him.
Because the life you are creating is happy.
Don't limit yourself to thinking that he (your familiar) is the ONLY one capable of giving you happily ever after... Focus on the Happy and that’s what you will create.
OK I think I have helped my 'self' enough for one night.
Let me know what you think.
Do you agree?
Do you not agree?
