We often hold onto things and blame ourselves for them much longer than necessary. This manifests as us not trusting our own judgement, not trusting others, and thinking that life has irrevocably damaged us. I know that I often lament how my young naiveté was stripped away as I climbed this mountain of shidduchim. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, sure, but all this does take an effect on one. Scar tissue is tougher, but it's also uglier.
I'm not contesting the fact that you have to learn from every experience, because you definitely do. You don't want to make the same mistakes again and again; pink flags and all that, but where do you draw the line? Where can you set down past experiences and start trusting yourself (and then others) again? Is there such a thing as a blank slate?
I believe it's about replacing these bad experiences with good ones, or maybe just adding good experiences to bad ones. This way you can recognize that both possibilities exist. People may not be trustworthy, but they may be. Adding +1 to -1 lands you back at zero.
Psychology calls this "corrective emotional experiences." This type of experience involves a providing a new, more satisfying response to a person's relationship pattern. In therapy, it's about experience rather than explanation. When put in a similar situation, someone (it doesn't have to be a therapist, this works in the real world too) offers a safer response than what previously occurred. This then helps the person to process the beliefs held about said situation more effectively.
I'll give you an example to explain the psychobabble.
If you've been keeping up with my previous posts, you've read about how I dated someone for awhile, us basically planning a life together, almost reaching the finish line in this shidduch race, but not quite, and he walked away abruptly with no explanation. About two or so months later I found myself dating another guy, and after three or four dates I was sort of stuck. We got along great, but I didn't really want to get invested. I'm sure I was scared to let him in, because my past experience taught me what happens when I do that. (As a side note, this was not the first time a serious relationship didn't work out, so it was already becoming a negative pattern for me.)
Because I like to embrace vulnerability, I told him straight up how I was feeling. I gave him some backstory and explained that I couldn't move forward in our relationship (ie. get past superficials), because basically I had this fear of what was going to happen -- me opening myself up again to another close relationship and then him walking away.
I don't know who taught him how to deal with girls' feelings, but to whoever did, did a great job. (Thank you whoever you are!) He said to me (and he was sincere, he's not one of those shiny bogus charismatic types), "I honestly wish that I could take away the hurt, but I can't, even though I wish I could. What I can do is promise you that I'm not going to hurt you like that. . ." And he didn't. Things didn't work out between us, but he didn't hurt me like that.
His statement, and his actions backing up that statement, case in point, a corrective emotional experience. I actually trust people now to follow through on things and not just to book it when...who knows what happened, I still don't.
My point though, I may not have any more clarity with what happened in regards to Powerball Guy, but thanks to this other fellow, I can set down my irrational fear about getting close with someone again. Some bad experiences and some good ones. I just have to allow myself to let go of that baggage. I need to forgive myself for "letting" it happen.
This letting go is similar to that of forgiving others. Figuring out the reason why you're holding onto something, channeling, expressing, and releasing the frustration and anger will help you wipe the slate clean.
Practicing stress management to cope with, reduce, and not allow regular stress to build up helps with this too. Do you let things go, or are you just "stuffing it" only to access it, subconsciously, later on? Forgiving yourself starts with learning from your mistakes and working through why they happened instead of holding onto them and blaming yourself or other people for them.
You can use deep breathing to clear your mind and elicit an actual physiological relaxation response within your body. Challenge negative thoughts and replace them with more positive self-talk. (No one is thinking about you as much as you tell yourself they are.) Recognize that worrying is an exercise in futility; it doesn’t change the outcome, but it sure takes up a lot of head-space.
Forgiving yourself and letting things go is a choice. You can hold onto whatever you'd like forever, but at least just take the time to decipher why you're doing it. Trying to create a healthy relationship while you're still lugging around past relationship baggage (doesn't even have to be romantic/dating relationships) is like someone being toivel with a sheretz b'yado.
No comments:
Post a Comment