Yo, G-dawg! Smiley's Person in the hizzie! They say it's yer birthday! Yee-haw!
@aliveandkicking wrote, "You are very hard on yourself," and that's a point that I think doesn't get made nearly often enough, so mad props to her for that. Among the toughest lessons for me was that one -- there's a very important difference, IMO, between "taking responsibility" and/or "taking ownership" of your role in the breakdown of the marriage and blaming yourself. Blame isn't constructive; responsibility, ownership, leadership are.
Our colleague then wrote, "I keep thinking that if I was evolved enough, I could get through this without so much pain."
Here I will, in all affection, disagree with her. I would submit to you that, in fact, the more evolved you are, the more pain you would feel, because the deeper your appreciation for the situation, the implications, and the causality would be.
From my POV that's the purpose of evolving as a person, to grow in one's ability to see and embrace the pain -- and the pleasures -- that life offers. I mean, Obi-Wan had to sit down when the Grand Moff Tarkin ordered the Death Star to destroy Alderaan, right? And Obi-Wan was nothing if not evolved!
And then she wrote, "I think you can trust yourself more and accept that you are human."
As my Iraqi friend says, when he is struggling for the words b'il-ingilizee, "This is a very important...ah...importance."
Trusting ourselves. A seldom-discussed topic hereabouts.
When we start to cope, to adapt, to accept -- oh, that all-important acceptance -- the Brutal Reality of our situation, there is a temptation to distrust or mistrust the growth. But, but, but -- what if this pushes her/him away?@Traveldane struggled mightily with this one in her thread, in re: moving away from WAH. But it's a key to the process, methinks. You have to trust that what you do as you to make you survive for you -- that it's the right thing, no matter what the unforeseeable downstream consequences.
You've been on a twisting road, my friend, and it doesn't appear that the curves are coming any less frequently. Keep your eyes up, right? As the very large and loud and scary fellow in the Smokey-the-Bear hat was fond of saying, "Ain't no point in looking down; ain't no discharge on the ground."
