Tag: suffering

Faking Adulthood

Boy, did I try too hard when I was young.

When you operate in life with low self-esteem, you are always trying to prove yourself. Constantly and to anyone who floats into your life and consciousness.

You are always trying to get people to believe you are worthy of their attention, love, care, inclusion.

When you have low self-esteem, this is very hard to do.

It is hard to sell someone on something you don’t really believe yourself. It is hard when you are filled with dark imaginings and can only dream of having light and love in your life.

I am not fully conversant in how one goes about building self-esteem. I believe it is an individual journey. But I know a lot about tearing one’s self down and tossing it in the junk heap.

It’s rather simple actually.

You just have to stop caring about yourself.

For years, I went out into the world with the firm belief that I didn’t matter. To counter this belief, I was very serious about just about everything. I needed to instill gravitas where I had none.

I loaded my pockets with metaphorical beach rocks. I was very serious. Very grown up. when I was still a child.

It was an odd form of self soothing and comfort. If I didn’t matter, I reckoned, then whatever hurt someone committed against me would barely register on my own internal emotional pain meter.

It did on some level, of course. But the felt impact usually wasn’t strong enough for me to stop what I was doing (or what was being done to me), stand up, turn around, face the perpetrator and simply say, “No. I will not be treated this way.”

I shudder at the irony of how simple that would have been. How other girls could do it without blinking an eye. The mothered daughters.

But that was my concocted game face. I wasn’t like “other girls” so didn’t need (or deserve) what they took for granted. (More another time on how feeling “special” creates a weird sense of entitlement and license.)

When my self-esteem started to develop, a lot of bad things stopped happening and started turning around.

Wayne Dyer famously said: “You teach people how to treat you.” My life started turning around when I decided that I deserved better treatment than I was accustomed to. I was the author and the pen.

It took practice and courage but, eventually, it worked like magic. Such is the trajectory of healing and growth. Glad I am here instead of still being there.

Imagine how validating it was to discover Aldous Huxley felt similarly in his youth. We are advised to walk lightly in this Earth. We are of it but we are also spiritual entities of light and love.

If we but allow those qualities to represent us in our day-to-day life.

Avoid the quicksand.

It’s dark because you are trying too hard.

Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.

Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.

Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig.

Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me.

When it comes to dying even. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic.

No rhetoric, no tremolos,

no self conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell.

And of course, no theology, no metaphysics.

Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light.

So throw away your baggage and go forward.

There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet,

trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair.

That’s why you must walk so lightly.

Lightly my darling,

on tiptoes and no luggage,

not even a sponge bag,

completely unencumbered.

Aldous Huxley

(Book: Island [ad] https://amzn.to/3SeAC9P)

Take My Own Advice, Maybe?

Self-isolation is a gift. When the world has been nipping away at you for longer than you can stand to meet its own particular needs, we all have the right to call “time out.” The trick is learning we have that right.

I am working on recognizing my own complicity in allowing the nipping to happen. If I’m not available, no nipping can happen I theorize. But there are times and tasks that must be faced and worked through to avoid unpleasant consequences. There are people and tasks we must face to accomplish certain ends.

Too often we put ourselves out there and on the line emotionally for no good reason whatsoever. Okay. I often put myself on the line emotionally for no good reason whatsoever.

The trick is to catch yourself in your own wrongheaded thinking. I have come up against some challenges of late that have me questioning what is going on in the world today.

My primary physician’s staff resolutely refuses to release my own medical records to me. That was so wrong and crazy I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

People recently charged with my well-being literally walked away from their posts. They were not even mildly apologetic or disturbed by my distress. Rather they were defensive and accusatory because I took issue with their shabby behavior.

Someone I hired to do a task didn’t show up and hasn’t bothered to explain or apologize. That person “ghosted” me after making a commitment I relied on. I’d writhe in shame if I did that to someone. I honestly don’t know how to make sense or put any of that into a relatable context. The world seems to have gone mad.

I operate on what I guess are old-fashioned and out of date rules about keeping your word and doing your best and treating everyone you meet with respect and decency. The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

That often makes me feel like a social Luddite. When I talk about the importance of honesty, I can hear some people chuckling under their breath. “Nice thought, but get real. No one is honest these days.”

And we wonder why the world feels so screwed up? I don’t follow the Golden Rule to make someone else feel better. I follow it to make myself feel better. Mostly to apply some consistency and predictability to my social interactions. Some days, though, it feels like that rule no longer works for me.

As a result, the circle within which I live is getting smaller. As I meet and interact with people who seem devoid of kindness or decency, I psychologically and physically recoil from them. And I certainly hope I don’t need them up the road.

It is not that person doesn’t have my full compassion. I simply recognize we are not operating on the same level with certain key values about how to build and sustain social relationships.

No use trying to push a string, I often say. It doesn’t do any good to expect an elevated level of behavior in people who simply aren’t mature enough to be there yet. That would be like expecting a three year old to drive.

It is often said water seeks its own level. That is, we tend to seek out and build lasting relationships with people who are more or less in tune and simpatico with who we are. Even if some people are not at the same social or economic level, it is relatively easy to sort out decent and authentic folks from charlatans. Mostly.

Of course, there is an inherent cost to longterm self-isolation. There is a danger of losing touch with what is going on in the society around you. Your relevance to the world may diminish. Your awareness of societal trends can wither. Humans need one another to grow and thrive. Isolating for too long can rob you of that connection.

But it is useful when your extremities are bloody from being incessantly nipped at and your body and soul need rest. Self-isolation can be a highly desirable doorway to duck into for a time. You can fill your days with things, like music and books and beautiful things and nourishing food.

So many of us, especially women, are fed the lie that our presence is indispensable to others and our self-worth often centered on making sure others around us are well taken care of.

I have come to believe that absenting myself for a time to take care of my own needs is an opportunity for others to learn to take better care of themselves. Win-win.

With that single, simple decision, think of the drama and burnout and suffering that could be avoided in our relationships. I sure do. All the time.

What I Said

I was your age, maybe younger, when I started hitting brick walls. Those brick walls were largely my own creation. It took me time to see and admit that.

My parents were no help. In retrospect, and even during my greatest struggles, I wondered how they might have helped me. If they had been so inclined. I know for sure that completely ignoring I had any legitimate or addressable emotional problems was not helpful at all.

This is what I thought they might have done. I thought it would help if they acknowledged they could see I was confused and suffering. I acknowledge that you are confused and suffering.

I also would have found it helpful if they acknowledged they could see through my “grown up” act to the struggling little child I still was within. I see that you are still a hurting and struggling child. Acting all grown up. 

It would have been helpful for me to have one of them say that they would be there for me and would stand by me as I resolved to solve my internal turmoil.

It was poet Alden Nowlan who said: “The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise.”

You are still some distance from adulthood and I grieve that. I also grieve that you carry and disperse so much anger and vitriol to people who love you. 

My mom once said of me that she “loved” me but she didn’t like me much. Truth was, I didn’t much like myself.

I extend my hand if you want to seek help for whatever it is that is going on in you. I learned that the longer we ignore the source of our distress, the bigger it becomes and harder it is to resolve. 

I know you have great ambition but I also know they are unachievable or will quickly fall apart when you are tested (as you will inevitably be) with your level of  emotional turmoil and anger. The world won’t tolerate it. They didn’t tolerate it from me. I know that from hard experience.

I’m here for support if you want to make an honest effort at healing your wounds and repairing your relationships. It is easy to look a gift horse in the mouth until it is too late or ends in disaster. I hope that is not what awaits you. 

What I know now for sure is that I am not the sole source of your grievances and troubled soul. I am just another scapegoat whom you choose to blame. What I had to eventually learn – the hard way – was that I was the common denominator in my fractured life and relationships.

You may find yourself scared or uncertain by times now. Just wait until your emotional bank account is empty and all of your support has fallen or been pushed away and you are left to manage everything all on your own.

That will be a very hard day indeed. Whether I am still on the planet or not.

As always, your choice.