February 2, 2014

Your attention please!

No one is coming to save you. This life of yours is 100% your responsibility. Wow! I saw these words in the above picture and it really resonated with me.

I used to lean really heavily on my family and friends for emotional support. I didn’t have the skills to cope when heavy shit went down. In fact, a lot of the time I perceived it to be heavy shit. Looking back I know it wasn’t so big a lot of the time.

I was reactive, unhappy, judgmental and angry most of the time in those days. I didn’t think that though! I was too busy playing the victim and blaming everyone else and everything else outside of me for stuff that was happening in house, in my brain and in my relationships at home and at work.

I used stuff to dumb these feelings most weekends… but of course you can’t push stuff away like this. It just comes back stronger and with a bigger vengeance to smack you squarely on your ass. Which it did, repeatedly.

I met someone and fell hard. I loved her. I loved her. I loved her. I LOVED HER. All of a sudden things brightened. I thought:  ‘Yes! Here it is! This is happiness!’.

But… I obviously had dragged all of this emotional baggage that I had been accumulating over the years and I dumped it (unconsciously) all over her and the relationship, leaving the girl with no air to breathe and with no option but to leave.

This was when I would call friends here and in the UK. This is when I would sit outside my friends flat at 6.00am on a Sunday morning waiting for them to wake up so I could drown them in more of my sorrows and my ‘why me’ mentality.

I still think of these times when I go to that particular beachside suburb. I remember the horrible, out of control feelings I used to have sitting on the steep hill there, waiting for them to wake up, desperate to feel better, hoping they could drag me out of myself. Again, leaving them no air to breathe.

Those friends know who they are and to them I owe my life. You brandished your oxygen masks (at the risk of your own happiness, relationship and countless weekends) and battled through my suffocating neediness.

Phew!

Even writing this takes me back there…… it feels uncomfortable. But, I have so much compassion for the person I was back then. I didn’t know what I didn’t know and wasn’t really interested in knowing it at the time. I just wanted someone to take it all away for me.

But NO ONE WAS COMING TO SAVE ME.

No one could. I realised (eventually) that it was my responsibility.

This is when I created the shift.  I sought out an amazing psych/counsellor who practiced in EMDR (Google it). I didn’t know what this was or what it was and I didn’t care to be honest as I was still secretly hoping he could grab my heavy backpack, pop it in the back of his car and take it away from me so I could be ‘happy’ (isn’t that a counsellors job????)

I played this game with my counsellor and healer (again unconsciously) for a long while. Me blaming the world, my ex girlfriend, my mother’s cancer (which had recently taken her life), my work colleagues, my etc etc etc…. you get my drift.

Eventually after another broken relationship with an amazing person (cut and paste the same story here as above) I realised that it was ME! I was the denominator, the contributing factor, the same running theme. What a revelation hey???????

That’s when the real work started.

I am so blessed to have met the right people who have stood by my side and supported me while I do the work in order to become the me I am today. I am also blessed to have friends that did it even when I was drowning them with my negativity and baggage.

I am pleased to say that I now understand how to carry my own shit (which is undoubtedly lighter….. it also helps that I am also undoubtedly stronger) and understand that I am 100% responsible for my life.

No one is coming to save you. This life of yours is 100% your responsibility. Grab your backpack, fancy luggage or whatever you choose to place your stuff in and carry it yourself. You may need people to teach you how to carry the load. Find them, listen and learn.

I promise if you do that you will soon find ways, like I did to lighten the load so you can move through this life with ease and grace and with a smile on your face.

Jibber jabber over n out.