Posts in category "Thoughts"

not ready to stop

I take care of this moment by tak­ing care of myself. That means nour­ish­ing my sense of well-being by spend­ing time with peo­ple who:

  • con­nect with me on an inti­mate lev­el
  • give me their full atten­tion and com­mand mine at the same time
  • under­stand and val­i­date what I’m going through

Normally, the goal is to use the pos­i­tive expe­ri­ences from these rela­tion­ships to buffer my emo­tion­al resilience when things get rough, but right now I’m just try­ing to get to the point most peo­ple con­sid­er nor­mal.

It helps when peo­ple make me things like this. I had a Google search box as my brows­er start page for as long as I can remem­ber, until pre­sent­ed with this board full of hap­pi­ness, where every update is rel­e­vant to my inter­ests. Tiana and Genevieve secret­ly col­lect­ed cats for months before giv­ing it to me just because, and some­how there were 91 fol­low­ers before I even made a Pinterest account to fol­low this name­sake board. These are peo­ple who tru­ly under­stand me, and make me feel con­nect­ed even when I’m not with them. This is what I need more of in my life.

sitting in a cafe

We’ll get there some­day, cuz.

I’ve also been reach­ing into my past and search­ing for clo­sure, whether that means giv­ing or receiv­ing for­give­ness. It’s hum­bling to own up to my role in some­one’s pain with­out mak­ing excus­es or lay­ing blame to pro­tect my pride, but being able to do so has giv­en me more amour de soi. Mistakes will be made on my jour­ney, but it does­n’t mean I’m a bad per­son, and it won’t stop me from becom­ing bet­ter.

Seeking res­o­lu­tion does­n’t always end well though. I’m try­ing to under­stand each response as a mes­sage about the true nature of some­one’s role in my life, with­out being caught up in anger. It’s so much eas­i­er to for­give or accept some­one when I start to under­stand their real­i­ty, even if they’ve hurt me rather unde­serv­ing­ly. I final­ly feel like I’m get­ting a han­dle on my inter­ac­tions with peo­ple, instead of con­stant­ly being at the whim of their behav­iour.

dog by the door

It’s been a peri­od of such tremen­dous growth in myself and devel­op­ment in my rela­tion­ships that it feels like I’ve been giv­en a reprieve. I’ve been work­ing on all the lit­tle things I said I’d take care of when I was bet­ter, one day at a time. Just know­ing that I’m improv­ing in some small way is often enough to keep me going by itself.

I still occa­sion­al­ly get caught up on the idea that I need to be per­fect before start­ing down a new path, but Lisa always reminds me that the per­son I am already isn’t so bad. Growing is a grad­ual and life­long process. I can do the best with the per­son I am, and that’ll always be good enough.

Level 8

Shawn and I go deep once a week, usu­al­ly with a decent amount of psy­cho­analy­sis mixed in with our Magic match­es. I real­ized I still need ther­a­py, but in a dif­fer­ent form from what my ther­a­pist could offer1. I need to work with some­one who isn’t restrict­ed by time lim­its when I’m in the mid­dle of extreme­ly time-sen­si­tive events, and it’s vital that I work at my own pace, since it’s easy to rush things (that should be dealt with very care­ful­ly) when it costs $180/hour. He also stretch­es me out in all the right ways, and I’m learn­ing that phys­i­cal com­fort is often just as impor­tant as emo­tion­al val­i­da­tion.

Shawn admits it’s all pop-psy­chol­o­gy since he has no for­mal edu­ca­tion, but he’s spe­cial­ized in peo­ple and rela­tion­ships for so long that it’s no less effec­tive. Sometimes, it’s scary to work with some­one who func­tions at such a high­er lev­el of under­stand­ing of the world. I recent­ly heard Jon Kabat-Zinn say, “Buddha was not a Buddhist”, which I start­ed repeat­ing to Shawn when try­ing to relate mind­ful­ness with mod­ern reli­gion. He fin­ished my thought by say­ing, “and Jesus was not a Christian”, an idea I’d only come to after a lot more research and reflec­tion. He was able to reach the same con­clu­sion by exam­in­ing pat­terns in his exist­ing knowl­edge; an extreme­ly pro­found and impact­ful con­cept to me, which I was still try­ing to ful­ly grasp, was applied com­mon sense to him.

That means I’m occa­sion­al­ly con­front­ed with how nar­row-mind­ed I can be in com­par­i­son. It’s mess­ing with things I take for grant­ed, like my ideas of right or wrong, parts of my world-view I’ve held for so long and with­out ques­tion. Sometimes, I real­ize the per­son I was until that very moment would have done things I’d now con­sid­er embar­rass­ing (being judgmental/intolerant/hateful), based on igno­rance, parochial­ism, or naïveté. Thankfully, I’m also get­ting bet­ter at accept­ing my past self(ves) by under­stand­ing all the influ­ences that have led me to think a cer­tain way. It also helps know­ing that the tru­ly impor­tant thing is that I have the pow­er to change now, and that it’ll affect me pos­i­tive­ly for the rest of my life.

Shawn used to say I was a wiz­ard stuck on lev­el 7, always on the cusp of lev­el­ling up. I had enough wis­dom and intel­li­gence and oth­er attrib­ut­es to be a much more pow­er­ful char­ac­ter, but was still a mage who could­n’t start his main quest, due to a very low stat in his rela­tion­ship score. This was hold­ing me back because rela­tion­ships are a huge part of my needs; iron­ic that I’m also so bad at them.

I’ve learned a lot in the last few months though, through a new aware­ness of deep­er parts of myself, and a view of the world that’s get­ting more objec­tive. I’m apply­ing these things by pur­su­ing healthy inter­ests, which cur­rent­ly means build­ing my rela­tion­ships and prac­tic­ing uni­lat­er­al virtue. While the lat­ter has been both empow­er­ing and hum­bling, it’s also dras­ti­cal­ly shak­en my under­stand­ing of my rela­tion­ships, my needs, and my past. I can tell I’m only begin­ning to fig­ure out the dynam­ics of peo­ple and how they func­tion, but Shawn says just com­ing to that under­stand­ing means I’ve final­ly reached lev­el 8, and with that foun­da­tion, I can begin the next part of my jour­ney.

Then he gave me a high-five. My ther­a­pist nev­er did that.

  1. Not that he was bad in any way. It’s just that the nature of open­ness tends to get more com­pli­cat­ed when mon­ey is involved. You know some­one tru­ly cares when they lis­ten with­out hav­ing to get paid, and it’s eas­i­er to be com­fort­able with that. [↩]

terminal velocity

The jour­ney lasts an hour, by turns mov­ing and bit­ter­sweet, a mix­tape with­out a name that’s pos­si­bly the most thought­ful col­lec­tion of music any­one has ever giv­en to me. It’s the addic­tion I’ve been wait­ing for. Proof that I can still be under­stood when a feel­ing is shared if not a his­to­ry.

Yet new songs on repeat don’t define this moment, cause I can’t tell when one moment ends and the next begins any­more. There’s no sense of per­ma­nence in any­thing. I don’t know whether to be scared or relieved to know that every­thing will inevitably change.

view of Mississauga, Ontario

Shawn thinks I’m plum­met­ing towards rock bot­tom cause I need to prove to myself that I can pull myself out. The idea was on the very tip of my con­scious­ness, and it’s get­ting hard­er to deny how right he is. I’ve always been a per­son who needs to explore the lim­its of the pos­si­ble. I just won­der whether I’ll sur­vive the fall.

the loving dominant

My rela­tion­ships func­tion best in a one-on-one con­text, when I’m giv­ing a sin­gle per­son my full atten­tion or vice ver­sa. I see myself as the dom­i­nant most of the time. But pow­er flows from the bot­tom up and I’m a pleas­er too, so I fre­quent­ly assume the sub­mis­sive role cause I enjoy it (need it?) so much. Knowing that I can make peo­ple hap­py is some­thing I thrive on.

At heart though, I’m a very dom­i­nant per­son, and I nev­er real­ized I was miss­ing an out­let for those ten­den­cies until Shawn hand­ed me the remote as we were about to watch Game of Thrones. He read me well enough to know that I enjoy tak­ing care of lit­tle details, and he’s even more of a pleas­er than I am, so he gave me con­trol, even though I rec­og­nize that he’s the more dom­i­nant per­son1.

Over time, I’ve become the one to do the talk­ing, to decide what we do, to make the small choic­es that remind me I have wants and needs as much as any­one else. Shawn’s a per­son I respect, and he’s nat­u­ral­ly “bet­ter” in the ways that are impor­tant to me, so being in con­trol when we hang out has been real­ly ful­fill­ing. I’m get­ting bet­ter at speak­ing out about things that both­er me and think­ing of myself and being stronger in gen­er­al.

  1. I high­ly val­ue intel­li­gence, so it’s nat­ur­al for me to sub­mit to more intel­li­gent peo­ple, and he’s way more intel­li­gent than me. He’s also a lot stronger of char­ac­ter. [↩]

a quiet moment

I took a break from gui­tar. Not a con­scious deci­sion, just days that were busy enough that I did­n’t think of pick­ing her up, which means I don’t even know how long I’d stopped. All I know is that it was long, cause I feel the strings vibrat­ing through every piece of wood that touch­es my body now, one of those sen­sa­tions you stop notic­ing after enough time.

I haven’t had much to say either. Nothing seems impor­tant. At the same time, I’m try­ing to move away from this social media over­load, where so many peo­ple speak only cause the pow­er to do makes them believe they should. It’s mak­ing the gaps between my entries longer and longer, and I won­der if I’ll even­tu­al­ly stop writ­ing alto­geth­er.

getting dressed

All I have are mem­o­ries of lives I lived so long ago that I feel like I’m watch­ing them in 8mm. The friends and the lovers, the love and the hate, the cycles and the pat­terns. I’m only now sort­ing out the mean­ing of each one, maybe cause I’ve final­ly grown enough to under­stand myself and my rela­tion­ship with the world at large. It’s com­fort­ing to see how far I’ve come when com­par­ing the per­son I am now to each per­son I used to be.

But such progress came at the cost of my inno­cence; we aren’t always ready to learn the hard­er lessons, and sur­viv­ing some­times means we change in ways that pre­vent us from becom­ing the peo­ple we’re meant to be. I’m try­ing to take back that inno­cence now, cause I know my hap­pi­ness is at stake.