Posts tagged with "self-improvement"

hello? is this thing on?

The world still turns, even when it’s in lock­down, and there’s been much to say.

If only writ­ing came as eas­i­ly as it used to. The bulk of my entries have been a com­pul­sion, a way to sort out thoughts and feel­ings when I had no one to talk to.

Then I start­ed dat­ing Heather — my first time cohab­i­tat­ing with a roman­tic part­ner — and sud­den­ly had an out­let that was both acces­si­ble and val­i­dat­ing1. It became eas­i­er to turn to her than find the words for a screen that nev­er spoke back.

My time in ther­a­py has also giv­en me bet­ter emo­tion­al mod­er­a­tion; a skill to deal with the dis­tress that comes from depres­sion and trau­ma. Instead of spi­ral­ing into pan­ic or rage, I’ve learned to embrace dif­fi­cult feel­ings and let them pass through me. Scary thoughts and painful mem­o­ries don’t con­trol me the way they used to. A healthy trade for the loss of inspi­ra­tion.

In that sense, I hold an evolv­ing style and sub­ject mat­ter to be pos­i­tive devel­op­ments. After all, I began this blog almost 20 years ago. If I was fill­ing the space with the same things as I was back then it would be an embar­rass­ing sign I had­n’t grown at all. I imag­ine I’ll always have more things to say as long as I con­tin­ue learn­ing, even if the impe­tus is lack­ing.

It makes me won­der why oth­ers stopped blog­ging (or why they start­ed in the first place). Checking my RSS feed is still a habit, but nowa­days I’m left invari­ably dis­ap­point­ed and feel­ing more dis­con­nect­ed than ever. Social media has become too shal­low for my tastes. Medium too imper­son­al. YouTube too obnox­ious and osten­ta­tious and increas­ing­ly com­mer­cial, with Twitch being even worse on all those counts.

And yet there’s relief to be found in the fact that no one knows I’m writ­ing any­more2. This space is no longer sacred when I feel oblig­ed to or inhib­it­ed by an audi­ence. Self-imposed exile became an impor­tant step towards reclaim­ing the sense of con­trol I’d lost. My sto­ry isn’t fin­ished, and per­haps enough time away has giv­en me the dis­tance I need to be com­fort­able shar­ing myself again.

  1. The fact that she’s usu­al­ly on the same intel­lec­tu­al lev­el (or high­er) is also an impor­tant fac­tor. [↩]
  2. With a few notable excep­tions, I’m sure. [↩]

convalescent care

The time will come
when, with ela­tion
you will greet your­self arriv­ing
at your own door, in your own mir­ror
and each will smile at the oth­er’s wel­come,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for anoth­er, who knows you by heart

—Derek Walcott, Love After Love

I’ve start­ed going to appoint­ments on my own. Being stuck in a wait­ing room with sobri­ety on the hori­zon no longer fills me with rage; instead, I take the time as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to do breath­ing exer­cis­es and prac­tice mind­ful­ness. When some­thing minor goes wrong I don’t shut down any­more. I can han­dle small amounts of stress with­out being over­whelmed. Leaning into my anx­i­ety and mak­ing peace with it has giv­en me a mod­icum of inner strength I thought was for­ev­er lost. I’m start­ing to feel less help­less, less like a vic­tim.

It’s a sign that I’m on the mend. The trau­ma of the past is start­ing to lose its effect on me. Heather does­n’t have to use a vaca­tion day to accom­pa­ny me on every check-up, and we can spend that time con­nect­ing in a more mean­ing­ful way1.

glass-blown pumpkins

Since Halloween is her favourite time of year, I sur­prised her with a glass­blow­ing work­shop where we made our own pump­kins. She now has these dec­o­rat­ing her desk at work as a reminder of a love­ly date in the Fall.

Developing resources to be self-suf­fi­cient also means learn­ing to be respon­si­ble for my own hap­pi­ness. In the past, I would save songs, shows, and movies so I could expe­ri­ence them for the first time with anoth­er per­son. This was espe­cial­ly true when ____ was still in my life; every moment was bet­ter when I could share it with her. But that meant I would con­stant­ly be deny­ing myself the plea­sure, and total­ly reliant on some­one’s com­pa­ny to be hap­py.

So I’ve start­ed enjoy­ing things on my own as a way of treat­ing myself well. Making sure I do some­thing that gives me joy every day has opened up a world of ways to be com­pas­sion­ate to myself. Poor self-esteem has his­tor­i­cal­ly made it dif­fi­cult for me to feel like I deserved to have fun unless I had done some­thing to earn it, while bad emo­tion­al habits meant I nev­er believed I was doing enough. None of that is an prob­lem when I sim­ply want myself to be hap­py.

That’s not to say I still don’t miss ____ tremen­dous­ly — even after she decid­ed to aban­don me and blame me for it — but I don’t need her like I used to. I know I’m final­ly get­ting over her after so many years when I can fin­ish the shows we start­ed with­out get­ting over­whelmed with emo­tion. Learning that I have the abil­i­ty to heal myself also comes as a huge sur­prise. I’ve been spend­ing so much effort on recov­ery, try­ing to feel like my old self again, that I for­got it’s pos­si­ble to grow in new ways and become an even bet­ter ver­sion of the per­son I used to be.

Rosie's knuckle tattoos

Rosie has the only knuck­le tat­toos I’ve ever been tempt­ed to copy.

Still; I can’t remem­ber the last time a song real­ly hit me, some­thing worth rat­ing five stars in my playlists2. Music does­n’t bring me the same man­ic rush of joy any­more. In the last few years, this was direct­ly relat­ed to the amount of trau­ma I expe­ri­enced. Hardship has a way of bring­ing per­spec­tive to one’s life, and reduc­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of things both good and bad.

Now I can tell it’s the price to pay for sta­bil­i­ty. The highs don’t seem as high any­more when I’m con­tent most of the time, but that’s okay. I’m start­ing to under­stand that the eupho­ria I would seek as relief from my suf­fer­ing isn’t sus­tain­able. That’s a drag­on I no longer need to chase when I can remem­ber that pain is part of life, and let­ting it in is an impor­tant part of heal­ing.

  1. Not that she’s ever resent­ful when look­ing after me. [↩]
  2. A quick check of my library tells me this was Tower Song by Townes Van Zandt back in 2015. [↩]

projector

A while back, my ther­a­pist asked, “Do you think Heather will love you, regard­less of whether you’re active­ly con­tribut­ing to the rela­tion­ship?”. I told him I was­n’t sure, cause I was still try­ing to under­stand the con­cept of uncon­di­tion­al love. As a child, my par­ents told me they would­n’t love me if I was­n’t a good boy, and a good boy would do exact­ly what they want­ed. The affec­tion they doled out was direct­ly relat­ed to how well I did in school, or how much I impressed oth­er par­ents. They used it as a tool to con­trol me, and this dynam­ic has influ­enced my under­stand­ing of rela­tion­ships to the point that it feels like I con­stant­ly need to be mak­ing efforts in them (or they’ll decay).

So my ther­a­pist instead posed the ques­tion, “Do you think Heather will love you, no mat­ter what?”. My first reac­tion was one of con­fu­sion; I heard the same ques­tion as before. When I real­ized it had com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent impli­ca­tions — would Heather still love me if I was an axe mur­der­er; if I was racist; if I burned the house down; if I did­n’t love her back — it dawned on me that I was pro­ject­ing this mon­u­men­tal require­ment on myself to be con­stant­ly mak­ing efforts towards the rela­tion­ship. It was­n’t an expec­ta­tion Heather was bring­ing, but my own; one I pro­ject­ed on her due to my child­hood trau­ma.

To real­ize that I was doing this in such a spe­cif­ic and sig­nif­i­cant man­ner was a shock. My mind inad­ver­tent­ly made bounds in log­ic, and every time Heather said, “I’ll always love you”, I would hear, “I’ll always love you, as long as…“1

Continue read­ing “pro­jec­tor”…

  1. It blows my mind to know that Heather’s love for me isn’t con­di­tion­al, that she loves me deep­er that I’m even able to under­stand at the moment. [↩]

you die, all you do is die, and yet you live

I nev­er intend­ed ther­a­py to take such prece­dence, but it’s become the re-occur­ring event around which I work all my oth­er plans. I’m still learn­ing how to be an emo­tion­al­ly healthy per­son, while unlearn­ing the destruc­tive habits I devel­oped to sur­vive the rela­tion­ships of my past. They affect me every sin­gle day, and I know I’ll be doomed to recre­ate the dra­mas of my ear­li­er life unless I have out­side help. At the same time, it’s not a process I can rush. Every ses­sion leaves me emo­tion­al­ly exhaust­ed, and I need a healthy dose of hap­py to recov­er1. It also takes time to process what I learn, reflect on ongo­ing behav­iours, and put new tech­niques into prac­tice.

I’m for­tu­nate to have found a com­pe­tent ther­a­pist with whom I’m com­fort­able, espe­cial­ly when doing cog­ni­tive work that often leaves me unsafe2. After so many months, he knows enough about me and my his­to­ry to under­stand the kind of guid­ance I need. There’s no struc­ture, but he always lets me start. As a per­son who’s spent his entire life being social­ly sub­mis­sive, the role rever­sal is a wel­come change. It’s a reminder that the time is mine, that I’m free to be myself, that I get what I want out of our hour.

Sometimes, I catch myself wish­ing he would val­i­date me with­out the need to explain myself, but he con­sis­tent­ly remains the neu­tral ally (albeit one with plen­ty of com­pas­sion). I’ve learned that it’s impor­tant he nev­er side with me out of loy­al­ty the way a friend might, so I can trust his opin­ion is always bal­anced and fair. Other times, I wish he would sim­ply tell me what I need to know, but he lets me come to real­iza­tions by myself, to make sure I’m always in con­trol, and to avoid influ­enc­ing me by the act of mak­ing a sug­ges­tion. It’s a unique role in my life that he plays well.

I dread the pain, but still look for­ward to every ses­sion. So much of my progress is tied to the mem­o­ries I’ve kept in the back of my head and the emo­tions I’ve left to expe­ri­ence. It’s an oppor­tu­ni­ty to show myself com­pas­sion, while flex­ing men­tal mus­cles I don’t get to use often enough nowa­days. Not to men­tion the grat­i­fi­ca­tion and hope that comes with uncov­er­ing long-seat­ed, self-defeat­ing thought pat­terns.

Heather has­n’t been com­ing in with me late­ly, but she still comes with; I don’t need her as a wit­ness as much as a sup­port when it’s over. It’s com­fort­ing to know I have a part­ner who accepts me now amid all this uncer­tain­ty, and will con­tin­ue to no mat­ter who I become. She’s the one who tends to my wounds at home, the love I’ve been miss­ing my entire life, the rea­son I’m strong enough to do this work. The least I can do is strength­en my bond with her by learn­ing to be more a trust­ing, patient, and accept­ing per­son.

  1. Something that usu­al­ly involves turn­ing into a blitzed-out her­mit for a few days. [↩]
  2. I’ve always won­dered what oth­er peo­ple’s expe­ri­ence with ther­a­py is like. I don’t know a sin­gle per­son who goes on a reg­u­lar basis. [↩]

slow plays and hybrid strains

Darren stopped by for a stay on the way to Montreal for his first mul­ti-day hol­dem tour­na­ment. The first and last nights end­ed up being the only ones we had to our­selves. Otherwise, it was a mix of friends and strangers, sati­vas and inci­das, com­ing and going through the house each day. I’m glad he was along for the ride, even though I’m always up far too late when we’re togeth­er, and it’s get­ting hard­er on my body as I get old­er.

Theros draft

Theros draft at my place on release day. I walked away with 1st, but it was off a missed rules call (by me) in my match against Shawn, one that would have made a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence on the tiebreak­er. I’ll always remem­ber the night I won Xenagos and a Thoughtseize (which cov­ers both my entry fee along with Darren’s), but the vic­to­ry will for­ev­er be taint­ed.

It’s feels like I’m a dif­fer­ent per­son, liv­ing a dif­fer­ent life, every time we hang out. The dis­tance between us means the change we expe­ri­ence is always sig­nif­i­cant enough to notice. This time my rela­tion­ships have changed the most cause I’ve start­ed com­part­men­tal­iz­ing peo­ple, appre­ci­at­ing them for their strengths instead of expect­ing every­one to live up to some lofty set of expec­ta­tions. My needs have always been the same, but I’m get­ting bet­ter at mak­ing sure they’re met after final­ly fig­ur­ing out what they are. I’m also bet­ter at read­ing peo­ple, detect­ing under­tone, and under­stand­ing social inter­ac­tions, thanks to Shawn’s exper­tise rub­bing off on me.

In terms of self-improve­ment, I’m try­ing to be more under­stand­ing of the world at large, while reduc­ing my hate and increas­ing my patience. I’ve also start­ed to ana­lyze and resolve the trig­gers that keep me from being the per­son I was meant to be. The strug­gles I used to have only a few years ago seem so ado­les­cent in com­par­i­son to the things I’m work­ing on now. My pri­or­i­ties have matured, or I’ve grown in ways that have made old issues obso­lete.

I’d nev­er have real­ized any of this if Darren had­n’t showed up to pull me so far out of my reg­u­lar life that I lost track of what day it was and the women I’d loved and the feel­ing of cold. I learn as much about myself as I do about him when we’re catch­ing up.