Monkey off my Back!

I read that expression recently, and thought, Bingo!

I find this process of looking inside myself, of trying to see who I am, very interesting. I'm very confident with my values, and yet I find it hard to stand up for myself.

That's why I get so angry, sometimes I am even perceived as aggressive, when inside I am feeling pushed around.

I am so idealistic that it has caused me to end friendships. I have no regrets there, of course my life is better without those monkeys on my back. Yet, I am sad. I am hurt, personally, by these sad excuses for humanity. It's not the lying, the cheating, the selfishness in the specific that causes me pain, it's the knowledge that that is the very best that person can offer the world. And shock of course at the affront to my values. (Maybe a bit sanctimonious, but doing the right thing isn't easy... it's just right. Stop being lazy and grow up.)

And what I need to do is work on being ok from walking away from those people. I am so idealistic, I want to help them. But it really is trying to teach an old dog new tricks. Only the old dog died a while ago!

I guess Bing Crosby was right, all the monkeys aren't in the zoo, every day you meet quite a few! But whether the monkey is on my back or talking behind my back, I guess I'm a step ahead.

Thanks, but no thanks

I really like people to know me, see me, understand me. But not everyone can, nor does everyone want to. Shock!

There are a few people in my life that I don't want to have close at all anymore. For whatever reason, I just don't admire or respect them the way I want to admire and respect the people I keep close. So I'd like to just let go.

But they won't go.

Some of them I'm related to, some of them are friends of family, some of them have just been around for a long time. And all of them I'll most likely see or hear from again. I've actually just come to realize that people rarely disappear, they just go into hiding. Sometimes when they reappear it's a joy, other times I just have to figure out how to negotiate those social occasions without getting involved.

Anyway, so these people that won't go away... I don't want to behave unkindly, even though I have nothing kind to say to them. I have nothing to gain by being honest or open with them, by telling them how I feel, what I want from them or for them. Well, except that they might be so irritated they would go away... but then I'd have to see them again. And be confronted with my lack of gentleness with them.

But I don't want to molly-coddle people I just don't like. I just want to figure out the bare minimum required to reduce contact as much as possible.

So I will say, "thank you" to reply to nice things said and done, but "no thanks" to any suggestion that I want to connect. I'm busy that day.

What's Important

The biggest problem with tough choices is that I'm pulled in so many directions.

I want to be happy. I want to do what is right. I want to be a loving person. I want to be a good friend. And I want to learn to think differently about what's bothering me, so that it doesn't bother me so much.

J says that he just makes people who hurt him less important. But I've had a habit of making people who hurt me MORE important. For me that's because I was hurt a lot when I was young, by my parents, and when you're a kid, of course your parents are very important. But I'm an adult now, and I can change that habit. I will never be hurt again like I was when I was a kid, because I'll never be that vulnerable again. So I don't have to protect myself from getting hurt.

So the situation I'm facing is my friend's new girlfriend, who is that former friend of mine who was unpleasant to me when I was going through a tough time and then refused to return my keys and bank pass for a couple of months. That got resolved after I called her mother and asked her to intervene. She's now moved from Canada to Holland, and is living with him.

I recently saw my friend for the first time since his girlfriend arrived here. We were able to arrange that because she went out of town for a few days.

He told me a few things that she told him about what happened, sort of letting me in on what he understands her perspective to be.

She told him that she was hurt that I didn't trust her to return my things. She told him that she had made several attempts to return the keys and bank pass but that my cousins hadn't responded to her. She told him that she didn't care if I visited him, but she didn't want to be friends with me because I hurt her so much.

I was very surprised to hear this. At first, I resented that she had told him about how she felt about me, and not me. And I felt really sad that I had hurt her. But you know, I tend to believe what people say, even when their actions say otherwise.

Her actions were to not reply to my emails for months. I sent her 5 or 6 emails over the course of about 3 months. Not only was I trying to heal our friendship, but I also asked her to please confirm that she had my keys and bank pass and that she would give them to my cousins. She told my friend/her boyfriend that she was just deleting my emails unread. If that's true, she only knew that she was supposed to return the keys and bank pass to my cousins as soon as possible.

She and her mother know my cousins. They both know the mom and the dad and the three adult children living at home. So she knew five different people she could contact to return my keys and bank pass. I hadn't told any of them the problems I was having with her, or that she just was refusing to reply to my emails. After all, it's none of their business. So they would have been just as loving and kind with her as they have always been over the years.

It would indeed surprise me if my cousins had ignored her requests to meet, since I was also in contact with my cousins who knew this was important to me. My cousins were replying to my emails and letting me know what was happening. And my cousins told me that she had made a couple of vague appointments but then just never showed up. So if this is a test of who-is-more-likely-to-be-telling-the-truth, then based on these facts, the believability lies slightly more with my cousins, if for no other reason than that they provided me with this information at the time.

I knew my former friend very well. She has lots of great qualities, but she isn't the most honest person. I have no idea if she's lied to me directly, but she told me many things about herself that began with, "So-and-so still thinks that this happened, because I lied about it. Really, something else happened." Now, that's her business, and she has the right to shape what people think about her in this way if that's what she wants to do. But back to the test of truth-telling: based on her character, she is less believable than my cousins.

So my conclusions are:

1. I think she probably was hurt by something I said or did.
   Now, she had the chance to make things right between us, but didn't. She could have read my emails and learned what I was thinking and feeling. She could have told me what she was thinking and feeling. She didn't do those things, and I suspect that there are two reasons behind that. The first is, friendship isn't (or at least my friendship wasn't) that important to her, so when she got hurt, she just moved on. The second is that she did value my friendship, but when she got hurt she decided that the effort to talk about it with me was too much work for her, and moved on.
2. I think she is shaping what her new boyfriend thinks of her by saying what she thinks will make him think better of her.
   I don't believe she really made the efforts she claimed to contact my cousins about the keys and bank pass. I don't think my apparent lack of trust in her was hurtful to her, or if so, that's really odd. If she didn't reply to her colleagues at work asking about a project she was handling, would she be hurt that her boss no longer assumed she was working on the assignement? She knew she had a responsibility to fulfil, and didn't make it happen - for months.

I really valued her friendship, and loved her how I imagine people love a sister. She really mattered to me. But now I can see that her hurting me wasn't a mistake or an accident, it was something that she did deliberately, (although not likely with hurting me as a goal). I did everything I could to try to heal our friendship, but she didn't. That is really sad.

I notice that my anger and hurt is gone, as I realize that of course I need friends who are less likely to hurt me. I can't befriend everyone, and like financial investments, there are some friendships that depreciate in value over time. It's sad, but also like a financial investment, there is a point at which you need to move on.

And in order for me to do that, I have to recognize and accept that I tried to make this friendship work. I placed a high value on what was there, and made every effort to breathe life into it. But a friendship is a team effort, and I can't do it on my own. She had the opportunity to know how I felt, what I thought, and that I asked her to forgive me for whatever happened that made her angry or hurt. But she chose not to know those things, and I have to respect that. She had the choice to make this friendship work or not. I think she made the wrong choice, but it is her choice to make.

So what I need to do now is realize that she is not important in my life. She used to be, but not anymore. She's my friend's girlfriend, and when we visit him she might be around, but she doesn't matter. My friends and family matter, not people I used to know once upon a time.

Gak. I sure hope this is the end of this drama with her inside my head!

Getting My Life Coached

Wow! Let me just say I was really excited after my first 'official' session with Marloes (see here for the first part of the story). We talked about a number of things, but what really stood out was an exercise with cards! Not playing cards, exactly, but this set of cards.

I found the English image on the right online, but I could only find information about this game in Dutch (left).

To understand how the 'game' works, this website explains it really well. Basically, Marloes asked me to go through all the cards with positive traits, and pick out a couple that I felt really described me. Of course, I have all sorts of positive traits, but the one I chose as a particular feature of mine was CARING. We talked a bit how I enjoy being a caring person. We also talked about how sometimes being caring actually causes me problems. I enjoy doing things for people, but sometimes, somehow, it can also feel like an obligation. And from time to time, I feel taken advantage of, and think that some people just use me for the nice things I do to make their life easier. So we talked about how too much of a good thing can lead to something not-so-good.

The next step was to choose a a negative quality from the set of cards with negative traits to describe what I feel happens when my caring nature gets out of hand. I chose SUBSERVIENT. The word in Dutch is wegcijferen, which means to make into a nonentity. It is perhaps best translated in this context as sweeping myself away. I got pretty mad when I realized that's how I felt. Even though others have definitely behaved badly towards me, and shame on them, the real issue in my life is that I have sometimes done that to myself. Lately I have valued pleasing others, caring for them, and doing what I can to make their lives easier, far too much. I sometimes go to extremes, and disregard my own needs, wants, interests, preferences, etc. in favour of someone else's. And that's not only no fun at all in the short term, it hinders me from being happy later on as well.

The next step was to look at the positive traits again, and choose one that represented an opposite to the too-much-of-a-good-thing negative quality. For this one, I chose INDEPENDENCE. I'm not sure if anyone else can understand the logic of my mind (or of anyone's at all!), but I chose 'independence' because someone who does whatever she wants, takes care of herself, and puts herself first, well... that person is not subservient at all, and never diminishes herself for another. We talked about this for a bit. I was surprised to find that I found independence a bit scary. I had the idea that if I put myself first, then I wouldn't be kind or loving anymore. And since I really value being caring, that bothered me.

I'm not sure quite what happened, but all of a sudden I realized that there is no risk of me ever being anything less than a wonderfully loving, kind, and caring person. I'm still a bit surprised that independence is something I'm not attracted to, but I think I associate independence with being alone. And although I like to be alone more than a lot of people, I sure don't want to live my life alone. (Hence, my loving nature lol!!)

The final, and most difficult step, was to choose the quality that I see as being too much independence. I chose SELFISHNESS. I find this quality somewhat challenging to define. I would say that someone who is selfish is someone who has no objective values to live by. For example, a selfish person has no problem telling a lie to avoid a confrontation or to manipulate someone else's view of them. A selfish person is intolerant of others if the views, feelings, or needs of others are inconvenient. I really dislike that kind of person, and I guess I fear being independent a bit because I see a slipperly slope. I get a bit nervous that maybe being independent will turn me into someone manipulative, intolerant and self-serving. And for me, there'd be nothing worse!

Now, wasn't that an interesting journey of self-discovery!!

Does My Life Need a Coach?

I am generally a happy person. I laugh and smile and joke and tease a lot. Even during the happiest days of my life, there are always down moments, but they were generally short-lived. So, I was unpleasantly surprised when I found myself not happy for several months. From about August until just after Christmas, I was sad, angry, frustrated, and impatient.

Why I felt that way was situational, as I've mentioned in previous blogs. Basically, two women I had thought were tried-and-true, friends-for-life grew into people I didn't like anymore. I felt confused and disappointed that they were no longer who I expected them to be. I've also changed as well, and now I don't put up with conduct that I feel is dishonourable, selfish or unkind. So that meant, for these two women, that I had to stop all contact.

But it seemed to really trigger something in me. Those women have genuinely changed, and who they are now is disappointing, with values and conduct that I find weak and vain. Yet, although I found this whole experience distasteful, I was surprised that I found it so upsetting. That's why I felt it was a trigger of some sort. After all, I have 'lost' friends before, but it was never so bitter or unpleasant. It wasn't fun, but it wasn't so... painful.

People come and go in our lives, and people change. I expect that. I don't always like it, but I expect it. So for these two to change, and make their noisy exit, well, it's sad in some ways, but it's also an expected part of life. So what was so upsetting for me??

I couldn't figure it out. Part of it is definitely that I felt taken advantage of, that my kindness and generosity was accepted, but not my friendship. A little bit like in my dating days, if I was out with a new fella and knew it was not going to progress beyond dinner... I always paid for myself. I just never thought it was fair to let a man pay my way if I was just getting a free dinner out of it. If it was part of the getting-to-know-each-other process, part of developing a relationship, or part of an ongoing relationship, sure. But if I realized I was in it only for the meal, I would never let someone pay for dinner when I can pay for myself. So in a way, I guess I feel that I was that poor guy, thinking he's in a relationship and paying for his girl, when the girl is thinking, you better be paying, sucker, and I'm ordering five courses!

And the more I thought about that, the more I realized that I have become more and more someone who is caring towards others, but less and less someone that puts myself first. I love to be caring. I love to help people if I can. I don't want to lose that. But man, I gotta put myself first. I want to learn how to see my own needs more clearly, and to go out and take care of them.

So my MIL suggested I check into a workshop on self-confidence. I asked for a bit more help, and she sent me a couple of links that she found and told me what to search for. (Keep in mind I live in Holland, and even though I am officially fluent in Dutch there are a lot of specific words or phrases or expressions that I don't know. So knowing what to look for was pretty handy!) I checked a couple out, most were quite expensive or inconvenient to get to. I emailed a couple with a few questions.

Later that day, Marloes Elbrink from Stekker Coaching called me in response to my email. I was on my way out so we made an appointment to speak the next day. The next afternoon, she asked me some pretty specific questions to find out what it was I was looking for. She told me that Stekker Coaching wasn't offering any workshops for a couple of months, but she thought that working with a Life Coach might be effective. She invited me to an intake-appointment to see if Life Coaching might have meaning for me.

I decided to take her up on her offer. I'll tell you all about it later!

Angry

I was pretty pissed off earlier today. I was thinking about my recently-ended friendships, and I got mad that I wasn't loved by those people. Yes, I see the conflict. I don't want those friendships, and I resent that neither do they.

I spent some time thinking about how unavoidable it all was, and how disappointing. I tried to help them with their problems - problems big picture and the problems they had with me in the much smaller picture - but I came to realize that I can't help someone any more than they are willing (or able) to help themselves. And that I have limits.

I'd never really known that I have limits before. I am sensitive. There are so many things I am not afraid of. I can handle really heavy stuff - I've had to, to become who I am now. But I will not continue a relationship when there's unkindness.

I used to. Growing up, there was a lot of unkindness. It seemed my life really was a battlefield, with nary a word of love and encouragement. There was name-calling, there was anger and cruelty, there was humiliation and withdrawal of love.... and I suspect that the fact that I still want to mend a damaged, painful relationship has more to do with those youthful years than with the current friendships.

The truth is, I no longer enjoyed the company of my (former) friends. And so my good-bye is not bitter-sweet at all. The realization that my unwillingness to let them go gently, and my hurt feelings that they (also) no longer care, is me hurting myself... that's bitter-sweet. Good to realize, hard to learn from.

But I will.