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!!

Feeling Blue

I got my period today. After quite some goings-on last night, which included another night of not enough sleep. So with the cramps and the hormones and the cravings, I've had better days.

I'm feeling quite lonely. I have made a couple of real friends here, and have reconnected with a great friend back in Canada. I have a wonderful husband whose company I enjoy. But I miss how easy life was - or at least, how easy it appears in my memories.

I wish life was less complicated. I wish that former-friend who has stopped talking to me would have first returned the keys to my apartment to my family members. I feel a lot of pressure to try to figure out how to deal with her odd behaviour so that my family gets the keys. I need to have someone a bit more *ahem* mature available to handle anything that comes up regarding my apartment back in Canada.

I wish I knew where to go to do the things I like to do. I wish I was just a tidge more enthusiastic about trying things on my own. I wish I knew more people who like to do stuff I can just tag along with, as then I don't have to figure stuff out or try things on my own.

I wish I had a large steak and several bars of chocolate in the house.

I wish I knew how to change my attitude, and just enjoy myself!!

Am I blind?

It is not easy right now to be me. I feel like a bit of an alien visitor in my own life. People I used to love and feel close to are drifting away - some exploding away, and I sure don't like it. On the other hand, perhaps they aren't who I thought they were. I can be a bit pollyanna-ish, seeing the world, or at least my friends, through rose-coloured glasses. And usually I like that! I like to look on the bright side, accentuate the positive, walk on the sunny side of the street. But maybe I took focussing on the nice too far. A now-former friend, who I had thought was so great, sent me an email in which she explained how she had never really liked me very much anyway. For the last five years, she had felt unable to end our friendship because no one else liked me and she felt sorry for me.

Wow, huh? I'm sure she was just saying mean things, but still. That I was friends with someone who could say such mean things!

Then another friend, also via email (maybe I would be happier if I didn't read my email!) accused me of wanting so much of her time and attention she felt she had to choose between her university schooling or being my friend. I had recently invited her (code name: S.) to my birthday party - to which she didn't come because she went partying the night before and wasn't up to it. That friendship was much better when she lived in another part of the country. She also had some mean things to say, basically that my world was small and petty. I think that was because I clean my bathroom every day and checked in on my ill husband regularly the last time I'd seen her. So actually, she's the selfish one, but still... I was surprised at all the scathing invective she wrote. It was like that scene in Adventures in Babysitting, where the near-sighted friend suddenly realizes she's been cuddling a large rat and not a kitten at all! How could I have been that near-sighted?

Then others are just busy with their own lives, and have no time for me or mine. Understandable, but sad nonetheless.

Sigh. Some stages in life are just lonely.

Talk to the hand

In the last few months a few close friendships have... well, shifted. As in, imploded with lots of pain, angst and drama, or dwindled. I've tried, God knows, I've tried, to make things good again, but I just don't have that kind of power. I think I've always put such stock in my friendships because my own family is such a gong show... and I need that closeness from somewhere. But then my pleaser-nature has played a role as well, and I give and give and give and all of a sudden, it's too much. And I see that I have needs that aren't being met by a particular friendship, and I try to get that person to step up for me as I have countless times for them. But they seem shocked that I would expect that. Although it's not always a strict quid-pro-quo I have on my mind, sometimes it is just that I am a certain kind of person and like to talk about certain kinds things... and they seem surprised to find that I still enjoy talking about the same things that they used to enjoy talking with me about. Well, sorry, I didn't get the memo that things had changed.

And so today, I did something different. I got one of those emails, the ones where someone says something, and you know there is something behind it but they seem to be pretending there isn't... And I really thought about how to respond. Obviously there is something going on - duh. And if they are alluding to it, they want to talk about it. But if they are alluding to it and then being dismissive, they don't want to talk about it, they just want me to know that they know and don't care. I'm confused now.

Anyway, I replied saying that I didn't know how to reply, that I had tried to talk about it and that had just ended in frustration, but I would be willing to try again. And I got a response back. Guess what the response was? I was given instructions on how I should have replied. Specific instructions. Including quotation marks and other necessary punctuation.

What the hell??

My doing something different was to not reply. I am not going to try to fix this, I am not going to try to get this person to see me differently, I am not going to try to be understood or heard or whatever. I give up!! Once someone actually gave me a script to follow, I finally realized how ridiculous things had become.

My life, and the things I care about, matter to me. I like to talk about them, because I like to talk and because they matter to me. If someone is unwilling or unable to have a conversation with me, that's ok. But I am not going to be pretending that the things that matter to me don't in order to make someone else more comfortable. And I am not going to be pretending that I want to be around others when I know that they want me to be... different than I am.

It is tough indeed to feel that I am losing friends left right and centre, but also a relief that I will free up a lot of time spent trying to figure out what the heck others wanted in the first place, and then bending myself into a pretzel to try to give it to them in the second.

Life is good, even if it seems lonely right now.

Cure for Loneliness

A few days ago I'd posted on Facebook that I was lonely. Most of my friends didn't comment, and the ones that did mostly told me they loved me or invited me over or something. Except one. She asked me where my husband and my cat were. Now, I'm pretty sure she was just joking, but it just sticks with me! I actually used to have 4 cats (yikes!) but all but one have since passed on to cat heaven at ripe old ages. I guess I could have been using my cats to combat my loneliness, after all, they were (and the current geriatric one is) warm and cuddly!! And that got me to thinking about loneliness in the first place.

I think loneliness comes from inside. When I lived alone, or at least, when I was single, I could go home and be alone, but I wasn't always lonely. I've always enjoyed my own company, and I quite enjoy solitary activities. Now, when I go home and feel lonely, there is no wallowing. My husband is at home too, asking me if I'm ok, what's going on, what he can do for me. And although I love how loving he is, I am actually ok with feeling lonely from time to time. It is a sign to me that I'm not feeling 'centered', or content, or whatever the word is that sums up that nice feeling from the inside out, when you feel that all is right with the world and you know your place in it (at least for now!).

And although feeling lonely, or any feeling that doesn't put a smile on my face, isn't exactly comfortable, I realize that that lonely feeling is what got me to start this blog, got me to think about what I DO want out of MY life, and got me to move in the direction of making my happiness my priority. And I've resisted that in the past because I thought my happiness wasn't important, but somehow the happiness of others (even random strangers) was important. Nuts, huh? So, time for a change, no more Ms. Nice Guy to everyone else instead of me, now I'm Ms. Nice Guy to MYSELF first.

And on that note, I'm off to get some much needed zzzzzz!