perspective, hypocrisy and reflections

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking today. I know, shocker, when do I ever think, right? Nevertheless, I have been thinking. When I woke up this morning, I was still scattered and a tiny bit over the line on the side of crazy. When given the choice, I would prefer to err on the side of caution, not crazy, but sometimes those choices are not the cut and dry options I wish for them to be. Sometimes the fact that I do, indeed, have a choice in the matter is not as clear as it should be. But honestly, I should always be aware of having the choice – and be more aware when we make it. Before I get into the deeper dredges of my thoughts, I need to stop and acknowledge something. In part, I have been going about some of this wrong. I made a mistake in my head – at least I am grateful that it was an error that was made, and even more importantly remained in my head and not spilling out past some writing into actions. I have stayed the course, and remained strong, even when I felt like anything but. I still have not initiated contact, nor have I heard from her. But I was thinking about some things incorrectly. I was hurt, and sad, and more than a little disappointed in the fact that this was the first time I’ve pulled back where she has allowed me to and not contacted me, not made an effort to try. Given the last message she sent me, I honestly didn’t expect her to, however – it was easy for me in that to think the worst. I fell into a pattern where I told myself that since she wasn’t trying she had forgotten about me, and she just simply didn’t care anymore. As I’ve previously said, in some ways the lack of trying on her part helped me in my determination, and hurt me in some ways too. But I wasn’t going to be happy either way, really. Regardless of whether or not it’s true that she doesn’t care, etc (which is what leads me to feel insignificant and unimportant) there are two important things I have to not only remember but remind myself of occasionally. 1) What does it matter? Why am I still focusing on what she thinks, feels or believes about me? This is about me not her. I did not break contact with her to punish her, or to get even with her for something. I broke contact with her because how we were talking to each other was unhealthy – we were going around in circles and accomplishing nothing of value, and hurting ourselves and each other in the process. It did no good, and nothing positive came out of our constant (lack of) communication. And I have spent far too long worrying too much about what she thinks of me, how she feels about me, and what she believes. I cannot base my own beliefs, my sense of value, or my self esteem on hat anyone else, especially my ex, thinks. Just because they think or believe certain things does not make them right. Breaking contact with her does not mean that I don’t care about her, that I don’t think about her, and that she’s insignificant or unimportant. Although, she has said all those things to me previously – it doesn’t mean they’re true. She can believe what she chooses to believe, and those choices are what she has to deal with, not me. My opinion of myself is what matters, not hers – and not anyone else’s. 2) A part of me wants to believe that she is having just as hard a time with this as I am, because I know how badly I still hurt, and I have mistakenly wanted her to feel the same way. I don’t want to be the only one hurting. But think like that isn’t fair. If I really care about her, I shouldn’t want her to hurt. I don’t want her to hurt. Yes, its sucks to be broken up with, no matter what the circumstances are, especially when the person who was broken up with doesn’t fully understand or agree with the reasons they were given for it happening. But it happens, and it’s done. I can’t want her to hurt because of it. That does me no good at all. She made her choices, and if there are any consequences to her choices or her actions, she will have to deal with them on her own. That’s not my problem. My problem is to deal with myself, and focus on changing my own issues to be better prepared for whatever is coming next. It was all about changing my perspective. In doing that, and accepting my own sense of self and responsibility and actions, I was again able to find at least the beginnings of peace. That’s what matters – nothing else. Other things, at that point, become irrelevant.

Aside from that, the more I focus on myself, my behaviors and attitudes, the more I’m coming to terms with. As much as I despise hypocrisy, double standards and inconsistencies in others, I am just as guilty. The disturbing thing in that is that it’s become such a pattern for me that a lot of times, I don’t even realize that I’m doing it. I think it’s far easier, and even human nature, to find and assign blame in others, instead of ourselves, and emotion often clouds reason. It is way too easy for me to point the finger at someone else. That’s not to say that what the other person is doing isn’t wrong. It is. If someone is talking to me badly, and I point it out to them, what they’re doing is wrong. But chances are, after I’m cooled down, I can look back on the situation and realize that I wasn’t talking to them much better, either. This happened all the time with me and the ex. All the time, before and after the breakup. Every time we would fight, both of us would immediately go on the offensive and say “yeah, well YOU’RE doing this”. And then we’d go around and around. By the end of the relationship, she was able to get me to see things sometimes, and I’d even admit fault. Doing so was harder for her, and given the secrets she was keeping at the time, I can see why it was. But for all the times I’ve written about things she’s done or said, or things that have happened, I can see the mirror reflection of my own actions and behaviors in myself. Sometimes it’s as easy as being emotionally away from the situation or fight, to realize “oh hey – I messed up”. Sometimes it’s harder. Usually if someone points something out to me, and I stop to think about it, I can be a big enough person to admit “hey, I was kind of being a hypocrite”. Except for when I’m not. I hate being told that I have a double standard, when I don’t believe I do. Rightfully so, I think. But an example – one of the biggest problems in our relationship was the fact that we both isolated ourselves from friends, family, co-workers etc, and focused absolutely every second we could on each other. Bad things happened when one of us made plans to go do things with someone else. On both sides. Granted, she has now said that it was because of me, that I started it, that she never asked me to stop hanging out with people, etc and I had the double standard where I wouldn’t message her as much when I was with others, but she was expected to all the time. I behaved badly. I know that. Everyone knows that. But the fact that I behaved badly does not justify her bad behavior in response. And it works the other way around too. Just because I did something because I felt that she had done it does not make it okay to do, by any means. It’s just an example of how easy it is to form bad patterns that repeat themselves because you either aren’t really aware that they’re there – or you don’t know how to change them. When I tried to change, it was met with resistance, and it wasn’t enough. I knew I was trying to do better, because I actually restrained myself from making sarcastic jokes – I distracted myself by doing other things when she was hanging out with other people. I didn’t expect to hear from her as much, so I wasn’t angry when I didn’t. Not to say I didn’t lose my cool sometimes, I did. But I was making a valiant effort. That effort went unnoticed. This unwilling hypocrisy on my part is easier to fix than I’d thought. The more in touch I am with my own feelings, my own desires and needs, the more I am able to control my behavior, when I recognize that I’m acting irrationally. Not to say things are going to be perfect all the time, but it’s a starting place at least. I’m still working on being able to calm myself down when I get upset. Counting doesn’t work. And sometimes I lose it over stupid, insignificant things. But I’m aware of it, as I’m doing it – which is better than before, when I’d do it and was only aware of it after the fact. I don’t want to be an unintentional hypocrite. I don’t want to hold others to standards that I can’t hold myself to. I don’t want to be out of touch with how I feel and why. I don’t want to react inappropriately.

Speaking of reacting – there’s a difference between a reaction and a response. I started to learn this concept when I was in therapy last year, but I was never quite able to implement it as long as I was with her, and even afterwards. A reaction is something you do that you don’t even really think about. A reaction is a gut thing. If someone were to aim a punch at you, your reaction would be to duck, or get out of the way. It works emotionally and verbally too. If someone throws what I perceive to be a verbal punch at me, my knee-jerk reaction is to punch back, harder. A response is balanced, and thoughtful. It’s taking a pause, or the time to breathe before you respond to something. It’s taking a deep, calming breath before you speak. It’s allowing yourself the time to formulate not only what you say, but what you mean BEHIND what you say. The problem with my reactions, all my life, is that they tend to not be appropriate to what it is they’re reacting TO. If someone says something to me that makes me angry, my reaction has been in the past to say something mean or hurtful back, immediately. I’m focusing now on not only learning to respond, instead of react to things, but to really focus on appropriate responses instead of inappropriate reactions. When I am out of touch with my feelings, and I’m feeling frustrated, the littlest thing can set me off, and I blow up and explode on the next person who frustrates me. That is not an appropriate reaction, nor is it a response. The appropriate thing for me to do is take a moment to think, to ask myself – what am I upset about? Why am I upset? Is how upset I am appropriate to what it is that made me upset right now? Why/why not? What are my choices in responding? Is it better to respond, or to not? Are you responding or reacting? Just something that’s been floating around in my head lately.

Something else interesting? I was watching some kind of historical documentary a week or so ago, and they had the term “hold these truths to be self-evident” and it struck me how erroneous that statement is. Very few truths are really self-evident. They may be self-evident to me, but not to others. And it works on both sides of the fence. Something I strongly believe to be true, that is obvious to me, may not be as obvious or even as true to someone else. The ex and I both have very different versions of what happened, and why we broke up. She believes herself to be absolutely right. I believe myself to be right, too. We disagree. But really? When it comes down to it? Although we disagree, it doesn’t mean that one of us is right, and one of us is wrong. Neither one of us have all the information and both of us are trying to put together a puzzle that’s full of missing pieces. You never see the big picture that way. But I’ve been so focused on trying to convince someone else that I’ve lost sight of my own truth. So no, truths may not be self-evident or obvious, but that’s not the point. The point is that my truth, my beliefs, and my feelings are sufficient for me. They don’t have to make sense to anyone else. I don’t have to get a pat on the back saying I’m right. I don’t have to get an apology, or an admission from her that she was wrong. I believe what I believe for a reason, and I have what I need to have in order to back that up. And that’s sufficient enough. That’s good enough, whether or not she sees, understands, believes it – or not. That choice is on her. And what she believes about me, again, is not as important as what I believe about myself. That’s the important thing. I’m learning that the weight of my own opinions and beliefs tip the scales positively in the correct direction. When I try to counter-balance my own opinions with those of others, I lose my balance completely.

I may not be flying yet, but I love the view from this mountaintop. Its coming, slowly but surely. I can wait.