I want to dedicate this blog to all my friends and family – who all in their own way have intentionally and unintentionally guided my growth through the most saddening period of my life. Thank you for your existence, thank you for being you – I see you:
I’ve been in this exact scenario 10 years ago, the only difference is that I was a young adult back then whereas now, I have some experience that will hopefully help me tackle the situation in a less painful way. Here are the lessons I learned from the past:
- No one is responsible for fixing our problems nor are they meant to take the pain away. I fell really hard 10 years ago, because I kept waiting for others to love me, heal me, care for me and to take the pain away from me. But I was left heart broken when people didn’t show up.
- People generally don’t know what to do or say when they see others go through pain. There will no doubt be individuals that just don’t have the tools to be able to support you through this period and that doesn’t make them a bad friend nor does it mean that they don’t care about you.
- It’s important to not confuse support with dependence. There is a fine line between calling on someone for help and falling on someone for help. Even if you have people around you who know what to do and what to say, they can only act as your cheerleaders, but you’re the one that has to run the race. So, you need to tap into your own strength and find your inner hero because she’s the only one you need to get through the pain.
- It’s important to recognise peoples actions even if it doesn’t show up in the package that you expected. Expectation is the root of all suffering and it’s no different in a situation like this. People will show their support and love in their own unique way and if we are too lost in our pain we will miss their kind gestures because it’s not showing up the way we are expecting it to.
- Your value in other peoples lives is not measured by how they show up for you when you need them. You can’t interpret peoples actions or inactions towards your situation as a measure for how they feel about you and your friendship. These are unrelated to each other and so you are only harming yourself and a valuable friendship if you judge it based on testing times alone. I want to address this particular learning in some depth. I used to think that if someone truly cared about me, then they wouldn’t disappoint me and they would know how to show up for me. This goes back to the point I made about expectations but also it goes back to how much we love ourselves. In hindsight, I realise that I didn’t love myself enough so I would interpret other peoples actions / inactions as a measure of my self worth. These are all lies that our ego tells us so that we can suffer some more when we are faced with the worst possible external circumstances in our lives. It fits into the narrative well, because you think you can justify your expectations under these circumstance – but reality doesn’t change when shit things happen. Reality is that our expectations harm us more than others do.
- I have come to appreciate the value of space that people give you in individualistic cultures. Being both an extravert and from a collective culture, I am used to distracting myself with connecting to others – it’s my addiction. But when you are given space, you have to face your pain and that is where you will find your inner hero and your own strength. Distracting yourself from the pain only does more harm than good.
These lessons have reminded me that I don’t need anyone else to get through this difficulty. It has also allowed me to appreciate people for who they are and how they show up instead of judging them for not meeting my expectations.
Adversity helps open your eyes to a lot of things, one of which is the love and support that can come in many shapes and forms and sometimes from places and people you least expected. These people are the angels that roll their sleeves up, come to the table and stick around no matter how hard and uncomfortable it makes them feel. These are the people that lift you up when you feel like you are falling and remind you of your inner strength when you feel consumed by exhaustion. To these individuals I want to say thank you for injecting me with your positive energy and your unconditional love.
We all go through our own personal struggles, we all have our own demons to fight and some of us are going through some harrowing experiences which is plain not fair or easy. Remember to look inward, your hero is in there and no matter how hard it gets, remember that despair has a way of blinding you to your own light.
This is going to be a tough journey, there will be more pain than gain, but you need to keep going because when you get through this journey you will be so proud of yourself and most importantly you will know how to find your inner hero every time you need her.
You got this, don’t give up on yourself.
Love Always
Miss Dreamer
Souloom™ 