Two of my biggest learnings of two years are these:
1. Things happen. How I experience them depends entirely on the meaning I give them.
For example, when someone you love breaks up with you, there is a myriad of ways to interpret that.
You could look at it as I am not worthy of love, I am a loser.
Or you can blame them: they are a loser, it’s their fault.
You could also choose not to assign blame anywhere, allow yourself to feel sad or angry or whatever emotion arises, and see if there is anything to take away or learn from the experience.
You also have the option to accept you will feed bad for a while and not look for any lessons or take away, but focus on moving forward and accepting what happened as just something that happened.
There are many other options, btw.
Some cause you to suffer, others don’t.
2. There is no link between your worth and what you do
When you fail at something, this means nothing about your value as a human being. Not finishing the marathon does not make you a bad person. Not staying married to one person does not make you less worthy. Not losing the weight you want does not mean you are useless.
It simply means you have to look at what you did (or didn’t do), tweak, iterate, and try again.
Look at the facts of your situation. What actually happened? What can factually be proven? Steer clear of your opinions, look at facts.
Now how can you use those facts as an opportunity?
Say you wanted to leave your job for ages. But here you are, a few months of years on, still in it, still complaining.
The fact you can focus on is this: you still have the job. You are still in the job.
(The job being shitty is not a fact. There are things about it that make you feel negative, yes, but the only fact that can be proven in a court of law is that you still have the job).
So now when you look at that fact, what is the opportunity?
You have an opportunity to leave.
To stay and make some changes.
To re-skill.
To create something new.
To ignore it and focus on your side gig.
Etc, etc.
Look for the opportunity and act on it. Don’t use facts to criticise yourself. Use them to decide what you want to do next.
Then stop wallowing in self-pity.
Go do the thing.
I love you.
Monica