Ok yesterday was set back day. Today is speed bump day. I feel like I am back to moving on and living my life but that my progress has been inhibited by speed bumps.
I had therapy yesterday and my therapist believes that my thinking has fallen into a well worn grove of believing that I am worthless without a man. That alone, I lack value. Unless I am chosen by someone else, anyone else, I am without merit. I struggle against this belief for a number of reasons:
1. I don’t want that to be true.
2. I don’t want to be the kind of woman whose self esteem is male dependent
3. I want to be more evolved than that
4. I want to really, authentically love myself more than that
5. I want to be further along in my growth than I apparently am
It occurs to me that perhaps those above thoughts ARE the speed bumps. This idea that I should be somewhere other than where I am. This idea that who I am right now is not enough. Those thoughts are the things holding me back and the men are merely ornamental. The men are the shiny thing that keeps grabbing my attention and distracting me from moving on to a road where I can move more quickly and less impeded.
I can see the pattern now:
Feel valued and whole and complete on my own.
Enjoy living MY life
Get lonely, feel hurt, rejected or bored
Reach out for comfort from a guy
Tell myself lies about what I am doing and why
Give all of my power over to someone else
Allow this other person's treatment of me to be what drives my own self image
Feel validated for a little while
Have the bubble pop and feel worse
Have a moment where I do not feel validated also known as trouble in paradise
Begin to doubt myself and the guy
Tell myself the story that I really never liked him much anyway
Tell myself that I am really too independent for this whole relationship thing
Completely shut down - cutting off all access to my inner world - to the guy and to myself
Leave guy
Spend time alone
Feel valued and complete on my own but alway doubt my true worth which always leads me back to the beginning to start the whole fucking ridiculousness over again
Wow, like for 40 years.
All this time I have been walking down this path trying to dodge all of these fucking bumps, not really realizing that the bumps were there to slow me down, for my own safety and that of those around me. That this particular path requires slower, more of a gradual pace. There are some things that I need to see on this path and I can't see them at top speed.
Do you know how annoying and painful it is to travel down a path moving at top speed with all of these fucking speed bumps? Try it sometime, it blows.
I can see it now and for today that is going to be enough. I will begin to unpack this particular rat’s nest on another day. Right now I am just tired, realizing what I have been doing to me for all this time. For today, I will just sit with this not-very-feminist-dependent-somewhat pathetic version of myself and allow it to just be. I know I have to find a way to love this woman who keeps doing this or be condemned to live my life like this. I will do the work and find the love for this poor gal. What else is there really to do? Well, besides look for another path that has a lot less fucking speed bumps.
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