Source: deaconlohouse.blogspot.com
It has been a seriously rough couple of days. Waiting to find out if someone is going to break up with you or not is really one of the worst, most anxiety-producing things in the world. I waited over a day without any contact at all, then asked if I could please have some sort of timeline just so I know when we might talk. I didn’t say it but I had been checking my phone every thirty seconds and it was really starting to drive me nuts.
Anyway last night we talked. It was a really, really good talk. My brother says sometimes you need some conflict to get to a better place. Well, the past couple of days was the height of conflict, and I think we have reached the best place we’ve been in, so far.
It’s funny, sometimes you can be so afraid of something you almost will it to happen just so you can get it over with. We were both pretty afraid of it ending, for various reasons. Relationship baggage can be a serious bitch to get passed. But we realized that we haven’t been communicating, mostly out of fear. We both sort of made assumptions about each other, the relationship, our actions, and our relationship started to exist in this virtual Assumption World. Talking about things really helped to bring everything back to reality, and to a level of true understanding.
I feel really relieved right now. I am in a relationship with someone I really like, and for the first time in the four months we’ve been dating, it feels purely good. There’s no hesitation on my part, because we know how the other feels now and how we have misinterpreted a number of things along the way.
I think I have learned a lot about myself these past couple of weeks. I’m glad I have such amazing people in my life who I can talk to, and who have really helped me grow as a person, and to understand myself better, and the things that I’m doing to shoot myself in the foot.
I realized that I often act on assumptions that are not necessarily based in ‘reality’. That is, I perceive things in a certain way and act on those perceptions without considering the myriad of other possibilities that could exist. I’m sure lots of people do this and maybe it doesn’t seem like a big deal but to me it’s huge. It changes my entire life. The first step is to be aware of these things when they pop up–just to notice they exist, that this is an instance in which you are assuming something: how someone feels, what they think, what they think of you, without actually knowing these things. The best thing of course is to ask and not assume, but I think applying this in my life will really change it.
I’m not sure I’m really articulating myself very well right now. It has been a mind blowing realization for me. I knew this about myself to some extent, but only recently did I understand how pervasive and negative my assumptions are. So much so that I stopped even recognizing them as assumptions.
Anyway I’ve really gotten into workbooks lately (um…I went from self-help books to self-help workbooks…. :/) and I find them really useful. Right now I’m working through a workbook on interpersonal relationships and it’s been pretty eye opening. It talks about various schema we develop in childhood to cope with our circumstances and how these become so ingrained that they are automatically triggered as coping mechanisms whether or not they’re effective, and how this can lead people to develop negative patterns and continually experience negative interactions or relationships with others.
It helps you to recognize the schema that you hold as true, in your mind, and how they affect you and how you react to things based on these schema. For now I’m trying to be aware and to recognize these things as they come up. The book suggests that your schema is activated any time you feel a very strong reaction toward something. I often find something small can trigger a strong reaction in me–a sense of panic, a fear–without me really understanding why or even really questioning it. I just feel the feeling of fear or panic and usually I withdraw or try to somehow cope with it.
Now, I’m trying to acknowledge this strong emotion and to think about which of my schema it has activated, and to understand myself better.
Yay for self-help, good conversations, and the beauty of people who genuinely try to understand you, and themselves, in a safe space.
Unlearning the Fear 