We all see the world from our own perspective. You are the center of your own universe. After the age of two, you realize that you are on your own. That you have your own identity separate from everyone else. At two years old and younger, we tend to be attached to our mother. We identify ourselves as her. And if we are not careful, when we are older, we identify ourselves as what we wear, tattoos, piercings, hair style, passions, intelligence, accomplishments, and titles. It makes sense right? How we feel on the inside reflects how we appear on the outside. This is true to a certain extent.
Imagine you were trapped in your house that is on fire. And the only way out is to jump. When you hit the ground, your head hits the ground extremely hard. Everything you own is burned. Your clothes, your belongings, everything that you worked for. Not only that, you are now in the hospital with third degree burns. Your hair is gone, the tattoos are not visible, and when you hit your head, you lost self identity. So now who are you? If something can be taken away, then does that something really define who you are? What are you left with when everything has been stripped away from you?
Moms can have a real struggle with this. When their kids grow up, they need her less and less. Her whole world has revolved around being a mom. All she thinks about is her children. Then when the children move out, all is lost. Her babies talk to her less and less. Then they grow up and start families of their own. So their time is extremely limited. Why do moms experience this? Well, it’s easy. She makes her kids number one, and puts herself on the back burner. She has less date nights, because she falls into the rut of doing the same thing everyday. Wake up, wake the kids up, feed them breakfast, take them to school or the babysitter, go to work, pick the kids up, make dinner, spend time with the kids, put them to bed, and have just enough time to maybe watch a show and have a glass of wine before bed. This routine is every weekday. Then when the weekend comes, she has to catch up on all of the house chores, entertain her kids, and try to catch up on sleep from the over exhaustion.
This doesn’t just happen all of a sudden. That is why the little things in life are so important. It’s not so much huge traumatic events that ruin our lives. Humans are tough. Look how far we've come along. We have overcame death, illness, war, disease, financial crisis, and famine. These have happened many times in history, and will keep happening. We are getting better each time this happens. We are learning. Perhaps not as a whole, but as individuals we are slowly waking up. It’s the little things that sneak up on us. The miscommunication leading to resentment, which leads to screaming matches, then leads to taking the energy that should be going into your relationship leaking out into someone or something else. And even before that, we need to look at intentions. Why are we doing what we are doing with this person? And does that person have the same intentions? And even before that, knowing who you are on the inside will reflect your intentions. If you understand your thought process, little quirks, your dark side, what exhilarates you, what you’re passionate about, pet peeves, your personality type, and take charge of your actions and responsibilities; then maybe you can start to understand that in someone else. How are you supposed to communicate, reciprocate, and understand your partner’s human behavior if you don’t know your own? You’re sort of just sucking them dry unintentionally. And it’s the extreme narcissists that do actually understand this process, but choose to intentionally suck you dry. If you do understand yourself, you can avoid the narcissistic types. I do want to add that we all have narcissistic tendencies. We look at ourselves in the mirror, check notifications, talk about ourselves, and strive for perfection. It happens. But by understanding that, we can see that in others. We can be compassionate. But when you fall off the deep end on a certain characteristic, then the rest of your traits are lacking. All of your characteristics form a team. No one individual can compete against a team. A team makes up each other’s weaknesses by combining their strengths. If you only have one strength, you tend to fall down a rabbit hole and become blind to what you are doing. The greatest skill a team can have is communication. If the team understands each other’s strength and weakness, they can communicate the next step. So when you and your romantic partner understand each other’s strength and weaknesses, you can communicate instead of repressing resentment. It’s always better to have the hard conversation now, because later on, it will be much worse.
What you can do at this very moment is to start being aware. If you have no clue where to start, you can focus on your breath. Feel your breath go in and out of your lungs. Notice the little things in life. Like looking up at the stars at night, watching a bird outside your window, finding the humor in babies and kids out in public. Enjoy the taste of food. Be observant. Listen for once in your life. Be present in conversations. Be present in the room you’re in. Make a mental note when you’re energy level dips and you become depressed. Track back why you feel that way. Accept that you feel this way, and ask yourself, what would make me feel just a little better? What could possibly help this situation. If it is outside of your control, surrender yourself and let go of your control. You can’t change the situation. Then really feel your depression. Don’t try to hide from it. Face it head on. Notice how your body feels in this state. The more you avoid it, the more it creeps back up. But the more you face it, hell, you become bored. You become used to it. Then all of a sudden, something positive happens, and you get out of that rut. Then you think, life’s not so bad. We can’t always be happy. Life is suffering. But it is the little things that we can cherish that all adds up together and leads to great things.
Imagine you were trapped in your house that is on fire. And the only way out is to jump. When you hit the ground, your head hits the ground extremely hard. Everything you own is burned. Your clothes, your belongings, everything that you worked for. Not only that, you are now in the hospital with third degree burns. Your hair is gone, the tattoos are not visible, and when you hit your head, you lost self identity. So now who are you? If something can be taken away, then does that something really define who you are? What are you left with when everything has been stripped away from you?
Moms can have a real struggle with this. When their kids grow up, they need her less and less. Her whole world has revolved around being a mom. All she thinks about is her children. Then when the children move out, all is lost. Her babies talk to her less and less. Then they grow up and start families of their own. So their time is extremely limited. Why do moms experience this? Well, it’s easy. She makes her kids number one, and puts herself on the back burner. She has less date nights, because she falls into the rut of doing the same thing everyday. Wake up, wake the kids up, feed them breakfast, take them to school or the babysitter, go to work, pick the kids up, make dinner, spend time with the kids, put them to bed, and have just enough time to maybe watch a show and have a glass of wine before bed. This routine is every weekday. Then when the weekend comes, she has to catch up on all of the house chores, entertain her kids, and try to catch up on sleep from the over exhaustion.
This doesn’t just happen all of a sudden. That is why the little things in life are so important. It’s not so much huge traumatic events that ruin our lives. Humans are tough. Look how far we've come along. We have overcame death, illness, war, disease, financial crisis, and famine. These have happened many times in history, and will keep happening. We are getting better each time this happens. We are learning. Perhaps not as a whole, but as individuals we are slowly waking up. It’s the little things that sneak up on us. The miscommunication leading to resentment, which leads to screaming matches, then leads to taking the energy that should be going into your relationship leaking out into someone or something else. And even before that, we need to look at intentions. Why are we doing what we are doing with this person? And does that person have the same intentions? And even before that, knowing who you are on the inside will reflect your intentions. If you understand your thought process, little quirks, your dark side, what exhilarates you, what you’re passionate about, pet peeves, your personality type, and take charge of your actions and responsibilities; then maybe you can start to understand that in someone else. How are you supposed to communicate, reciprocate, and understand your partner’s human behavior if you don’t know your own? You’re sort of just sucking them dry unintentionally. And it’s the extreme narcissists that do actually understand this process, but choose to intentionally suck you dry. If you do understand yourself, you can avoid the narcissistic types. I do want to add that we all have narcissistic tendencies. We look at ourselves in the mirror, check notifications, talk about ourselves, and strive for perfection. It happens. But by understanding that, we can see that in others. We can be compassionate. But when you fall off the deep end on a certain characteristic, then the rest of your traits are lacking. All of your characteristics form a team. No one individual can compete against a team. A team makes up each other’s weaknesses by combining their strengths. If you only have one strength, you tend to fall down a rabbit hole and become blind to what you are doing. The greatest skill a team can have is communication. If the team understands each other’s strength and weakness, they can communicate the next step. So when you and your romantic partner understand each other’s strength and weaknesses, you can communicate instead of repressing resentment. It’s always better to have the hard conversation now, because later on, it will be much worse.
What you can do at this very moment is to start being aware. If you have no clue where to start, you can focus on your breath. Feel your breath go in and out of your lungs. Notice the little things in life. Like looking up at the stars at night, watching a bird outside your window, finding the humor in babies and kids out in public. Enjoy the taste of food. Be observant. Listen for once in your life. Be present in conversations. Be present in the room you’re in. Make a mental note when you’re energy level dips and you become depressed. Track back why you feel that way. Accept that you feel this way, and ask yourself, what would make me feel just a little better? What could possibly help this situation. If it is outside of your control, surrender yourself and let go of your control. You can’t change the situation. Then really feel your depression. Don’t try to hide from it. Face it head on. Notice how your body feels in this state. The more you avoid it, the more it creeps back up. But the more you face it, hell, you become bored. You become used to it. Then all of a sudden, something positive happens, and you get out of that rut. Then you think, life’s not so bad. We can’t always be happy. Life is suffering. But it is the little things that we can cherish that all adds up together and leads to great things.
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