You feel so much like the victim, and you Really don’t want to feel like a victim. Which makes you feel worse. This time it was Mother’s Day, but it could be your birthday, gift giving holiday, another big bruhaha. And it didn’t happen for you! No damn celebration of who you are, what you do, what you give! The kids blew it off, or your honey (not today) did. What they got you if they got you anything was insulting rather than heart fulfilling. They didn’t clean the house, cook you a special meal or even say Thank You! in a way that you could feel.
It So Sucks!..... I remember and I’m writing this blog because I want to give you that Love You So Deserve. Unfortunately it isn’t the same; as it would have been if they’d just woken up and been thoughtful and loving. But I So want to give this to you. It took me so many years, lost relationships, aching hearts, years where grieving pissiness would slap me upside the head - just when I wasn’t expecting it to gain these insights. So hope this helps.
The bad news, you’ve heard it over and over, but bummer, it really is real:
“You can’t get anybody to do anything [no matter how much you need, plead, become a hollow shell, yell - Or Deserve It], whether it is clean the house, pick up their clothes, get you a card, or plan you a special event. You just can’t get them to do it because you Really Really want them to…”
If you nag enough there is a one in ten chance they might do it the next time, maybe. But then there is all that nagging on your heart, in your relationship, makes you feel well - negative. Or you keep quiet about it until the resentment bubbles right up your throat and right out your mouth. And then you are stuck with being in a worse situation than you were before - doubling doomed. You were feeling bad, you expressed it and that made you feel worse, and then depending upon their reaction, and in my experience it usually was an argument or a fight, damn, much worse.
Let me say right here however, ‘YOU DESERVE IT!” Whatever little or big thing you had hoped for, whatever silly or sweet expression of love you desired, you deserve it. You do so much. You work so hard. You care so much. It is hard. It really is! Being a Mom is a huge big job, virtually thankless, it is unrelentless too. Just keeps going until you die. But whether or not they show it everyone wants that to be when you are 101 plus (as long as you are relatively healthy).
Now for the Good News: You, yes you, can get to the point where you don’t care. Not that you don’t care about them or yourself, but you really don’t care if they live up to your hopes, your expectations. You can get to the point where you actually think the whole thing is amusing and you can be at peace. Honest.
Note: It does not make you feel better to hold on to the resentment. They may deserve it but right now what we care about is You! Resentment, sadness and bitterness just makes you feel crappy, doesn’t actually impact your loved ones. Even if they feel guilt - that feels lousy too and is not likely to make them more pleasant to be around.
You can feel Peace and eventually Joy! That is what I want for you, and to feel gratitude for the fact that you are Alive and have anyone at all to feel pissy about. The only reason I feel qualified to go here is that I spent 34 years learning about this, practicing all the unworkable emotions, neglected negotiations, destroyed dreams. My hope is that if I tell you what I learned it will make a difference for you. You probably already know this, but maybe today you need to hear it again.
Nobody else can make you happy or sad - really. Your thoughts trigger chemicals that create your emotions - or sometimes an emotion will click in a whole bunch of practiced thoughts. But they are your thoughts and emotions. You are the only person that can examine them and decide if this thought, that emotion makes you feel well, alive, more at peace. I’m betting you want to feel happy more than you want to hold onto your gripes, more than your entitlement. If not well….
There are all sorts of ways to examine your thoughts. Bryon Katie’s The Work is brilliant, and everything to do it is right online. Eckhart Tolle’s pain body paradigm in The Power of Now made sense of my totally out of control menstrual rants. Michael Singer’s book The Untethered Soul was the most illuminating for me. When he talks about the voice in your head that just won’t shut up, that keeps arguing, that is crazy, well I got That. Whatever works for you. Meditation helps alot - if you can carve out the time - even Deepak and Oprah’s 20 minutes. It is just so important to remember not to believe your thoughts! They are just thoughts. They are not Truth (if so perhaps you have a new career as an oracle unfolding). And emotions change, move, roll on if we let them. It will be better later, honest.
And they are not your fault! Remember Dear you are human. That is the game we are all playing. You are doing the very best you can and evolving as a perfectly lovely human being! Human Beings get pissy, sad, mad, believe their thoughts, get in arguments, yell at their loved ones, sulk and fuss. We love drama and have deep real feelings. At the end of the day we are all doing the best we can, that day.
We all want fun and a break from the work, the stress. I’ve been thinking how easy it is to have fun when we are children. Holidays were exciting and our parents made them special (maybe). We had fun taking a walk and looking at the pretty flowers, throwing rocks into the stream, digging up dirt, swinging on the swing, talking with friends for hours, kicking the ball, playing games, dancing. Those might be fun now.
At 65 I’m still trying to figure out how the adult me likes to play, what makes me feel good, how to switch out of sad or madness. That is your job too - figure out how to take care of yourself well enough that how others take care of you doesn’t matter. Give yourself a break, literally, a cup of tea, a massage, a walk by yourself, write a blog, soak it in - whatever makes you feel renewed, refreshed, amused by the intricacies of life. So much so that whatever they do, or don’t do, doesn’t really matter - because you can and will give yourself peace.
