My sister called me last week. She told me how she hated her job, people were rude to her and she didn’t make enough money working part time. She told me how her boyfriend wasn’t helping her around the house and refused to get a job to help. She told me how she hated where she lived. She hates how difficult it is to eat healthier or exercise. She told me how much she hates all these aspects of her life.
I told her what I told her every time she shares these feelings with me: “If you don’t like it, then you have to do something to change it. You have to determine what it is you do want, then plan and take the steps to get there. You can’t just complain about it and expect it to change.”
I’ve told her this probably dozens of times over the last few years. Nevertheless, about every other month we have this same conversation.
Years ago, I used to dive right in and tell her all the things I was unhappy about in my life too, and I occasionally still do. We would lament and pour out all our dissatisfaction with the world in general to each other. At the end, we determined we were stuck and there really wasn’t much we could do. Then we’d go about our lives as usual.
I guess we thought expressing our dissatisfaction would help to get it out there, and make us feel better about it.
My dad is the same way. From the time I was 8 years old, he shared details of his divorce with my mom and asked me to “fix it.” To pull the “parent trap” and get them back together. (Reading this back I just think, wow, how messed up is that).
But, my phone calls with him are often the same. He complains about his work, his significant other, how cold it is outside, etc. If he’s really upset, we’ll go back into that 15 year old topic of his relationship with my mom, how she ruined all of our lives, cheated on him, and how things were never the same between us all.
Needless to say, the negativity of my family has shaped the first many years of my life….Until I was finally old enough to determine that I had the right to make choices for myself and was actually old enough to follow through with that action. It was enlightening to realize that I didn’t have to interact with life the same way that most of my family did.
I still avoided any deep introspection on my childhood and the way I was treated though, until the last few years.
It still took me many more years to open my eyes to my knee-jerk reactions, and to take the steps to take charge of my life and get out of that victim mentality. I was a master at bouncing blame around and determining it was everyone else, but not me.
I'll try my best to describe it, but I was so good at catastrophic thinking that I would actually feel weird, like something is wrong and I'm forgetting about it if I didn't have anything to ruminate and obsess over.
It took me a long time to stop blaming and seeking problems and to look for the positive in life and the actions that I could take to get to what I really wanted.
I am still processing and working to fix the emotional ramifications of being emotional responsible for my dad’s massive amount of anger and resentment to my mom when I was young. This particular issue made me feel like I was supposed to be responsible to make everyone else feel better, or to fix things for them. I became a people pleaser, and most importantly, I never felt that I qualified for the same treatment that I gave everyone else. I felt like I was supposed to save everyone around me, but I wasn’t worthy of being saved.
And true to my nature, I even found a significant other that drained me with his negativity and isolation too. He managed to know the exact right buttons to push to make me react the way he wanted me to.
Deep depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and self-sabotaging behavior ruled my life.
2017 I decided, was going to be my year of change. That I was going to take control of my own life, stop living in fear, and take action. It’s not easy when it seemed like my entire family, and everyone I knew, as well as myself, was holding me very firmly in this negative place.
I didn’t know anyone who I could consider a “positive” influence on my life. Everyone had disappointed and manipulated me at some point. Every one of my family wasn't there for me when I needed them most.
There are some days I still feel like I have no one. I didn’t know anyone who had been down a similar road and succeeded. Even people I worked with were emotionally draining, self-centered, and negative. It’s like these type of negative people flock to me, drain my energy, and throw me aside once they’re done with me. This lowered my self-esteem, and I struggled to rebound from these one-sided leeching human interactions.
What do you do when you are unhappy with almost every aspect of your life? And you can’t seem to identify where to start? How do I even start to change my entire world view I’ve been conditioned into my whole life?
As I explored my unhappiness with my own life, first, I made an effort to find and clear out old wounds. I decided to take responsibility for where I was in life. I decided to make sure that decisions and actions I took moving forward aligned with where I actually wanted to go and weren’t just made by default.
Given my past, it almost seemed like I had no other choice on the direction my life was headed. You look around and see everyone miserable, holding on to past hurts, complaining and whining about life.
But that’s the beauty of life, we do have a choice. Other people may not agree with it and you may not be supported by anyone, especially your family and those closest to you who are used to you being despondent and negative with them.
But, the best part is: The only person you really need approval from is you. And once you make the changes you’d like to see, you’ll find more like minded people to share these ideas with. At least that’s what I’m hoping, and waiting for. It makes sense, in theory.
Over the past few years, I did all kinds of things that I normally wouldn’t have considered doing. I applied for different jobs to get out of my dead end one. I joined a local Toastmasters group to work on my public speaking (which is something I used to dread but am starting to enjoy). I defined my goals, joined a gym, made my boyfriend my ex, and focused on finishing the degree I had been working on for close to 10 years. I finally made me a priority instead of everyone else.
I had spent so much time taking care of my daughter and everyone around me – that I eventually resented them for taking so much of my time and leaving none for myself. And essentially, I got what I secretly wanted, which was to be able to blame something external for my situation and to point the finger and say, “See, I told you, there is nothing more I can do. I have nothing left to give.”
Sometimes we get so stuck and focused on what we don’t want, it’s impossible to focus on what we do.
Life is not easy. It is not a list you can check off one by one. The things you desire most seem like the hardest, most unattainable things to work towards.
The Takeaway here being:
Be grateful – This is the first thing I started to do, when my anxiety was overwhelming, and I had a hard time falling asleep because my brain was on constant replay of all the negativity in my life: Every night when I went to bed I counted 10 things I was grateful for. It could be as simple as clean sheets and a cozy bed, spending quality time with my daughter that day, crossing something off my to-do list, or how far I have come in the past year. Think of all the negative thoughts that come up throughout your day, without any effort. Its easy to feel like life is overwhelmingly negative if we do not seek to find and appreciate the blissful moments we do get. There were some days I really had to dig deep, and use very simple things to complete the 10 items, but, it really made me be able to appreciate the things that had gone well for me. Just think, how often do you think a positive thought throughout your day? I hardly ever did before. It’s so easy to fall into the victim trap and think of all the bad things that happened that day instead, you don't even have to try, that's just where our brain naturally goes.
Find a different perspective – it’s easy to think that our friends and social circles have great lives, and don’t have to struggle, just because we don’t see it firsthand. Someone is always going to go on more vacations than you, get married before you, have kids before you, obtaining or just be gifted with a great metabolism and body. You can't compare yourself to anyone else, its simply not fair to you. People struggle, but in this media age we take the greatest care to show everyone how amazing our lives are. People don't post pictures of themselves after they just got into an argument and their face is red from crying. We want to share the good in our lives, which is valiant, but paints an uneven picture.
Be less externally focused – I spent the first 25 years of my life worried about everyone else. What they said, why they were short with me, running and re-running conversations in my mind and dissected them until my logic and evaluations were most likely borderline insane. I did this because in my family, growing up, you never knew when shit was about to blow up. I was so constantly hyper-aware because if I wasn't, damn sure I'd be at the wrong place at the wrong time and pay the price for it. Being berated, yelling, screaming and physical altercations materialized out of nowhere. Which led to a constant state of me just watching, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Once out of this dynamic, it took me years to finally realize what this behavior was doing to me. If I was so busy being worried about everyone else, I didn't have to look at myself and my own actions. I avoided myself and introspection of my own actions like the plague. Everything I had done was in reaction to someone else. And when everything you do is a reaction, you can squarely place the blame on someone else for how they treated you first. Now I've come to realize that where I am in life is only based on decisions I've made. If I don't like where I am I have no one else to blame but me. And if I want to change directions, its up to me to do so.