Nat Baggage Reclaim

It’s that time of year again – I turned 37 on Monday and we also got the keys to our new home (you can see a pic on Instagram). Exhaustion doesn’t even cover it but I’m very happy, looking forward to getting back to a bit of work, but not before escaping and spending the weekend at Camp Bestival. Hopefully our tent will be up by the time you read this. Have a great weekend and without further ado, here are this year’s birthday thoughts inspired by some of my own experiences this year as well as those of readers.

What and who would you be if you weren't living your life according to rules that aren't rules? Be that.

  1. Mistakes are growing pains but ultimately growing gains.
  2. Why do we have this expectation or desire to be liked by everyone, when so many struggle with liking themselves? No one is liked by everyone so rest assured that you’re not alone. There is no need to collect likers. Vibe with people who chime with your values and appreciate those who you don’t have to jump through hoops for them to appreciate you for who you are. Being ignored or disliked by another person doesn’t make them more valuable or more powerful.
  3. People unfold and keep unfolding.
  4. You are your salvation and you hold a wealth of knowledge and insight…when you’re willing to listen to instead of judging you. Learning to listen to and treat you well, beats fannying away your time trying to get a PhD in other people’s behaviour.
  5. We’ve got to stop exaggerating busy. Aside from the fact that busy doesn’t equate to purposeful, we all choose what we want to be busy at. Busy people can love, have relationships and include others in their lives. Some people hide behind busyness to avoid their feelings, thoughts, or responsibilities.
  6. We experience envy when someone who we perceive to be in a similar position to us, has what we want. The answer isn’t to hate on us or the other person; it’s to have an honest conversation about where we need to be stepping up for ourselves and/or to be more appreciative and supportive of our own efforts and stop comparing our chapter X to their chapter Y.
  7. Patterns happen when we are living unconsciously, so transcending the past so that it stops being on repeat requires us to wake up and consciously consider whether this is how we want to respond and whether doing the same thing and expecting a different result is truly the most productive, loving use of our time.
  8. Attempting to right the wrongs of a past that you weren’t wholly and solely responsible for, leaves your present and future unattended.
  9. Don’t give away your choices. The words, ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘maybe’ as well as, ‘let me get back to you’, exist for a reason. Use them.
  10. Don’t write online what you wouldn’t be prepared to say to someone’s face.
  11. The more readers and friends I talk to, the more I recognise that many people have parents who engage in Show Pony Parenting. Happy to post pics on Facebook and tell people how great they are but not willing to actually be there. Often want the glory without the effort. It’s like, What will the neighbours/other family/the community think? Erm, what about us? Some are masters of entitlement and guilt tripping. Even though I physically/verbally/mentally abused you or neglected you, I am entitled to a relationship and devotion from you that’s equivalent to one that’s absent of these issues. Use your magic eraser and forget the past right now and be a good son/daughter! Of course when we’re treated this way, it only serves to rub on old wounds.
  12. Expecting to have a mutually fulfilling relationship or to be happy without being willing to be vulnerable, is to expect the trappings of vulnerability without putting forth the effort.
  13. Problems, challenges, disappointments and losses, don’t vanish due to being in a relationship. Granted, you will often be able to weather these together but tasks that will never go away are 1) self soothing, 2) self-managing, and 3)  listening to and supporting you. In and out of a relationship, if you’re not doing these things, start working on them now.
  14. As soon as I hear, ‘I’m a very honest person’ or similar being emphasised, I hear ‘o-oh’ in the back of my mind. Honesty is the truth with respect. If you’re being rude, some of that honesty gets lost because you deceive you in some way to legitimise your position.
  15. Grief isn’t linear; it’s a work in progress. If you experience a loss – that could be a bereavement, redundancy, breakup, divorce and other trauma – you will experience a myriad of emotions as well as periods where you seem to be making headway and then, BAM, it hits you. It doesn’t mean that all is lost and that you’re doomed. The BAMs occur less plus each time, they challenge you to clear more and as well as to strengthen. You don’t see it at the time but what you experience helps you to navigate next time around and to also engage in self-care in between.
  16. Loneliness is greatly misunderstood. It has nothing to do with how many friends or family you have or even whether you’ve been in a romantic relationship; it’s about whether you are expressing your innermost thoughts and feelings. When you wear a mask – people pleasing – and when you fear expressing your true self, you end up feeling adrift. Feeling lonely doesn’t make you a loser. When you experience loneliness it’s because you’re feeling emotionally disconnected.
  17. Would I treat a child in a similar manner? Would I judge a child or another person for the same thing? The next time you beat you up for not being ‘enough’ now or in the past, temper your self-criticism with these questions, especially if berating you is a habit that runs back to childhood. To continue stops those younger aspects of you from being healed and ultimately stops you from moving forward and growing.
  18. All narcissists are emotionally unavailable but not all emotionally unavailable people are narcissists, otherwise Fallback Girls/Guys would also be narcissists… Likewise, all assclowns are emotionally unavailable but not all unavailables are assclowns.
  19. If you don’t like somebody, use that knowledge well and move on. We live in a time when people make it their vocation to let the person in question know. It’s not only deriving satisfaction from going out of their way to communicate their dislike so they can give themselves a boost and feel powerful, but it can also be a form of seeking validation. ‘Give me another reason to legitimise my dislike of you.’ When a person actively goes out of their way to communicate that dislike, they’re also carrying on as if their opinion is super important.
  20. It’s impossible to be ‘up’ all of the time. It’s not sustainable and the desire to never be ‘down’ stems from a highly unrealistic expectation that life should be perfect and that you shouldn’t experience disappointment. Success, happiness, growth, and courage evolve out of disappointments and hardships, often bringing a deep sense of gratitude further down the line due to appreciating a blessing in disguise.
  21. What and who would you be if you weren’t living your life according to rules that aren’t rules and essentially censoring your true self? Be that. That’s what ‘being yourself ‘ means.
  22. Be careful of the forever hungry mindset where you never appreciate what you have because your mind is always on the next proverbial meal. How will you know and appreciate what more is, when you never appreciated what you had?
  23. Entitlement has been the strongest and consistent theme so far this year in a lot of the stories people have been sharing with me. If you want to understand why and where you are stuck on something, look at where you feel that because you are or have something, that you feel that you should have _________.
  24. If you agree to do something, don’t amend the T&Cs that you agreed to, based on some hokey judgement of the other party. If you borrowed money and agreed to pay it back (erm, that’s why it’s called borrowing), you can’t decide that you’re not going to pay it back because you don’t feel that they ‘need’ it. That’s jacking someone! If you agree to volunteer, you don’t get to decide to do it shittily just because you’re volunteering. That’s not the kind of help that people need.
  25. If you haven’t met a person and yet they keep making sexual innuendos or are even requesting sexy photos and making clear that they want to hook up when you meet, they’re not looking for a relationship; they’re trying to screw you. If that’s all you want, great, but if you’re wanting to meet because you’re looking for a relationship, flush.
  26. When shady folk do a major breach of your boundaries, it’s best not to let it go unchecked because it will be perceived as an opening plus in knowing what they’ve done and forecasting blowback at some point, they will often seek to manipulate the situation by ‘getting in there first’ and accusing you of something (likely made up or exaggerated) to distract from it. This how they cover their arses.
  27. If you neglect you and feed you with crumbs, anything others do will go through the low self-esteem exaggeration oven and come out looking like a loaf by comparison to your own efforts. Set the standard of how you want to feel and be treated and no one will be able to come along and showboat with less than what you can already do for yourself. That, and when you treat you with love, care, trust, and respect, it kills off that raging hunger to latch onto anything and anyone who gives you the time of day or who activates your need to please.
  28. Ups and downs are relative and personal hence why comparison and envy aren’t the most productive or illuminating uses of your energy and time.
  29. When we routinely see ourselves at the centre of other people’s behaviour and are essentially blame absorbers, it’s ‘inverted narcissism’. None of us are that powerful. To think we are is delusions of grandeur in itself.
  30. When you stop giving to receive and only do so because it’s what you would do anyway, not only do you stop over-giving but you also see where the land lies with certain people. And that can only be a good thing.
  31. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a relationship and desiring to love and be loved, but be careful of crossing into that zone where it’s become a need that you’ve decided will be the solution to any internal issues including dissatisfaction with the self. Not wanting to be single due to negative connotations and even self-hatred, isn’t the same as wanting to be in a mutually fulfilling relationship, which brings me neatly to….
  32. Don’t ‘force ripen’ your relationships. You meet someone. You’re not sure about them. Maybe you don’t even know them yet. Then something happens to activate hope and fantasy. You decide now that you’re in, and in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, you’re thinking, When are we moving in? When will they say they love me? This will not only affect your attitude and actions, potentially blinding you to good or not so good things that are happening in the present as well as dulling your self-awareness, but you may end up alienating yourself. That and you may end up being over committed to something that you have not spent enough time assimilating whether it is actually something that reflects your needs, expectations, wishes, feelings, and opinions and ultimately your values.
  33. Don’t let people Dump and Charge Up on you. Ever known somebody who circles back to you whenever they’re going through a crisis (possibly the same one on repeat) who effectively offloads on you, gets charged up, and then bowls off and does the same thing again? There’s a difference between being there for your friends (or family) and being their waste can or battery charger. If you feel drained, you’ll feel pained.
  34. When you’re conscious, aware and present, you don’t have to fear waking up in a relationship where your wondering why you feel so hungry despite having ‘so much in common’. You don’t have to try to retrace your steps to identify what you’ve missed and you go into relationships with a greater sense of awareness of who you are including your needs, desires, and expectations.
  35. Everything is easier said than done. Everything. That’s why there’s no point in using it as on objection and a barrier to taking action.
  36. There are always going to be people who will eff with you. It’s the nature of life. It won’t happen all of the time (unless you’re hanging with shady folk) but when it does happen, don’t mistake it as a sign that something is wrong with you. It will happen regardless of how nice and ‘perfect’ you are so it’s best to get on with the business of being you.
  37. There’s no magic bullet. It’s too much to expect that you will do something for you and all of your problems or the pain over a particular thing will vanish. That won’t even happen if you soothe on something or someone else – it will just be alleviated temporarily. Consistently and repeatedly treat you with love, care, trust and respect and you will experience the cumulative benefits.

 

Your thoughts?

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