habits Archives - Baggage Reclaim by Natalie Lue

Getting Truthful About Your Intentions

January 10, 2018 By NATALIE Reading Time: 6 Minutes

It’s that time of year where despite our best intentions and even resolution(s) to move forward and have a fresh start, we can find ourselves grappling with temptation. Our unconscious intentions and fears make themselves known and if we feed them, they become stronger than our conscious intentions and desires.

When we feel compelled to reach out to an ex or to do something else that we on some level have doubts (and possibly alarm bells ringing) about doing, acknowledging our true intentions can be the difference between pain and gain.

By living with more conscious intention in the areas of our life where we’ve felt a great deal of stress, disappointment, loss, resentment etc., we set ourselves up for success. We also break unhealthy patterns because we’re quite simply living more consciously.

Take my friend’s recent situation: She broke it off with her ex due to his boundary-busting behaviour and made it very clear that despite their mutual friends, that she has no interest in remaining in touch. This was a big change because her pattern was to stay in touch with even the shadiest of exes.

Several months later while chatting to one of these mutual friends about a tax situation (which she knew nothing about), he suggested that he call up my friend about it (because she’d had an issue with the same department). The mutual friend told him it would fine… and then made a panicked call to my friend to warn her but also pointed out that it seemed like he had changed [from being super possessive and controlling]. Side note: I don’t know how that can be gauged from a call…

So, now this story makes its way to me while we’re enjoying a cuppa.

Me: Wait, why the frick would he be calling you? Who does he think you are? HMRC (the British tax office)?

Cue my friend doubled-up laughing trying to stop herself from choking on her tea.

Me: I can think of a few other options before he would even get to you. After HMRC, there’s, oh I don’t know… his accountant…. or a tax advisor. Then there’s Job Centre Plus… or the Citizens Advice Bureau… or, wait for it, Google. Not being funny but even you would happily admit that you’re no expert on [the tax matter]!

She’s still doubled up laughing and begging me to stop so she can finish her tea.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that this guy isn’t calling for tax advice.

Like many a person (including myself) who has concocted an excuse to get in touch with their ex (or to go where you know they’ll be hanging out, dressed to the nines in heels they can barely walk in… cough…), his need for tax advice from his ex was a ploy to create an entry point for getting her attention.

It’s like, ‘All I want is some tax advice. How can she refuse?’

Easily, actually. She wouldn’t be refusing because she’s a ‘mean person’; it’s because she doesn’t want to be manipulated and she values good boundaries even in the face of awkwardness.

Her conscious intention is/was to be done with him. In the past, her unconscious fears and intentions meant that fear of being disliked, fear of conflict but also fear that one of these guys would spontaneously combust into a prince as soon as her back was turned, caused her to have a revolving door of exes in her life.

As humans, we’re all living with intention.

Some of our intentions are conscious, some are unconscious and either way, they lead to outcomes and consequences. Unhealthy patterns can only exist when we’re living unconsciously. Awareness of why we do what we do in the way that we do it can halt what might be destructive and/or disingenuous choices. The more we live with conscious intention is the more we grow.

Why are we texting our ex at Christmas/New Year/on their birthday and other occasions that jump out at us?

Is it because all we want to do is wish them happy Christmas etc and there’s no agenda, no expectation?

Or, is it because:

while we might tell ourselves that we want them back, what we really want is to win?
we’re feeling crappy about something else and so receiving their temporary attention seems like a worthy distraction?
we want to confirm that we still have the power to get their attention but also that they haven’t moved on or changed that much?
we’re sabotaging something good, so reaching out causes self-rejection and lowers us back to feelings that reflect our negative beliefs?

Being honest about our intentions can help us make choices that better serve our well-being.

Even if we proceed because we, for instance, want that distraction, doing so will help us to learn from that experience. We, at least, won’t have to go through the rigmarole of fooling ourselves in the future and this can be quite an eye-opener as time goes on.

We can also acknowledge where we have conflicting intentions. If we intend to, for example, move forward with our self-esteem in tow after a breakup because we desire a better relationship but then opt for something casual to get attention, we can acknowledge where we’re taking us away from who we are and what we want.

Honesty about intentions also extends to recognising other people’s intentions.

No, we’re not mind readers but what a lot of us find ourselves doing is emotionally blackmailing us into ignoring our instincts because we don’t want to appear mean/judgemental/crazy/needy/too sensitive etc.

We then kick ourselves for what is often a split-second decision to repress what we know. What we know is often something that our rational brain is keen to talk us out of. What we know is often something that we’re uncomfortable with admitting or that yes, sometimes go against our [misguided] intentions and what we want to do.

I spoke to someone recently whose married ex got in touch. She knew that he didn’t mean her any good but admitting that meant letting go once and for all. It meant recognising that he’d always been dishonest and manipulative. She regretted letting herself get sucked back in.

Acknowledging other people’s intentions or even the reality of their behaviour isn’t about seeing the worst in people. Hell, it’s not even about seeing the worst in ourselves.

Another reader explained recently how she’d intended to disclose the affair to the wife. Admitting that that her true intention wasn’t to ‘help’ helped to ground her in her true values. It prevented her from doing something she would have felt ashamed about. That, and it also forced her to acknowledge what she was trying to avoid.

Being honest about intentions isn’t about being judgemental of you or others; it’s about judging the situation and recognising whether it’s in alignment with how you want to feel and continue feeling but also who you truly are.

With this in mind, here’s a few self-care tips:

Forget about trying to make you (or others) ‘wrong’. Instead, use recognition of intentions to set you up for success by acknowledging how intentions influence choices but also outcomes. For example, on a night out, I check in with me about whether I want to drink and why. If I want to, cool, but if were thinking that I ‘should’ drink to ‘fit in’, the latter would lead to me feeling crappy. Another common example: Are you having sex because you want to or is it because you feel as if you ‘should’ if you want to increase your chances of seeing your date again?
Acknowledge the desired outcome. Be honest about what you want. If you weren’t going to get [the desired outcome], would you still go ahead? Have you done this (or similar) before? If so, what happened? Make sure that you’re not putting you on the disappointment cycle. If you wouldn’t still go ahead, you either need to be honest with the other party about your expectations or revise them. Using the sex example above, I hear from far too many people who have sex almost like a down payment on a relationship and then feel aggrieved when things don’t work out. If they were honest, not just about that intention but also how that intention compromised them, they’d halt.
Remember that hidden intentions often means hidden agenda. That doesn’t make you shady but what it does mean is that you will be conflicted. Progress is slow if hidden motivations and fears are running the show. If you value integrity, honesty, peace of mind and equitable, available relationships, lose the hidden agenda by bringing it into the open.
Keep in mind who you really are and where you want to go and grow. Are your intentions in line with your values (priorities, preferences and principles) and boundaries? If not, halt.
When you’re tempted to do something that you suspect doesn’t have your best intentions in mind, get grounded. Sit in a quiet space, take a few deep breaths and ask, What am I afraid of? and see what comes up and then ask why and keep asking to get down to the root fear. It might take 5 to 7 whys but you’ll get there.
Consider what you you know about the person. Are you intentions in some way based on this hypothesis that they’ve changed?
Beyond the instant gratification, is there the potential for a medium- to long-term hangover?
Acknowledge where your intentions might be different to those of the person involved. Thinking If it were me can blind you to the truth. Stay in your lane.

Change Has To Be About Becoming More of Who You Are

January 2, 2017 By NATALIE Reading Time: 4 Minutes

When we’ve spent our whole life (or much of it), doubting our worth and how ‘enough’ we are, the prospect of change, even when it’s something that we recognise as being beneficial and even critical, can seem like yet another thing that highlights what’s wrong with us.

It’s not unusual to have a negative association with change, possibly because we had significant or even traumatic life events that have made us sensitive to change, but often because we feel as if we have never really been accepted for who we are whether it’s by us or by others. Even when we know that we’ve pretended to be something that we’re not to blend in and to gain attention, affection, validation, love etc., we can be surprisingly attached to the security of the costume. ‘But this people pleasing mask and cape is safe. It’s what I know even if I hanker to let the real me out.’

The funny thing is, more often than not, what we resist changing isn’t even who we are. For instance, so many people have told me that ‘needy’ is part of their personality but this is a pattern waiting to be healed. Habits can be modified, tweaked or replaced, especially any that are harmful and hold us back from what we really want.

This resistance to change keeps us stuck in an uncomfortable comfort zone.

We trick ourselves by believing that if change is ‘right’ then it will feel easy and we won’t feel afraid or uncomfortable, which causes us to backslide, often at the points where we’re on the verge of making great leaps. We’re being stretched and it can suddenly seem really daunting to change. We imagine our changed future self and become afraid of too much responsibility. We realise that if we make these changes, we can’t hold on to old patterns or blame the same people or things. We realise that we’re making a commitment, temptying us to hide behind something or someone else so that we don’t have to take the next step or move on to the next stage of our life.

An example of this is when we feel good about key changes we need to make but then we let the unavailable or shady ex slip in, or sabotage a new opportunity like a job or move so that we’re back to being fearful and stressed. That might feel more in line with our old negative beliefs that we’re in truth, trying to distance ourselves from.

Sometimes we fear that the change won’t last and that we won’t be able to cope with future hurt or disappointment, so it feels safer to write ourselves off right now.

On some level we might need a last go-round to force us to awaken to the need for change. It’s often when it becomes too uncomfortable and painful not to change when we stop resisting what in essence boils down to becoming more of who we are.

We are at a time of year when there’s a lot of talk about change and you know what? Change is necessary because when we don’t evolve, we stall emotionally but we also miss out on our own life, however, we’ve got to change for the right reasons.

Podcast Ep. 60: “I should have more self-discipline”, Gifting stress, Intense With The One After You

November 18, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 2 Minutes

It’s time for another episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions.

In episode 60, I cover:

“I should have more self-discipline”: I explain why we need to stop criticising us for having to cut something out in order to avoid temptation and move forward. I talk about food, deleting the likes of Facebook and Instagram, and having to go No Contact. | Link mentioned: It’s Just The One Chocolate Bar. It’s Just The One Values and Boundaries Bust. Or is it?

Why doesn’t our gifting feel so giving?: I talk about overspending, passive-aggressive gifts, gifting even when the person has asked us not to, ill-judged gifts and feeling as if we’re being upstaged by a show-off. | Links mentioned: Episode 15 about giving | Episode 2: What’s the baggage behind it? | Unsent Letter Guide

Intense with the one after you: I explain why we shouldn’t be too quick to assume that our commitment-avoiding ex is committing to the one after us. | Extra links:

Listener Question: Steve wants to know whether he’s right to feel rejected about his girlfriend not sleeping in his arms for the entire night.

What I Learned This Week: When we’ve been rehashing something, it’s good to make a conscious decision to talk about something else.

You can listen to this podcast below. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe either on Soundcloud or on iTunes. If you’re new to podcasts, find out more about what they are and how to subscribe with this handy guide.

Leave a comment or post on Facebook, and please, if you enjoy it, subscribe and/or leave a review on iTunes (how-to guide here)–it really helps in growing the show. If you know someone who would enjoy it, please help spread the word. It all helps. Listener questions can be emailed to podcast AT baggagereclaim DOT com. If there’s a topic you’d love me to talk about, let me know!

It’s Just The One Chocolate Bar. It’s Just The One Values and Boundaries Bust. Or is it?

March 21, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been meeting BR readers and a hot topic has been values, namely, realising that what they ultimately ended up doing in a host of situations did not reflect their true intentions, values, and basically who they are in the main. They each found that in situations that called for them to speak or stand up for themselves, or to show up as they truly are, they doubted themselves. They feared that if they didn’t play the game, “put out”, appear agreeable, let certain things slide, that they would be judged and rejected. They didn’t realise that aside from this being a self-rejection for what was often a veritable stranger or certainly not somebody that warranted self-abandonment, that sure, they may have felt that they avoided one form of judgment but what they didn’t like was that bigger picture of recognising that in that ‘one moment’, which actually became one in a number of moments, that they got into a habit with these people and that they were judged anyway. It might not have been done in a conscious fashion by the other party but nonetheless, that person did get an idea of what was and wasn’t permissible and no doubt used these judgements to form conclusions.

It’s very hard to be judged fairly on who you are if, despite your best intentions, your fear of not being liked, your fear of letting this ‘fish’ slip back into the bucket that ‘everyone’ is fighting over, takes precedence and causes you to be and do things in the moment that do not reflect who you are in the main.

It’s like, “What’s one chocolate bar gonna do?”, says many a person (like me) who decides to give up an unhealthy habit, but of course if that chocolate bar is one of many in the grander scheme of things, yeah, it means a lot. Incidentally, this happened to me today–38 days sans chocolate, accidentally ate a cupcake with heavenly white melted chocolate that I mistook for icing and thought, “Ah, what the hell! Might as well have another with a cup of tea”. Kettle’s boiling and no joke–I felt woeful due to the massive sugar rush in my chest and head. High as a kite! So I didn’t have another one. It reminded me of engaging with exes and other toxic people in my past, only I would have another ‘cupcake’ in those instances.

Momentarily forgetting your values and boundaries, isn’t a big deal in the grander scheme of things and it’s part of the on the job training of life—of course it’s all relative and it depends on what it is—but doing this a lot and with one particular person or in a particular type of situation, builds into something bigger, especially when you’ve lost the context of recognising that it’s not just that “one time”.

It’s vital to carry your values with you and to follow through as often as you can (this means you’ll be values driven in your outlook anyway) because you can’t be selective about your moral convictions. At that point where you’re willing to make one set of rules for one and different set of rules for another, is where you begin to come undone. I see this all the time—people who stand for a lot in certain aspects of their lives but who when they’re in a romantic relationship or whatever their ‘trigger’ is, they completely lose the run of themselves.
Your values need to permeate your life.

Podcast Ep.18: When Sarcasm Backfires, Letting Go of ‘Woundedness’, No Shortcuts To Putting in the Time For You

January 9, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 2 Minutes

If being hard on yourself worked it would have worked by now

via ProjectHappiness.org

It’s time for a new episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions podcast!

Here’s what I cover in episode 18:

When sarcasm backfires: Sometimes our dry humour doesn’t go down too well, leaving a person feeling that we’re mocking them, feeling superior, or trying to put them down. That’s what happened to me on the date that sparked my blogging journey plus so many of us get into hot water when we don’t gauge our audience or know when to quit with sarky comments.

Letting go of our ‘woundedness’: When someone does us wrong, we have pretty good idea of how we feel that they should react and can become entrenched in our position of being the victim of their wrongdoing. I offer up some suggestions for gaining perspective, which helps us to let go, which also helps us to feel less chained to past events.

The practice of self-esteem needs consistent effort: I explain why self-esteem driven habits of thinking and behaviour that are built up over time do more for us than an occasional attempt at being nice to us. Check out the 100 Days of Baggage Reclaim: The Self-Esteem Project, that I mention.

Listener Question – How do I go about having an equal relationship next time? After divorce from an arranged marriage, this week’s listener needs a little guidance on finding her feet, recovering her self-esteem and moving on to a healthier relationship.

What Nat Learned This Week: I’ve spent so much time thinking about going for a run that I could have gone for a run ten times over! I share how I named all of the so-called obstacles to me going out (e.g. my sports bra squeezing my boobs a bit too much…) until I’d run out of excuses because I’d fixed them all, and so I had to hit the road.

You can listen to this podcast below. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe on Soundcloud , iTunes, Stitcher or via a podcast app on whatever device you use. If you’re new to podcasts, find out more about what they are and how to subscribe with this handy guide.

Leave a comment or post on Facebook and please do subscribe. If you know someone who would enjoy it, please help spread the word. It all helps! Listener questions can be emailed to podcast AT baggagereclaim DOT com. If there’s a topic you’d love me to talk about, let me know! Nat xxx

Super Late: How we treat time says a lot about how much we respect other people’s time

June 23, 2015 By NATALIE Reading Time: 6 Minutes

If you’ve ever stood (or sat) around waiting for somebody who is late, you will understand how frustrating and downright awkward this can be, especially when they either don’t warn you that they’re going to be late or they have a habit of being late on the regular. Equally, if you are typically late and have received flack for it, you may struggle to understand what the problem is because from your end of things, you either feel that there are genuine reasons for your lateness or that they’re making an unnecessarily big deal out of it.

A friend of mine was recently kept waiting for four hours – yes, you did read that correctly. Four feckin hours. That is far beyond the bounds of acceptability. My first thought was, What’s so special about this guy that you’d circle around Victoria station for a few hours while he hung out in the pub with his mates?

We know when we’re going to be fifteen minutes late and a person who is four hours late knew this some time between one and two hundred and forty minutes before they decided that they would bother to show up.

The way that you feel about and deal with timekeeping is really a matter of values, namely your personal values, the ones that speak for your character.

Sure, there will be people who will argue up and down about how culture has its part to play in the acceptability of lateness but we can all think of generalisations that are made about cultures and races that are not actually true of the people we encounter from these.

It’s not that things don’t happen and that none of us can ever be late but how we typically treat time does say a lot about how much we respect other people’s time as well as our own.

People who don’t really care about keeping people waiting or disrupting their schedules, have an over-inflated sense of their own importance. When did common courtesy die a death? In an age where you could almost say that we’re over-connected, how the hell can a person fail to notify us that they’re going to be late when we have mobile phones, texts, email, Facebook, WhatsApp, IM, Skype, Twitter, Instagram and the list goes on?

We’ve got to quit with this bullsh*t, super busy malarkey. Habitual lateness (super late people) is just an extension of this whole carrying on as if we’re busier than a world leader. No we’re not!

When we don’t respect and value our own time (boundaries), we over-promise ourselves in the name of pleasing and fear of saying no, winding up malnourished in the self-care department. We also don’t acknowledge where our concept of how long it’s going to take to do something or get somewhere, is inaccurate.

Are you treating all conflict and criticism as ‘bad’? Negative associations strike again!

January 29, 2014 By NATALIE Reading Time: 4 Minutes

What does somebody who’s having a tough time with a breakup and possibly even battling with No Contact (NC) have in common with someone who regards being disagreed with or experiencing conflict and criticism as not being liked and rejection? Not much on the surface of things but as it turns out, the same issue dominates each situation:

Just like in Monday’s post on how negative associations can undermine your progress post-breakup or your NC attempts, negative associations affect the way you handle and respond to conflict and criticism.

What springs to mind when you think of conflict? If you have negative associations, it will be stuff from the past – memories, assumptions, long-held beliefs, key phrases, and it’s likely that each time you get into a conflict or criticism situation (or c-situations as I like to refer to them), the feelings associated with them will get activated and you’ll slip into your typical response with little conscious thought.

Let’s imagine that when somebody disagrees with us, we associate this with not being liked and being rejected and in turn, we have an associated response of getting angry with the person, which could include lashing out, cutting them off etc. This means that no matter who it is and how much they like or even love us, or even the validity of the c-situation, our response will be prompted by the association, not by the present.

When we examine situations that elicit similar responses, we recognise that they’re linked by association. If we grew up in an environment where conflicts weren’t resolved healthily or at all, or where disagreeing and being different was seen as being displeasing instead of having an opinion and our own set of values, we’ll feel wounded by being disagreed with and by having differences highlighted. We’re thrown ‘back there’ again. Our blanket response treats and regards all conflict as having come from a ‘bad’ place plus all criticism including fair criticism aka ‘feedback’ is treated as an attack. The ‘rule’ becomes ‘You’re either with me or against me. If you’re with me, you don’t disagree with me or be honest. If you do, I’ll take it as rejection and bounce you out of my life.’

Of course we forget when we try to control the amount of conflict and criticism in our lives plus we have ‘heavy’ responses due to negative associations, that we’re limiting our own honesty as well as curtailing it in our interpersonal relationships.

I used to interpret conflict and criticism as a signal to press my eject button soon or that it meant that the person disliked me and was rejecting me. Super defensive, I’d distance myself as quickly as possible. Conflict and criticism in my family used to elicit explosive reactions followed by silence and then pressing the Reset Button as if nothing happened, or you got cut off and cast out. S0me could start conflict and express criticism fair or not, but others couldn’t. It’s easy to see why I had relationships with men who in some instances, could start a fight with a paper bag and tell me all about myself while I was barely allowed a side-eye, and also why even the slight possibility of c-situations would destabilise me, often activating my pleaser tendencies.

Just as I outlined in the breakup / NC scenario, that if we focus purely on the actions but haven’t changed the associations, that what we’re doing is going to feel ‘wrong’ or ‘weird’ which will likely result in going back on ourselves, in c-situations, if we focus purely on trying to change our response (e.g. calming ourselves down, pushing down our feelings) on the basis that on some level we recognise that we’re off base, it’s not going to change the fact that we still associate disagreement with rejection.

We’re attempting to respond to those feelings differently without recognising the beliefs and associations behind the response. We might display less anger but feel quietly resentful and that will play out in our actions, probably in passive aggression. If we evaluate not just our responses but what we’re responding to and the associations, we can then differentiate between disagreement and rejection and in turn change the associations, and in turn, change how we feel and act.

Change the meaning, change the feeling.

Feeling angry is a natural response to conflict and criticism but conflict and criticism doesn’t automatically equate to not being liked and rejected. I say it often, but feelings aren’t facts; they’re feelings. They happen instinctively without reasoning and knowledge.

Negative associations are indicative of bowling along and into things unconsciously using patterns. It’s the whole A + B = C thing – I feel this so it must mean that and then matching the ‘data’ with a default response.

Negative associations mean that we’re heavily influenced by the past not rooted in the present, which of course confuses the very instincts that we’re using. These associations lead us into blind alleys and have us either doing the same thing and expecting a different response (and then being surprised when we’re in Groundhog Day), or have us feeling under threat when there isn’t one and under-reacting when there is one.

If we work on the associations as well as being more aware of our responses, we’ll get to be angry (it’s a very valid and necessary emotion) without feeling as if the sky is falling down and come out the other side of it plus, c-situations won’t always spell the demise of a relationship, romantic or otherwise. It also means that c-situations won’t signal us being instantly teleported into the past where we may have felt powerless and caught up in BS. This is important because it’s inevitable when we stick with the negative associations to become afraid of our own responses or ‘losing’ more people out of our lives, which in turn can cause us to feel lost and silenced while also wondering, What’s wrong with me? or feeling angry with lots of people.

The past doesn’t have to be our now or the future. Change the associations, change the meaning, change the feeling, change the responses.

Your thoughts?

Also see my post on learning how to deal with conflict and criticism for improved self-esteem and relationships.

Are negative associations undermining your post-breakup and No Contact efforts?

January 27, 2014 By NATALIE Reading Time: 6 Minutes

Many people break up or even embark on No Contact with good intentions. On a number of levels and in many respects, they’re aware of some pretty compelling reasons for why they’re no longer together and sometimes, it’s even recognising their own reaction and how deeply embedded they’d become in someone, that makes them realise that they lost themselves somewhere along the way. Despite the good intentions and compelling reasons, many of these people will struggle to stay broken up or NC because often without even realising it, they’ve unconsciously slipped into habits that are undermining their efforts.

As humans, we do tend to give ourselves a hard time about life not living up to the picture that we had painted in our heads. With breakups, when we have an idea of how things ‘should’ go and then we (or they) don’t respond as we’d forecasted, we think, Ah feck. I shouldn’t have bothered with No Contact, or we think, This breakup was/is wrong. I need to go back.

People say to me, ‘Natalie, I really want to be done with this. Why do I keep going back?’ and ‘Why do I keep breaking NC?’

Aside from suggesting that they look at what else was happening or going on within them at the time when they went back or broke NC, I stress that it’s all very well going and doing the actions but if they associate certain things with their ex / being in a relationship / feeling better and this runs counter to their NC efforts, they’re highly likely to go back on themselves.

It’s all to do with associations, namely negative associations.

If you have negative associations with certain things that are lumped together even though certain situations in the group don’t actually belong there, when you try to act differently, it’s going to feel weird and wrong, even though it’s not. You respond in particular ways to those situations in the group even though the response may not be appropriate and reflective of the actual situation at hand. As a prime example (and subject of another post), lumping together conflict, criticism, and people disagreeing with your point of view and then having an associated response of feeling disliked, rejected and then lashing out and cutting the person off.

Let’s imagine that we’re going through a breakup and are No Contact (NC) for our own self-preservation, after recognising how badly we’re being impacted by our continued attempts to engage with our ex and win him/her over. NC is about replacing our typical responses to certain feelings, thoughts, or ‘triggers’ with no more responding to or initiating contact while practicing self-care at the same time. For instance, we find a healthier way to respond to stress/sadness/anger and talk ourselves through why we’re not responding.

Breakups and new relationships offer opportunities to break old habits

October 28, 2013 By NATALIE Reading Time: 4 Minutes

I read somewhere recently that if you want to break habits and form healthier alternatives, moving house is the way to go, which means I’m in for a shake-up soon. Of course there are other opportunities to break habits and often we forget due to wanting to cling hard to old but possibly unproductive habits, that breakups and new relationships are a wonderful opportunity to evolve.

Part of the grieving and moving forward process is creating new responses to cues and triggers where you’ve typically reached for or relied upon your ex, such as boredom, loneliness, validation seeking, stress, tiredness, desire to escape etc. You have to be more self-reliant and self-soothe in these situations, and where things go awry is where you keep looking to your ex (or a substitute) in these situations and this increases the lack of personal security you feel as well as the pain.

New relationships also offer the opportunity to go down a different path and this is much easier to do when you have the self-awareness that comes with being willing to learn from the insights gained from your prior relationships. With each relationship you get to understand you a bit more and where you also need to step up for yourself to ensure that you’re representing your needs, expectations and wishes.

New relationships are an opportunity to evolve and grow regardless of the outcome.

It’s not that you won’t be hurt and pissed off if things don’t work out, but when you know that you weren’t just trying to pick up from where you left off in a previous relationship and that you weren’t trying to be the exception to the rule and trying to right the wrongs of the past, you have the perspective to recognise where you’ve made gains instead of being loss focused. It also helps if you don’t treat being single as the prison sentence that you have to pass between shady relationships…

There won’t be this sense that you’ve lost out on somebody making you ‘whole’ at last and you’re not being caught out by stubbornness and feeling away due to having had your pattern on repeat. You won’t feel too afraid to gain new insights because once you’ve grieved the loss and the dust has settled, what you learn from the experience takes you a step closer to a more fulfilling relationship and it provides you with some self-knowledge. You may even feel proud or empowered due to how you handled a situation or just knowing that you weren’t pretending to be something that you’re not in order to fit in with somebody who was actually unfolding.

Do not engage: why we don’t have to keep riding the same train to destination unhappiness

August 28, 2013 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Don’t forget that I’m on a ‘break’ until September so I’ll mostly be featuring some of yours and my favourite posts from the archives.

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A few months back, I did a session with BR students on why we need to stop engaging. That means choosing what we do and don’t participate in or ‘feed’, including chasing negative thoughts and feeding the worry fish, to responding to futile contact when it’s a shady situation with an ex, to carrying the same baggage, beliefs and behaviours and engaging in similar dynamics and expecting different results. At the time I explained that when we continue to hold on to our patterns of thinking and behaviour and yet experience a different outcome, it’s like getting on a train that’s bound for London Victoria but when you arrive there, you’re angry because it’s not London Bridge… even though this would require you to take a different train that goes on a different line. Instead of getting on the train, you just keep riding the same one over and over again – the disappointment cycle.

Through experience and a level of awareness about our habits, we come to recognise that certain things lead to our unhappiness and yet because we still continue with the same responses to feelings, thoughts and trigger situations, we effectively continue to make the same journey on the ‘habit trains’ and pass through the same ‘ole stations en route. Sometimes we try different ‘habit trains’ (or so it seems) but because we’re still including some of the stations, shazam, we still end up at the same destination.

We continue to people please and then we then continue on to feeling neglected. This in itself prompts negative self-talk and unpleasant feelings. We then try to make ourselves feel better and end up soothing in an unhealthy way, probably on some external solution in the form of another person, or even substances, or just self-destructive behaviour, and then we feel better temporarily and then we feel bad again, ultimately winding up at destination unhappiness.

If we keep doing things the same way then we’re likely to end up with similar results. Sure, we can hope that others will yield and fit in around the way that we operate, but that’s like assuming that what’s ultimately not working for us is the ‘right’ way for others. It’s this idea that we should continue on as is even though it hurts, and that others ‘should’ change to accommodate this.

We don’t have to leap on every thought and treat each one as a fact. We don’t have to feed each thought with further negativity. We could get off that train of thought and catch a connection to somewhere else.

The more we do this, the more we get the message that the route has changed, especially when we gradually start to feel the cumulative effect of treating ourselves as valuable, worthwhile and good enough right now, deserving of our own love, care, trust and respect and are not prepared to ride on the Crumb Express in someone else’s life.

We don’t have to engage in the same old conflicts. We don’t have to engage in the same old comparisons. We don’t have to engage in drama. We don’t have to keep trying to ‘fix’ others as a round-the-houses way of trying to fix ourselves. We don’t have to engage in avoidance because ultimately it only lands us in even more problems. We don’t have to engage in other people’s bullshit.

We don’t have to engage. We are not contractually obligated to jump to other people’s beats, to cater to their drama, to be typecast by our pasts, or to continue a toxic family pattern. We don’t have to engage. We have choices and when we engage in the stuff that runs counter to our happiness, we often end up feeling powerless and having other people make our choices for us.

We get to choose which trains we ride on but first we have to choose and then keep choosing. We have to also pay attention to ourselves and listen and be willing to adapt.

It takes a lot of effort initially because we’re learning a new route and replacing old habits and sometimes it’s ‘easier’ to be a passenger and ride the train to unhappiness. But if what we’re doing doesn’t make us happy, continuing to do it isn’t going to change a damn thing. If we don’t adapt the habits that inform how we respond in certain types of situations, we’ll continue to use the same thinking and behaviour that has contributed in part to our problems. Ultimately we’ll be presented with situations, ‘opportunities’, thoughts and feelings and each time we’re given a fresh opportunity to react differently or at the very least hop off the train as soon as we recognise that our boundaries and sense of self are taking a knock.

Your thoughts?

Holiday Update

We had a wonderful week away in France and Italy. Kids were great on the the long drives and Em and I only bickered once and it was about 30 minutes into the holiday! We drove from here to Charmonix, to Legnago where we stayed on a farm for a couple of days for the wedding, to Verona, to Sirmione (our favourite) for Lake Garda (stunning), cocktails, dinner and heavy rain, to Gardaland (theme park), to Dijon, Reims, Calais and then home. The wedding was lovely if not a tad bonkers in parts – we had no idea that playing pranks is a part of Italian weddings. Think pie in the grooms face, water guns, lipstick on most of the guys.
Nia (4) was second last to go to bed. I took Saria (6) back to our room to sleep but Nia insisted on staying with her dad to party. She knew most of the guests by the end of the night and was doing the conga…
I think I’m starting to take this relaxing malarkey quite seriously. I chilled out while on holiday and hardly used my phone or iPad, opting to sleep, read, sing, chat and just be silly. Now that I’m home, I just couldn’t muster up the energy to do very much today.
I felt like I was a bit ‘past it’ when I had to Google ‘twerking’.
Some of you may know from Facebook, that I went to see What Would Beyonce Do?!, a side achingly funny comedy show by BR reader Luisa Omeilan. I met her at a workshop I ran last year when she was brokenhearted and she’s turned her breakup into a sellout show. I found out earlier that she’s bringing the show to New York and LA so I highly recommend that you go if you’re in the US. You will recognise yourself in it if you’ve ever been in an unavailable relationship. I laughed, I sang, I danced, and there were a couple of parts that were so close to be bone, I got a bit emotional. Go!

If someone has truly changed, there’s growth and a change in their habits

May 3, 2013 By NATALIE Reading Time: 4 Minutes

Over the years of writing BR, I’ve covered the issue of what to consider when someone is saying that they’ve changed and like all subjects I cover, I’m always looking for new ways to bring clarity to the situations and decisions that perplex us. Deciding to re-engage requires us to ‘take a punt’ because regardless of what is said right now, the truth of change is really only going to show up in the future where you get to see whether what is said and done now continues to consistently show up moving forward.

It’s not about expecting a person to never put a foot wrong ever again – they can’t promise to never hurt or disappoint you and you can’t expect that – but it is about growth.

How do you know if someone has changed? It’s really simple – you get a true sense of whether someone has changed when they’re faced with the typical situations and issues that have created the friction in the areas where the growth needs to come from.

For example, if the primary issue was how conflict situations were handled, you will see whether they’ve really changed when faced with the next and subsequent conflicts. If it was about being unable to commit, you’ll see whether commitment shows up in them following through and being able to deal with small, medium and large decisions. You’ll see if they’ve changed the next time things don’t go their way.

It’s very easy to claim change on day 0 but people who haven’t changed but claimed that they have or would, tend to either conveniently forget to talk about it and follow up with the actions (and you feel uncomfortable bringing it up for fear of looking like you’re on their case) or… they just talk about it and think that words are enough.

If someone has changed, their habits have changed which means that if they really have changed, they will not respond to previous cues (a signal that’s responded to in a particular way) and triggers (an event or thing that causes something to happen while also prompting a response) in the same way.

This is why it’s pivotal to be aware of what the issues were so that you are cognizant of what the typical cues and triggers are that prompt the responses which they’re now saying have changed.