John Dewy famously said ‘we don’t learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience’.
So here we go my friends, having slightly regrouped from the Christmas/NYE loneliness + f%&k I’m aging mini-depression phase, I thought I’d share my learnings from the 36th year of my life — in case they can come in handy for you as well and in the hopes of living up to them in 2024. Yes, you can try to hold me accountable along the way, I’d appreciate that!
The following are pieces of advice about life and love that I have learned:
- hitting the wall head first multiple times
- from brief windows of true happiness
- from friends and family offering a better perspective on things than I was able to grasp
1. ‘Live your life, don’t let life live you’.
Thank you mom.
Quite frankly, this year I lived a year of reaction — not the full year, sure, but almost. I tried to fit into shoes that weren’t mine. I tried to be kind by not leaving someone who was very special and who loved me immensely. I tried to convince myself to want something that for some reason just didn’t quite fit. Square piece, round hole.
I genuinely don’t think you can lead a happy life out of simply being in reaction.
To have an incredible life, we need to make choices, to be bold, to edit what needs editing.
The pain of waiting and pondering what to do or how to react to things often by far surpasses the pain of ripping the bandaid off and just making a decision, acting on what we believe is right.
2. If you’re gonna do it anyways, have fun doing it
From my daily 8am life update & gossip call with Vitty
Sometimes we make bad decisions, but as much as we try not act on our bad ideas, we just can’t not do it. This year I made some really bad ones and blew off real life to try and attempt the impossible in love in the most surreal of ways.
The most disappointing thing about this is that I felt so guilty for doing them that I didn’t actually enjoy them, mostly, they were eating me alive. But I just knew I couldn’t not do them, my heart had taken over. My therapist kindly let me know this was probably a s%*t idea, that most people when they think ‘this thing is going to hurt me very badly,’ run the opposite way from the ‘thing,’ whereas I’m like ‘yes! I’m coming’!
So in the end, amidst my inner most panic, the n.1 friend who supports my crazy senseless ideas, confident that I will end up right where I should be, Vitty, told me something I hadn’t even considered:
‘if you’re going to do this stupid thing, at least have fun while you’re doing it’.
I did.
3. Sense of guilt doesn’t benefit anyone
By Carolina (no one else could have come up with this)
Whenever I feel like I’m completely disconnected from myself I call her, Carolina, the one person who can rebalance me in 10 minutes tops.
While I was dying of sense of guilt, not wanting to hurt someone else and completely disregarding the fact that the person I was hurting most and not caring much about was myself, Carolina told me a sentence that changed everything: ‘sense of guilt doesn’t benefit anyone’.
She’s completely right:
- I doesn’t remove the hurt from the person you may be hurting
- It makes you sick
- It doesn’t solve the situation
All it does is it adds to the pain, suffering and confusion inside yourself likely keeping you stuck in the same place.
So back to learning n.1, I’ve learned to make a choice and to go with it. If you don’t make choices and stay stuck in your sense of guilt, you’re more likely to cause extra damage towards the situation than just to take action and move out of this puddle of guilt.
4. If your people don’t like the person you’re dating for you, listen to them.
Myself at 23. (Sorry A, should have put it into action sooner)
This I have known for a very long time and I firmly stand by it, this year I was reminded of it once again. I dated someone fabulous but everyone close told me that they didn’t quite see me with this person as a life partner.
What they were judging was not the person, they don’t know him as I do, the truth is that everyone around us had an opinion based on how I was feeling, on whether I was happy, sad, tired, energetic, balanced or stressed out.
While you’re in the emotions vortex, you can turn to those who love you who can offer a much needed external point of view at the very least on your wellbeing.
Maybe when we are a bit down and we loose track of who we are, or when our biological clock has been ringing for a few years no stop, it’s easier to think that actually no, we can make something that isn’t working, work. When friends and family point out the fact that actually we don’t look happy with the person we’re with, it’s always best to at least listen.
5. If it’s not working, you’re wasting more time staying in it that starting from scratch.
Thank you dad.
While I was holding on for dear life to a love that wasn’t quite working, my dad told me something that opened my eyes: was I moving further from what I wanted by holding on to something that I was hoping and hoping would somehow all of a sudden work?
It sucks to start over, but you will waste more time by delaying the inevitable.
6. You need to follow your gut
The friend I need to sell to all boyfriends day 1, as whatever happens in life, we plan to retire together
Every time my gut tells me something, I tap into my rational brain to disprove it.
At times our gut tells us things that our rational brain just cannot logically explain.
Quite frankly my gut has rarely made judgment mistakes about people, the real challenge is trusting a feeling that cannot be explained.
As Silvia kindly always reminds me:
When your gut tells you something, believe it.
7. By trying not to hurt others and being less authentic to yourself, you may end up hurting them even more
The forever believer, heart first, infintely kind and true lover of life and life, Ila
I was holding on for dear life to someone who loved me because I thought I could help him solve his problems and that I would hurt him by leaving.
I now put myself in their shoes: would I want to be with someone who’s with me because I need them although they don’t love me back? No way.
So I closed that door, so that I can find happiness and so can they.
8. Life, especially your love life, rarely goes as you envision it as a kid
Disillusioned me.
I watched too many rom-coms. I pictured practically everyone I know with a completely different partner to the one they actually chose. Some chose partners settling, others simply something different from their original vision.
To be honest, in some cases it worked out extremely well, in others all I can say is…why???
This year I met someone who could literally create that beautiful version of endless summer love for a lifetime. I wanted this when I was 16, it was beautiful and romantic and real. In truth, I’m not 16 any more and my vision and needs have changed, in better, and that choice would have been all wrong.
It’s so important to realign to who we are and what we want today. Maybe changing our vision is not that bad of an idea, as long as it’s for the better and not to settle for less our of desperation.
9. What you see on social media is not what’s actually happening
From a book from a wonderful client
We live in a performance driven society. We have to remember that what we see on socials is not real life and when figuring out how to manage success, we truly need to stay focused and actively choose a measure that suits us.
When it comes to love I discovered I value:
- Safety
- Love
- Alignment of visions (practical visions of how we want to build life)
- Friendship, fun and serenity
- Balance — mental and financial
- Care for the other person
- A very well functioning brain
- Having both worked on ourselves
- Love for each other’s families if important to one another
What do you value?
10. If you’re going to remove something bad from your life, then remove it lie a bandaid
My amazing therapist
My therapist kindly shared that when I want to remove something or someone from my life, I do so as if I had packing tape on my arm one slow hair at a time. At times I paste it back on to then begin the process and the suffering again. Fun!
If you’re going to take that bandaid off, rip it off. It will be faster and much less painful.
11. Actually, you don’t have to take any shit at all
(my therapist’s favorite)
Only my sis-in-law…
I was discussing with my fabulous sister in law my newly found depressing vision on love and life best expressed as: the world is shit and you have to deal with what comes your way.
As I was telling her about my love life, the compromises I was making, the values I was letting go of to make something fit that wasn’t quite right, she stopped and said ‘you do realize that you don’t have to take any s%*t at all, right?’
What seemed so obvious to her hadn’t even occurred to me. I didn’t have to take any of this at all, not even a little bit!
Wow, what a relief!
At 36 I learned that actually we have control over what we put up with and what we decide we won’t.
Let’s not outsource control over things that are actually in our own power.
In conclusion…
Let’s face it, I won’t be perfect this year, none of us can be. This said, I can finally look at this new year with a new found sense of freedom, of purpose, of possibility.
- I vow this year to be in action and not in reaction, to make decisions instead of wallowing in quicksand.
- I promise myself to remove myself from unnecessary pain in a much much faster lapse of time.
- I promise to value my time and my life.
And when s%*t comes our way, I hope you’ll join me in remembering that actually, we don’t have to take any s%*t at all.
I wish you an incredible, adventure filled and serene 2024 ✨ with all the love and friends you wish for and so much deserve.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean? | My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence |
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Photo credit: Duncan Shaffer on Unsplash