16 uncomfortable acts people try to avoid, but that actually makes your life better

 

pic was taken from here

16 uncomfortable acts people try to avoid,

but that actually makes your life better

1.       Worrying about not having a 5-year plan

The idea that any of us know where we will be years down the road is an illusion – a comforting illusion. It is better to focus on one step at a time than getting overly-attached to a path you may not want t be on when the time arrives.

2.       Spending a whole day by yourself

In solitude, you find self-awareness. When you don’t have to be anything to anyone else – you see what it means to be yourself.

pic was taken from here

3.       Doing “nothing”

Hyper-productivity is gratifying in small doses, but it is in doing what we often brush off as “nothing” that we find the true joys of life: reading a novel, having coffee and breathing in the morning air, relaxing on the couch, laughing with friends and having no further agenda.

4.       Admitting when you are wrong

As the adage goes: would you like to be right, or would you like to be good?

5.       Not justifying your actions

We do not justify our actions to convince other people we’ve done the right thing, we justify them to convince ourselves.

6.       Letting go of feeling anxious for no reason

Instead of projecting the feeling you don’t understand onto something measurable or concrete in your life, just allowing yourself to feel tense or agitated for no discernible reason – though scary – is what allows it to pass. Counting calories, saving money or changing your hair won’t heal a problem that isn’t food, money or looks.

7.       Honoring your coping mechanisms

 

Rather than condemn yourself for what you had to do to survive, appreciate that you got through what life handed you. Once you do that, you can figure out what you need to do to thrive.

 

8.       Applying your judgments of other people to yourself

Judgments are projections from wounds, and there are few things that can better tell us what we are unwilling to heal ourselves than what we point out needs to be healed in others.

9.       Having something to talk about other than your opinions about others’ lives

 It is easy to connect over mutual dislike, but it is a toxic practice. Work on talking about books, or ideas, or travel, or anything else you find even mildly interesting.

10.   Letting truths coexist

What was true 5 years ago may not be true now, and yet, both were true for you at some point in time. Embracing the paradoxes of life – that often, conflicting ideas can both be true in their own ways – will save you a lot of stress.

11.   Knowing that too much indecision is a decision

If you have to think about something too much, the answer is probably no. That which is meant for us flows naturally without us having to consciously choose. Indecision is a decision we have not yet come to terms with.

12.   Being willing to receive

Feminine energy tells us what we want, masculine energy tells us how we can get it. When we have an overabundance of the latter, we can close ourselves off to receptivity, intuition, and wonder. Often, this leads to us feeling lost and disconnected. The willingness to receive is the true beginning of healing.

13.   Allowing anger

Anger is such an informative emotion. It tells us what we believe in, what we need to change, and what we are passionate about. Allowing ourselves to feel it actually lets us channel it, whereas suppressing it actually makes it come out in destructive ways.

14.   Feeling healthy shame when you know you’ve done something wrong

Shame becomes toxic when we are self-punishing despite having not done anything wrong. Shame is a healthy and crucial part of our emotional capacity that serves to show us when we know we can do better, and should.

15.   Doing things slowly, but well

Cooking to cook, rather than just eat. Working to create, rather than just finish. Walking to see, rather than just arrive.

16.   Breathing fully and deeply

It is through breath that we process emotion. People who are resistant to how they feel often cannot take deep, easy breaths, or they will try to either distract themselves or fill their bodies up with something that stops the processing (like food, or drink). However, if you learn to breathe fully, and allow what comes up, you can get through it – and no longer have to live with the beast in your belly.

Written by

Brianna Wiest, a writer, strategist, and best-selling author. Her newest book on overcoming self-sabotage is out now.

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Disillusionment: It’s What’s Killing Middle-Aged Dating

 

Disillusionment: It’s What’s Killing Middle-Aged Dating

Let’s try treating our dates as potential life partners instead of bottom feeders

Several middle-aged men have asked me recently why the women they’re meeting aren’t interested in them. On my blog, I keep hearing from widows who’ve given up on men.

Let’s start with the over-arcing problem:

Our disillusionment is killing us

When we’re young, we fall in love and we want to build lives together, to comfort our beloved when they suffer losses and cheer for their accomplishments. Perhaps we feel more than we do at middle age. More attraction, more passion, more lust, but also, over time, more caring, more hope and more attachment.

By the time we’re middle-aged and we’ve suffered through a few failed relationship, we’re dumb. We tamp down our expectations. Now we just want someone to have emotionally distant sex with every other Thursday night after our fantasy lacrosse team disbands. Tending to our romantic relationships has become our last priority, perhaps something to think about after fixing that long leaking toilet in the guest bathroom.

Having given up on finding love, we middle-aged idiots stop expecting it. We settle for so much less. Our emotional playbook is reduced to fulfilling our bodily needs with people we don’t really care about.

It’s an untenable way to live. Like seeing only grey when the world is saturated with color.

I recently learned a depressing new word: situationship. It’s a dating relationship that’s undefined or uncommitted. It’s basically when you and another person are doing coupley things, but you’re not actually a couple. In between a hook-up and a relationship, situationships are that area where no one really knows what’s going on, and no one talks about commitment.

I think a lot of people are settling for these hybrid catastrophes. But come on, we’re grown-ups. We’re supposed to be more articulate.

I’ve met so many divorced guys who feel they gave their all once before – financial support, putting family first, agreeing to their wives’ demands – and look how that worked out. Women my age feel they’ve already raised their kids, why do they want to take on men who act like children?

Most of my dating post-widowhood has been a power struggle. I would tell a man I was dating about my needs, those of a lonely widow with little family and few connections, only to be told they weren’t acceptable. Most of the men I dated wanted me to fit their wish-list. So, no I wasn’t okay with twisting my life to fit someone’s else’s schedule, driving to see them, but never having them come to me, or being told their dating other people was good for our, uh, situationship. Their convenience was paramount, but they never acted like they cared about me.

Maybe it’s my super limited experience from spending most of my life with one man, but I don’t get all the hostility. Ostensibly, we[re meeting people to see if we want to be with them, maybe finding love, maybe even for the rest of our lives. Yet we don’t seem to care about them, from showing up to an initial coffee date to seeing if they get home safely to offering kindness instead of caveats.

Let’s talk about freeway merging

(I’m going somewhere with this). People used to let each other merge onto the freeway. It’s common courtesy. Otherwise, the merging driver is forced to exit instead of entering, or, in the case of those creepy short merges, they have to hit the breaks to avoid slamming into the wall. But I’ve noticed that lately people don’t let each other in. they just accelerate and charge by, with no thought to the other driver.

That’s what dating is like. Except instead of some unknown driver we’re never going to see again, these are the people with whom we might be spending the rest of our lives.

When a woman is telling you about something that’s really stressing her out, and you’re thinking you’re bored and you just wanted to get laid, you failing. And when you tell her something honest and true and she isn’t listening, she’s failing you too.

We just don’t care. That cynicism has filtered into dating and that’s why it isn’t working. It’s simple: Don’t date someone unless you care about them.

Perhaps you should invert your thinking

Instead of thinking what you want in a romantic relationship, ask yourself what you can offer the other person.

It it’s that you’re way too busy to see anybody on a regular schedule, be upfront about it and don’t argue when you get turned down. If it’s what you’re still really pissed at your ex and the next lady better not expect too much, see a counselor instead of exposing some innocent woman to your vitriol.

Coming from a place of resentment doesn’t work, I know. I’ve met far too many of you guys.

But if you want to love someone again, please, tell us. Don’t be embarrassed. Vulnerability is attractive. Acting like we’re the enemy is not.

However, being vulnerable requires self=esteem. And our past relationships may have chipped away at that. Nothing worked in the past so we don’t expect anything to work now. We’re too bruised to open ourselves up again. No one treated us well so we’ve stopped expecting it, and we treat our dates poorly because we expect the same in return.

As our self-esteem flags, so does the way we regard the people we date. They become suspect, belonging to a club we wouldn’t want to join because it accepts us as a member. So we treat them like they don’t matter and now their self-esteem is floundering. We can stop the vicious cycle. But it requires believing we are worthy of love, it is attainable, and treating our dated like prospective life partners instead of bottom feeders.

Can we approach dating with a sense of promise?

I’ve met several happy couples who met in middle age. The one thing they have in common is their radiant smiles. I could envision a first meeting where he sees a curvy woman with a kind face who looks happy to meet him. She sees a man with a high forehead and deep blue eyes that look hopeful. They see promise, and therefore beauty in each other.

It’s exciting to meet new people. You might find the second love of your life. Or at least have some great times with someone lovable.

With the pandemic, we’re forced to limit our social interactions. Our first drinks together might be on zoom, our first meal a socially distanced picnic, and our first kiss might take place way later than we thought it would. Let’s use that extra time to take more care with how we treat each other. And to see that connecting with another person is a privilege, not a battle ground.

It’d like to start a movement called “The Unfun Daters”, people who are unabashedly looking for life-time partners and who won’t accept less.

What do we want? Serious commitment.

When do we want it? Within a prudent timeframe.

Add in the twenty page contract you have to sign where in you agree to be courteous and accountable to your dates, and you see what I mean.

Dating is work. I used to spend a set amount of time each day online checking out new profiles and answering messages. When I agreed to meet, I kept my appointments. But most importantly, I believed I’d find my forever person. It took years, but I did, through perseverance and an almost insane believe in love.

So, if your prospects aren’t interested, it may be because you’re already radiating defeat. We need to see promise instead of futility. And we need to come from a place of compassion instead of disillusion.

Let’s start by being kinder to each other.

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written by

Debbie Weiss 

Blogging at https://www.thehungoverwidow.com Essays in the New York Times’ Modern Love and others. Just got an MFA in writing at 56