My Top 5 Lessons in Life, Love & Humanity

My Top 5 Life-Changing Realizations:

I am responsible for how I feel. No person, place or thing makes me feel any particular way without my consent. This was a big lesson for me because “You hurt me” or “You made me angry” were at the top of my lexicon. When you can look at another person’s actions or words as more about them than YOU — ‘neutral’ until you give it meaning — you feel a powerful shift. No one can ever take your power away again! You let go of judgements and conclusions. You relax by just being you and actively deciding how you want to feel.

I am not responsible for how someone else feels. I used to think I knew what was best for someone. I used to believe I could influence a person’s actions to make my world okay. It’s important to let someone unfold their own journey, to perchance hit rock bottom. Great learning is found in these moments of ‘despair.’ And who says it’s really despair a person is feeling anyway? That’s your interpretation of another person’s life. Let a man figure it out. Let a person know you are there if they need you, then let them unfold their own life.

I will not ask another person to change for me. Have you ever tried to lose weight, stop a habit or learn a new skill? How difficult is it to learn something new for yourself? Yet we expect others to easily change for us and get disappointed if they cannot? Humans are sloppy, rude, forgetful, loving, kind and imperfect. Know your boundaries – it’s the best behavior modification out there.

Know your Boundaries versus Preferences. A diva has a long list of: DO THIS & DON’T DO THAT. You can push a man away fast with preferences. Those are not boundaries. A boundary is about your well-being, your individual security, personal limits and values. A preference is what you’d rather have happening. You may, for example, not answer texts after 10pm — this is your unspoken boundary. Or you can say: I prefer you not text me after 10pm, i.e. you need to change for me according to my ever-evolving preferences. Which one feels more calm, centered, about YOU, and not about controlling the other person…?

Anger is about control. If you find yourself angry, trace it back a few thoughts and you’ll find something that is ultimately out of your control, reasonably judged unfair and not in your favor. You may discover it as a preference — “I wish he’d called,” “They shouldn’t drive like that!” — or the desire to control what a person says or does, and how they do it: “I asked him to load the dishwasher and he did it all wrong.” The only control you truly have is the thought you decide to think and how you react. I tend to personally get stuck on, “How could he?!” I want to know and understand everything. Finding ‘answers’ helps me make sense of the chaos. How can a man or monster do this to a woman/child/animal/helpless being? The answer I have found is: The “how” makes no sense to us but makes perfect sense to the abuser. It can really make you angry that people do terrible things and suffer no consequence. So what can we do? We are far better off picking ourselves up, washing off their fingerprints and moving far, far away from anyone that leaves you questioning: “how could he?!”