How we think we feel and how we really feel - difference

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I just recently discovered the difference between thinking how you are feeling and actually feeling. Yeah, I know. Big revelation, duh. But I’m someone who always worries about how things will turn out. About how I might feel about something and only because I think about how I might feel about something I end up feeling the way I thought I would be feeling – at least I used to be like that. Well, it’s the well known selffulfilling prophecy.

I’m writing about this because I think it has a lot to do with recovery and detachment. How some one in the beginning after the final discard thinks everything will turn out and stuff.

Many of us in some way think we could not live without them. We sometimes really think that without them our lives are incomplete, that they were our soulmates etc. I’m not denying that sometimes we FEEL like this as well, because we are in pain, we suffer etc. But most of the time we try to imagine our future without them, about how we will feel in the future without them and then the pain comes. When in fact we just don’t KNOW how we will feel in the future at all. How could we ever know about that? It’s only because we imagine, we try to look into the future and we think we are very sure about how it might develop. Guess what, people can’t look into the future.

It is although a very human thing to do, look into the future. It’s a good thing to be catious about life etc. And it’s fine to think about how the future will turn out. But don’t take the future as your inervitable fate, because it isn’t.

In the beginning after the final discard often felt like being exposed to an inevitable fate I could not change. EVERYTHING was focused on getting my exBPDgf back because I didn’t like the way I imagined my future but I didn’t see I could change my future myself. I had a choice.

The last months there were some special sensitive dates/events were I felt like she could be reaching out to me. I also thought about how I would feel if she didn’t reach out to me. That it indeed meant that she hated me, that I never meant anything to her etc. With every special sensitive date/event that went by of course she didn’t reach out but guess what? It didn’t faze me one single bit. I wasn’t sad, I didn’t feel the way I assumed I would feel.

Two days ago was my birthday. Last year at my birthday we had a big reconciliation after the first „BPD-incident“ by her withdrawing/giving me the silent treatment. Of course she didn’t congratulate me. But I wasn’t sad even though some months ago I had thought about that day and that I would be so devastated if she would not acknowledge my birthday. I was not devastated one single second. I thought about how I felt last year, that she apologized for „ruining my birthday“ but I realized that didn’t even wish for her to apologize again. Because I knew I don’t have that anymore at all. I don’t need someone to apologize again and again for messing up, I don’t need someone to reconcile with me again because of ___ing things up before. I don’t need these break up-make up-cycles. I just want peace. And I have this now. Not congratulating me and respecting (if actually intended or not doesn’t matter) my boundaries was the greatest birthday gift she could give to me.

Of course I sometimes think about her. But that’s it. I let these thoughts occur but I don’t act on them. I acknowledge them but that’s it.

It is getting better, people. Don’t supress your thoughts, that’s not what I mean to say. Acknowledge them as a part of you processing but let time work for itself. You can’t ever know about the way you will feel some months from now, don’t be afraid. The thoughts of how you would feel months later are the way you feel now, but you can’t look into the future. That doesn’t mean you can’t control what’s going to happen either. At least for yourself, you can control yourself and that’s it. Work on youself not on them. INvest all the energy you’ve invested in them in you. You deserve that.

[misty_red]

I just recently discovered the difference between thinking how you are feeling and actually feeling. Yeah, I know. Big revelation, duh. But I’m someone who always worries about how things will turn out. About how I might feel about something and only because I think about how I might feel about something I end up feeling the way I thought I would be feeling – at least I used to be like that. Well, it’s the well known selffulfilling prophecy.

I’m writing about this because I think it has a lot to do with recovery and detachment. How some one in the beginning after the final discard thinks everything will turn out and stuff.

Many of us in some way think we could not live without them. We sometimes really think that without them our lives are incomplete, that they were our soulmates etc. I’m not denying that sometimes we FEEL like this as well, because we are in pain, we suffer etc. But most of the time we try to imagine our future without them, about how we will feel in the future without them and then the pain comes. When in fact we just don’t KNOW how we will feel in the future at all. How could we ever know about that? It’s only because we imagine, we try to look into the future and we think we are very sure about how it might develop. Guess what, people can’t look into the future.

It is although a very human thing to do, look into the future. It’s a good thing to be catious about life etc. And it’s fine to think about how the future will turn out. But don’t take the future as your inervitable fate, because it isn’t.

In the beginning after the final discard often felt like being exposed to an inevitable fate I could not change. EVERYTHING was focused on getting my exBPDgf back because I didn’t like the way I imagined my future but I didn’t see I could change my future myself. I had a choice.

The last months there were some special sensitive dates/events were I felt like she could be reaching out to me. I also thought about how I would feel if she didn’t reach out to me. That it indeed meant that she hated me, that I never meant anything to her etc. With every special sensitive date/event that went by of course she didn’t reach out but guess what? It didn’t faze me one single bit. I wasn’t sad, I didn’t feel the way I assumed I would feel.

Two days ago was my birthday. Last year at my birthday we had a big reconciliation after the first „BPD-incident“ by her withdrawing/giving me the silent treatment. Of course she didn’t congratulate me. But I wasn’t sad even though some months ago I had thought about that day and that I would be so devastated if she would not acknowledge my birthday. I was not devastated one single second. I thought about how I felt last year, that she apologized for „ruining my birthday“ but I realized that didn’t even wish for her to apologize again. Because I knew I don’t have that anymore at all. I don’t need someone to apologize again and again for messing up, I don’t need someone to reconcile with me again because of ___ing things up before. I don’t need these break up-make up-cycles. I just want peace. And I have this now. Not congratulating me and respecting (if actually intended or not doesn’t matter) my boundaries was the greatest birthday gift she could give to me.

Of course I sometimes think about her. But that’s it. I let these thoughts occur but I don’t act on them. I acknowledge them but that’s it.

It is getting better, people. Don’t supress your thoughts, that’s not what I mean to say. Acknowledge them as a part of you processing but let time work for itself. You can’t ever know about the way you will feel some months from now, don’t be afraid. The thoughts of how you would feel months later are the way you feel now, but you can’t look into the future. That doesn’t mean you can’t control what’s going to happen either. At least for yourself, you can control yourself and that’s it. Work on youself not on them. INvest all the energy you’ve invested in them in you. You deserve that.