past

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Minor set backs (we’re all good though)

A while ago I decided to write a post about relationship break up levels, how one person will start at level 10 and the other will be clawing themselves up from the lowest of lows and it’s all a process?

Well. Recently I’ve been thinking about how much easier life would be if that process was linear. But it turns out it isn’t.

You want to know why you cried over them today but yesterday you were excited to find someone new? Because falling out of love isn’t linear and as much as we’re taught how to love, we’re never taught how to stop.

We’re raised around the idea of once you fall in love it sticks, there’s no need to learn how to unlove someone. You never get taught to prepare yourself for someone walking out of your life when they were the ones who chose to be in it in the first place.

Why aren’t we taught how to walk away when we feel unappreciated, or how to stop loving someone who tells us they don’t want us? It isn’t an easy process. Your heart will always hold onto hope.

That’s why sometimes you don’t talk to them for weeks and then fall into a drunk slip up. But it’s ok, it happens. Own your s**t and move on.

You keep going back because your heart hasn’t yet caught up with your head and in most cases your head is the sensible bit, it’s the part of you that knows you’re better off without them. So when your heart does catch up you’ll be fine, but it’s a slow mother f***er. So please bear with it.

There’s a song I keep thinking of recently because there’s a line in it that goes like this “if you’re going to break my heart, do it right, don’t leave me holding on like the last time” I listen to it and I’m like, yeah you know what, if someone tells you they don’t want you, but they only partly mean it so basically, they’re saying it to push you away while they try to figure it out, how is that fair? You’re in or you’re out dumb ass. Because it isn’t helping the whole linear break up situation if you’re not sure that they’re sure, you know?

But it’s true and it’s another reason why our hearts hold onto people, because if someone hasn’t broken it properly then it just sits itself in limbo. Which is super annoying.

I don’t even know what classes as proper heartbreak either, is it being cheated on by the one person who was your whole world? Is it seeming them move on with someone you considered a friend? Or is it when you’re sat in front of the man you love and having to listen to him tell you that he doesn’t feel anything for you? All these possible heartbreak situations are pretty f***ed but is one more legit than the other? Like on a scale of having your heart broken, does one of these ending versions make the most sense when we think of what proper heartbreak is?

Because personally, I think all versions of a break up will hurt just the same. It doesn’t matter what scale of trauma they fall on, to you, it’s horrific.

So next time you pick your phone up and you’re about to message them, try to think what the outcome will be. Are you doing it just because you’re drunk, or because you want them back in some way, maybe it’s just because you like knowing you have access to them still? Whatever you want the outcome to be, just have it clear in your mind.

But whatever the way. Healing will never be linear, you’re allowed to be sad some days and happy the next. You’re allowed to cry because you miss them one minute and pick yourself up and go out on a date the next.

THERE ARE NO RULES. STOP BEATING YOURSELF UP!

P.S the song I mentioned can be found here for whoever wants to listen to it. Enjoy!

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Confirmation Bias and a serious case of regression

Did you know our brains are there to protect us from things that we register as dangerous? Like it will literally send chemicals around our body when it senses danger.

And you know what we register and scary and dangerous? – the unknown. And what gives us the biggest sense of “the unknown”? Well … a break up.

When a relationship ends we enter into the biggest unknown phase that we’ve been in for a while, so we tend to go into flight or fight mode.

We start going over things in our minds like, what will I do without them, how will I fill my time, what will my future look like. Etc. Etc. But all of these questions open us up to the big scary “unknown”

To our brains …. regression is the biggest form of self protection because it’s taking us back into a sense of known behaviour and our brains associate that with being safe. Our brains will literally play neurological tricks on us to make us feel like the sun shines out of someone’s back side and they can do no wrong, just because dating someone new seems too scary.

So wether you’ve just been dumped or you’ve just dumped someone, keeping a good check on your brains need to regress to your former person because they represent safety is something I would definitely recommend.

Before going back to someone you need to ask yourself these questions because another neurological issue we can be facing is falling into a state of confirmation bias.

What is confirmation bias I hear you asking?Well … you know that saying about rose tinted glasses? It’s kind of like that. It’s when our brain goes looking for memories to back up our own views and in the case of a break up, our beliefs are that the person we aren’t with anymore was the best person in the whole entire world because our desired outcome is to believe that we won’t ever find anyone that compares to them.

When we feel ourselves missing someone our brains will literally search for reasons as to why this is true, so suddenly all we can think about are the positives in an ex just so our brains can back itself up for missing them.

So when the need to regress tricks your neurological systems into a state of confirmation bias, remember that everyone has a flaw. Seriously … everyone does and I can guarantee that for every one thing you miss about someone, there will be two things that make you better off without them.

So here are the questions I like to ask myself to make sure I’m not being tricked by my own love confused brain post break up.

1. What did they bring to me that I can’t bring to myself?

2. What was a deal breaker I was happy to overlook while I was with them but not now?

3. Did they do as much for me as I done for them?

4. What traits that they have are actually irreplaceable?

Dig deep when you think about answering these, because I can guarantee that when you really think about it, you’ll see that your brain has probably tricked you into a right f***ed up confirmation bias situation!

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Sounds like you’ve got a lot of baggage

Imagine that. Imagine someone who used to claim to love you telling you that no one after them will love you because you now sound like you’ve got ‘baggage’

Maybe that should come on the warning label when you date someone with a narcissist personality. Not only will the tear you down when you guys are together, but they will continue to do so once they aren’t even in your life.

Funny thing is, that so called ‘baggage’ they’re claiming makes you unlovable is only from all their unneeded extras they’ve left you with. You know when you get to the airport and realise you need to get rid of a few things you don’t actually want because your suitcase is too heavy, yeah well that’s the crap they left you with.

You were just fine, in fact your suitcase was way under the weight limit, but the stuff they left you with weighed 10x the amount of anything you actually owned yourself.

But it’s ok, because a heavier suitcase just means you need to develop a more keen sense of awareness for what muscles are working to carry this heavier weight.

If we’re speaking metaphorically, the muscle they’ll have left you needing to work on is actually your brain. But god damn will that muscle be toned af for the next person who wants to try and join you at this made up airport (kind of like a terming to jet off to a perfect healthy relationship).

Here’s the part when you can thank your narcissistic piece of s**t ex for leaving you with the weight of your relationship and where it went wrong because all they’ve done is provide you with the ability to sense someone with negative intentions a mile off.

Typically speaking, this kind of ex will normally be the second person you fall in love with. And this is based off of the findings of anthropologist Helen Fisher and according to her we only fall in love three times in our life but our second love, well that’s the hardest one.

It’s the one that teaches us lessons about who we are and how we often want or need to be loved.

Our second love will typically become a cycle, often one we keep repeating because we think that somehow the ending will be different than before. Yet, each time we try, it somehow ends worse than before and we focus so much on making it work that we will tend to lose sight of if we actually should be trying to make it work at all.

More often than not, our second love is unhealthy, unbalanced or narcissistic. Most likely there will be high levels of drama. This is exactly what keeps us addicted to this storyline, because it’s the emotional roller coaster of extreme highs and lows and like a junkie trying to get a fix, we stick through the lows with the expectation of the high.

So it’s no surprise really that this love has just us with some ‘baggage’.

However …. what it has done is shown us exactly what we don’t want from a love that we will have forever. It’s also taught us lessons that we would never have learnt if it wasn’t for going through this experience.

So thank your second love, for leaving you with their baggage (and then kindly reminding you of it years later just to make sure you don’t move on from them) because without them, you wouldn’t know what a healthy long lasting relationship is and how to cherish the man/woman that makes you feel safe and respected.

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That Narcissistic Lover Broke Her

The Vampire Diaries discovered by Tay on We Heart It

When she fell in love with a narcissist she sadly lost a part of herself that will never come back. And while you’ll never meet the old her, the one that fell in love without caution and wasn’t afraid of being hurt, the version of her that stands in front of you now is wiser and more well rounded when it comes to life, but you need to understand why she does things in ways that maybe you won’t always understand.

All those times when you’ve found her difficult to read or confusing to deal with, just remember at one point she had her own self worth shattered into a million pieces by the one person she thought loved her more than anything.

When she hears you call her beautiful there’s always going to be a small part of her that thinks you’re only saying it because you know it’s what she wants to hear. I know you’re wondering why your compliments always partly fall on deaf ears, or when she does acknowledge them they’re greeted with more of a shrug and a laugh, but it’s because she’s used to compliments always being followed with a ‘but‘ things that should have made her feel like a princess were always tinted by comparing her to others and making her feel like she could be better, prettier and smarter ‘Your hair looks so beautiful when you have it straight‘ he would whisper in her ear ‘but don’t you think it would look better how that woman over there has hers, when women have a slight wave in their hair it looks so effortless‘ so from that point on, she maybe straighten her hair once or twice a year.

He changed her, he convinced her that she never looked as good with light hair and that the only colour she should have on her nails was red. He picked out what was and wasn’t appropriate for her to wear, so if you see her pulling at her skirt when you’re together it’s probably because she’s worried you think its too short or ‘not appropriate‘. In the back of her mind her appearance and how she comes across to others is always going to play on her mind. She knows she needs to look elegant and well put together to qualify as ‘girlfriend material’.

She needs that physical closeness, she needs lots of contact with you to feel wanted, her heightened sexual appetite is partly fuelled by her past, a past that taught her that sex was how you create a connection with someone. She learned that you didn’t need endless conversations and to really get to know the good and bad in someone. As long as he wanted her body it meant that she was wanted. She isn’t used to someone wanting to hear about her passions and what makes her tick, what she’s used to is someone telling her that her ambitions are ‘ridiculous‘ and she should aim for something more ‘realistic‘. She’s not used to being around someone who sees life in technicolour like she does, someone who embraces imagination and creativity and encourages her to go after the shit she wants because of course she can achieve it if she sets her mind to it.

She knows it’s annoying how badly she deals with confrontation, if something annoys her she’ll spend days trying to figure out a way to bring it up to you without sounding ‘crazy‘ a word she’s heard so many times before when she’s bought up things that made her uncomfortable, so now …. she stresses about it instead of talking about it, she’s used to bottling her feelings because expressing them was never met by calmness and understanding. But she hates how scared she gets to talk to you about things you wouldn’t even stress about.

You won’t understand why she pushed you away so hard at the start, but her fear of letting someone in as much as she’d done before triggered her avoidant dismissive attachment style and she needed to show that she didn’t need anyone.

She’s used to being chased relentlessly, but she’s also used to being told that she isn’t enough once the chase is over.

When she fell in love with a narcissist she never knew how much long term damage it would do, and if she did …. she would never have let the years of turbulence play out until she became so dependant on one person that she totally lost her own identity.

When you encourage her to go away and do her own things, it scares her, she won’t ever admit that to you because she’s so fiercely independent, but it triggers a deep set anxious side of her that only comes out when she’s dating. When you encourage her to not need you, she thinks it’s because you’re getting ready to leave her.

While she never wants to need you, if she falls for you, she will need you and thats because of past experiences.

She’s not as fierce and scary as you may think, but the shield she’s put up to protect herself from people like the ones in her past, makes her seem like she’s made from steel.

Her past broke her, but she’s spent a very long time rebuilding her own little castle. It’s important you understand that after she’s fallen in love with a narcissist, she’s always going to be a bit trickier to understand. But if she loves you, you’ll never experience a love like it again, because after that kind of trauma …. she will forever go to the end of the earth for the right person she finds to be deserving of her and her heart.

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Friends with all the benefits (kind of)

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Let’s be friends ….. we could go for a coffee and spend time doing all the things we both love doing.

Let’s go to all our favourite restaurants and cater to our ‘foodie’ personalities while we talk about everything and anything, I’ll listen to you while you tell me about what’s bothering you and I won’t do it because I want to give an opinion, I’ll do it because I want to listen to you talk. I want to hear you talk about everything that scares you until it feels like it isn’t scary anymore.

Let me calm your chaotic mind while we sit in a quiet coffee shop watching the world go by, creating imaginary lives for the people who walk past us.

I want to get wrapped up in silly moments that turn into hours, which accidentally turn into days, because time fly’s when you’re having fun right?

Let’s go and lose ourselves in a stupidly competitive game of Mario Kart and then maybe catch a film so we can enjoy sitting near each other while not having to say a word.

I can see all the benefits to this friendship.

Let me talk to you about all the things I’m excited to do and about all the visions I have for my business, while you sit and admire my ambitious personality.

Let’s walk the city streets together and find all the hidden gin bars that no one else knows about because then they can be ‘our’ drinking spots, maybe we can sit and drink while day fades into night.

Or how about, Netflix … but it’s my choice of course, because my taste in shows and films has always been better.

Let’s lay on the couch together at the end of a long day or in the middle of a lazy Sunday afternoon and flick something on that can play in the background while we both drift in and out of sleep in the comfort of each other’s company.

Because we can do that and be friends, right?

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Just one more

Animated gif about love in r u mine? by mami on We Heart It

Do you think you’d be able to give me one more kiss?

Because maybe I’d be able to find closure on your lips and then I’ll feel like I can go.

Maybe, we could also have one more breakfast, one more lunch and just one more dinner, because then I’d be full and happy and then we can part ways.

But maybe in between the meals we could lay in bed together one more time and create one more prolonged moment where times stands still and everyone and everything around us just falls away as I rest my head on your chest.

I guess my hope is that if we add up all the one mores, they’ll add up to make a lifetime and I’ll never have to get to the point where I let you go.

But that’s not real is it? There won’t be any one mores and there won’t be a version of us where everything is new and exciting and the possibilities of the world seemed endless. I mean they still are endless, for you and for me, but not for us.

Somewhere between here and there, and then and now, we just stopped working and we grew up. I guess that’s the thing with childhood love though, it seems perfect and unbreakable … until it isn’t.

So maybe I just want one more opportunity to accept that we’re done and that closure will never be found with you, but instead it will be found in the life I create without you. In all the new moments I have in my life where I don’t have thoughts of you and I and that’s where I’ll find my closure.

Because I don’t want to risk having my heart break all over again, just to have one more moment with you.

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When the unexpected punches you in the face

I bet you didn’t even realise that you’d feel like this, after having something taken away from you that you didn’t even know you wanted, or at least you didn’t know you wanted it right now.

Darling girl, it’s ok to admit how much it’s hurt you to have to get through this by yourself, not having anyone to hold you while you’re curled up in pain, which constantly wakes you up throughout the night. It’s ok to admit that it would have been easier to do it with him than without him, that doesn’t make you weak, it just makes you human.

I know you’ve spent days sitting there wondering what you did wrong, how you could have avoided creating the total and utter mess of a situation you’ve now found yourself in. If you’d have known, what would you have done differently, would you have looked at yourself in the mirror in a different way each morning? Would you have moved slower, eaten better, or even started meditation?

But hey, guess what? You didn’t know. And although you’ve already heard this from anyone around you that you’ve told, it really wasn’t your fault. This was just life’s way of saying ‘not right now’ and that may hurt, you may want to kick or scream or punch anything you can. But it doesn’t change what has happened.

Sometimes, life takes a choice away from you before you even knew that it was a possibility and maybe that’s because it knew you weren’t ready to make that choice yet.

Not all beautiful things are supposed to unfold how you imagine they will and it’s just because they’ve appeared at the wrong time.

Imagine it like this: a flower has accidentally decided to try and bloom in winter, instead of the harsh weather letting it come out and struggle through a phase it just wasn’t meant to see, the cold will kill it off before it even has a chance to suffer. That beautiful flower has been saved a load of unnecessary pain, Mother Nature just had to hold it back and say ‘now is not the time, one day not far from now you’ll blossom into something beautiful, but now just isn’t the time. The world isn’t ready for you yet’.

It’s okay to cry for the loss of something you didn’t even know you wanted, it’s okay to be hurt at the fact a decision was made out of your own hands, grieving for something you didn’t even know …. is understandable.

I know you feel like your body is fighting against you, the one thing you thought you had control over during a time of uncertainty now also feels like it’s betrayed you and let you down, and the worst part is, this crazy surge of emotions being fired up in your brain, is fighting for something that isn’t even there, making you question your own judgements and I know the confusion just makes you want to cry even more.

It’s ok to miss the idea of something you never even really had. It’s ok to hold on to a ‘what if’ even if it’s just for a while. You haven’t been given a set time to get over how something could have been if it had been left in your control.

So maybe this was life’s way of saying ‘not yet’ but this can also be your way of saying, ‘I’m happy to welcome unexpected events’ because life is crazy and beautiful and we make it what we want.

So when life throws yet another unexpected punch at you, just thrive in the fact that each day after is a day of healing. Things will get better and eventually you’ll be in the time when these things are supposed to happen for you.

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Here’s to all the ones we thought we’d never get over

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This is for the one you thought would be etched into your heart forever. The one you sat and cried for over and over again. Or maybe you’re even still awake at stupid times in the middle of the night wishing you were waking up and seeing them laying next to you.

The reality is, missing someone is easy because it’s the part we have no control over. How we handle missing them is the hard part, do we let it consume everything we do, or do we own it and say to ourselves “it’s ok to feel like this for now”.

Its normal to miss someone when we genuinely have a connection with them. When we have a history with someone it doesn’t even matter how long the chapter was that they had in our lives, we’ll miss them. And that’s totally ok.

Sometimes when missing someone becomes hard it’s because we start to think of the scenarios, of how things could be different. What if we did something differently? Would everything change? The problem with “what if” is that we’ll never really get the answers we’re looking for because we can’t force or control the actions of others. We have no way to know how a person really feels or why they’re doing the things they do. All we can do is believe in what actions we see.

And the reality is, if they missed you too, they could do something about it. If they’re the one that walked away, they’re the one who knows what direction will also lead them back to you. Their “I miss you too’s” have as much sincerity as your mum telling you to “have fun” when you’re on your way to a party.

Actions speak louder than words. ALWAYS.

So you know what’s going to make it easier to get over the one you never thought you’d get over? The lack of their actions meeting their words. Their inability to fight for you and show you just how much they want you in their lives.

Eventually you’ll realise you’ve found someone else who treats you better than they did. Who makes you feel more important than they did and who makes you feel like they want you to be a part of their lives every day.

It’s also ok if someone you’ve been with for months had a bigger impact on you than someone you’ve been with for years. There’s no rules and regulations for this kind of chaos. Missing someone is fine.

And although maybe right now you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. You can’t imagine not wishing they were next to you but trust me you will and that’s the day you’ll realise they didn’t fight for you the way they should have, they didn’t treat you like you were rare and something they should protect.

But that’s cool, because everything you gave to the wrong one will be worth traveling to the moon and back for to the right one.

So chin up, and lift a glass for the one you think or thought you’d never get over. Because you wouldn’t be where you are today without them.

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Here’s what I would have said

If we’d have sat down and had the conversation that I wanted us to, so I could walk away from this feeling like I’ve had closure, because you’d have been able to look me in the eye and tell me why you did things the way that you did, here’s what you would have heard me say.

You’d have had a chance to listen to me tell you that I’ll never hate you, not even one bit. In fact, it makes me sad that you even think I could. There’s no malice here, I hope you find everything in life that makes you happy, I’ll always care about you and you deserve the best. I mean it.

I know for a while I was something that was making you happy, but then that changed and you know what, that’s ok. It’s ok to get rid of things that no longer serve a purpose in your life. You should be surrounded by things that help you develop and grow. I’m sad that I was no longer doing that for you. But it is what it is.

I hope you succeed in everything you set your mind to in life, and I hope that if you learnt anything from our relationship it was that above all else, honesty and communication between two people who care about each other is THE most important thing.

I’ve sat down numerous times and tried working out why you handle things the way you do, and I think I may understand now.

Your sensitive personality stops you from telling people you care about information that you think could hurt them, you don’t want to be able to see how your words are actually affecting them so your ability to deal with difficult conversations in person seems slightly insufficient.

But just know this, you’ll end up coming off as the bigger person in future if you can deal one fatal blow of shit information to someone face to face rather than tiptoeing around it and never actually getting it off of your chest.

Not wanting to hurt people is a lovely trait and it’s one of the reasons I respect you the way that I do. But for the love of god ….. understand that sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind! You’re a good person with a bad communication style (no offence).

I want you to know that we’re not on bad terms, there’s no ‘he deserves whatever he gets’ mentality. None of that, that’s a game for children who can’t respect another persons decisions. I want you to be happy and I hope that in the future I’ll still be a part of your life to see you succeed and smash all your ambitions, not as a lover or a girlfriend, but this time as a friend who’s always in your corner encouraging you to keep going when you lose sight of what you want.

I think you’re pretty bloody special and you taught me some very valuable lessons that I’m glad I learnt from you and no one else. Like the fact that I’m calm and not crazy when I’m with the right person, or that you don’t have to constantly be naked with someone to get to know them (although the being naked part was very fun too).

Vulnerability comes from deep conversations over a Sunday morning brunch, or from doing face masks together and winding down from a days work, or even from leaving your comfort zone to do activities with them that there is no way you’d normally do, but you do it because it would make them happy.

So this is me, putting down in writing everything I would have told you if you’d have given me the chance.

I want you to know that respect you and your decisions way more than you’ll ever understand. I think you’re an amazing person who deserves all the happiness in the world and I’ll always care about you, no matter how much you’ve annoyed me, or put my back up.

You’d have understood that I’m not going to convince you of reasons why I’d be good wife material. Because I’m way too stubborn for that, in my eyes I’m either enough for someone or I’m not, and one day someone is going to love what I am so much, they’ll never want to let it go. But I’d be lying if I said I’m not gutted that wasn’t you.

I’d have explained that honesty is my dealbreaker. Once I feel like someone hasn’t been honest with me I find walking away from a romantic situation pretty easy, if I feel like someone doesn’t respect me enough to be honest then I know I need to find someone else who does.

But amongst all of this, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I hope you’ll keep a place in your life for me just as I’ll always keen a place for you in mine.

Once all of the emotion fades we’ll be friends ….. eventually, right?

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How to give up on someone

Many of us are taught that persistence is the key to being happy and successful in life. If we work hard and refuse to give up hope, then things will go well for us. This mindset serves most of us well. We struggle, but we’re resilient, so we persist.

But what if we start doing this at the sake of our own sanity and happiness?

I know it sounds like such a positive thing, being persistent, never giving up, believing in people no matter what. But what happens when the things you won’t give up on are the things that hurt you?

Maybe, you need to learn when it’s ok to give up on someone because you know that a situation no longer serves you for the better. Or maybe you just need to be told that it’s ok, it’s ok to give up on someone when they’re no longer showing you that they care.

When you’re bought up to see so much potential in the people you love, and want so badly to see them recognize that potential in themselves. You probably choose to let the good outweigh the bad, to focus on the light instead of the dark. There’s nothing wrong with that, but what happens when that quiet persistence leads to unbalanced relationships?

What happens when you never learned how to give up, how to let people go, how to put your own needs first?

How can you learn to give up on someone when all your life you’ve been told to go after what you want with everything you’ve got and not to stop until you’ve got it, even if you’re the one putting in all the effort and not getting anything back?

In all honesty, I’m not sure you can.

If you’re someone who is born to be persistent and not give up, I think you’ll always be that person. What you do need to learn though is when to step away from someone who is giving you nothing back.

But if you can learn to put more effort into developing yourself, slowly you can realign your goals. Suddenly you’ll realise that your goals sound more like teaching yourself a new language, writing a book or finishing a puzzle, instead of thinking of ways to get someone else to realise what’s holding them back and stopping them from being happy (obviously with you).

It’s not your job to heal them, something that takes years to learn. But if that other person can’t seem to let go of things that have happened in their past, it isn’t your job to heal them. Everyone goes through shit. That’s life. But if they’re someone who can’t let go, well that sounds like a them problem not a you problem.

Eventually you’ll realise you’ve managed to distract yourself with your own personal growth that you’ve given up on them anyway.

So how can you give up on someone? I don’t think you intentionally can. But life goes on and as you realise they’re not moving forward with you and you’ve outgrown them, it will happen without you even knowing it.