10 Things I’ve Learned In The Past 10 Years
March 15, 2008 | In Mindset |
I’ve been examining myself and my past during my time unemployed. While I’ve learned a lot about myself personally, I’ve also learned some things about life in general. Many of these were realizations of lessons I learned years ago, but hadn’t clarified. While knowing that “I personally require 8 hours of sleep a night” or “it’s OK that I’ll never be good at math” doesn’t apply in a wider context, the following 10 lessons are universal.
Personal Change
1. Spiritual Experiences are real. I was raised in the Christian tradition as embodied in the United Methodist Church. This gave me a view of the Divine as a distinct personality and it also taught me to have an open mind about spirituality. One of John Wesley’s, the founder of the Methodist church, main beliefs was that everyone should interpret the bible for themselves and not take the church leaders as the last say.
Although I’m no longer a religious person, I do consider myself spiritual. Because I’ve maintained an open mind about spirituality, I’ve been receptive to the idea of messages from the Divine. Several times in my life, I’ve gotten a feeling that something was inherently true. This feeling was so strong, I didn’t question it. Perhaps these were realizations from my subconscious, perhaps they were interpretations from subtle clues in my environment. Or, as I believe, they were messages from the Divine.
If you’ve had these same realizations, you might contribute them to something different than I did. However, you will realize as I do that they are true beyond any doubt. They stand the test of time and remain true no matter what the circumstances. You should trust these messages, no matter where you believe they come from.
2. Hurts from the past must be healed, not glossed over with behavioral change like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). I’ve talked about CBT before, and I think the techniques hold a lot of usefulness. However, I don’t believe these techniques are the ultimate answer. Scientists are discovering that there are physical changes that happen in the brain as a result of repeat experiences, such as hearing the same message from different people. Many things we were taught as a child are part of our life now. If those lessons were detrimental to our happiness, for instance that we will never be “good enough”, we will always feel less than everyone else.
CBT teaches that these message are false and we should replace them with positive ones. Where I feel this method fails is in that the whole process is a conscious, thinking one. However, the messages that cause our depression or anxiety are not conscious messages. We can think all we want that they aren’t true, but we will still believe on a deep feeling level that they are.
Therefore, using a conscious, thinking process is a necessary first step. It is through this process that we can identify those thoughts that need to be changed. However, the real change comes not from simply replacing thoughts, but by processing the memories and hurt of the past. When a past hurt is healed, the related negative thinking is healed as well. Although this process is more difficult than the thinking changes in CBT, it is much more satisfying and permanent.
*Please note, I’m not an expert in the techniques of CBT. Rather, the above discussion is based on my experience as a patient of a CBT.
3. Some people can see straight into your soul, hold up a mirror, and force you to see what you’ve been too scared to see. There are certain things we know deep down that we ignore and push aside. We may know that the career we chose can never bring us happiness, or we are in love with our best friend. We pretend these things aren’t true, and adamantly deny them. However, there are those who can see right past all this and call our bluff. My sister-in-law is one of these people. She will tell you like it is, that you are full of it, and you need to face the truth.
My psychiatrist is another one of these people. He is even more remarkable because he’s never spent a lot of time getting to know me. However, the first time I met with him, he asked pointed questions that appeared simple on the surface (what is your degree in, what do you do now) that never-the-less allowed him to see what I’d been avoiding: that working in insurance was killing my soul. In fact, as well as I can remember, those were his exact words. Whenever he sees me, he can hear just the briefest of updates and cut right through to say what I hadn’t realized was true. This is almost spooky. However, I’ve heard from friends that he does the same thing to them. In the end, I’m grateful for the realizations he’d made me see.
Relationships
4. If a relationship is not right for you, it won’t hurt nearly as much as you think it will when that relationship ends. I dated my ex-boyfriend for 3 years. I loved him and I know in his way he loved me too. However, we brought out the worst in each other. We didn’t have the emotional space to be truly intimate and there was always a wall between us.
I knew deep down that he wasn’t right for me, but I denied it. There was a part of me that was convinced that we could overcome our differences and achieve that intimacy. Just when I started to despair of ever reaching it, we would have a good time together. In this way, our relationship lasted longer than it perhaps should have, and I became convinced that if it ended I would be devastated.
As it turn out, that was not the case. Yes, I was hurt. Yes, it did take some time to get over the breakup. However, I was amazed that it was more of a mourning period than anything else. Finally, what I knew deep down, that it wasn’t going to work out between us, became obvious. “Getting over him” was therefore more about grieving than about the pain and suffering of shock and rejection, although there was a little bit of that as well.
5. You can so meet your soul mate in your brother’s living room. When I first became friends with John, who is now my husband, I knew that I wanted to be with him, but he still too close to his breakup with his ex-girlfriend to feel comfortable being more than friends. Sometime in the period before we began dating, I was talking to my mother about him. She remarked that “you aren’t going to find your soul mate in your brother’s living room.”
This was an observation on the fact that John was a good friend of my brother’s before he became friends with me. I knew who he was, but it was my brother who convinced the two of us to get to know each other. I know my mother was trying to save me from heartache, but as it turns out, she was wrong.
Aside from the obvious first hand experience, it just makes sense. While I don’t have the statistics in front of me, you can only get to know someone that you spend time with or know at least somehow. Friends of friends (or family), coworkers, friends of yours. These are the people you see and get to know, so it logically follows that these are the people that are potential soul mates. So, in the end, don’t discount these relationships because they just might be the life partnership you were looking for.
6. Weddings aren’t worth all the hoopla; it’s the marriage that counts. I am constantly shocked by the thousands of dollars spent on weddings. $25,000, $50,000 or more. The flowers have to be perfect, the dress itself may cost $5,000 (or more!) Hundreds of people at $100 or more a person makes for very expensive weddings. But why? As the saying goes, “It’s only one day.” Why spend all this money?
By the time John and I got to our wedding, everyone close to me had heard me say at least a dozen times, “I’m ready for this to be over.” While the stress of planning my wedding was intense, that wasn’t the main reason. I said this to several people who I wasn’t that close to and they would ask if it was because I was looking forward to the honeymoon. No, I was looking forward to the marriage.
See, the wedding itself was important to me, but it was a step on the way to heck of a lot more. After the music fades and the dress in hung in a closet, what’s left? You and your spouse, together for the rest of your lives; while I believe that some divorces are necessary, I also believe that too many are an easy out and wedding vows aren’t taken as seriously as they should be. No matter how perfect your flowers were, or how much your dress cost, all that is irrelevant when the dishes need to be washed, or the car needs to go into the shop. It’s the day to day things that are the reality of married life.
In the end, it’s the marriage that counts, not an expensive wedding.
7. No matter how long you want to change your maiden name, you will miss the identity to used to have around that name. As long as I can remember, I’d said when I got married I would drop my maiden name of Smith. However, I got married when I was 30 years old. I’d been Cathy Smith for over 30 years and it was who I was. When John and I came back from our honeymoon, I went through the process of changing my name to Cathy Crovis. However, I didn’t realize that it would take me several months before I established a new identity as Cathy Crovis.
While I know that I’m the same person I always was, a lot of my identity is tied up in my name. I’ve never felt like a Jennifer or a Sarina (although those names fit aspects of me.) I’ve always been Catherine, Cathy for short. It’s just who I am.
If I had it to do over, I would keep my maiden name and add my married name. Not hyphenated, but have four names instead of three. Catherine E. Smith Crovis. I’d still be Cathy Crovis, but I would also still be Cathy Smith. However, changing your name when you get married is free. Changing otherwise requires a few hundred dollars, paperwork, time, and hassle, so I haven’t done it. But, maybe sometime in the future I will. After all, I may need a pen-name for my erotic romances. Now that I think about, that’s not a bad idea at all.
General life tips
8. Following traditional “career tips” won’t always get you ahead. The conventional wisdom is that advancing in your career can be accomplished by being better than your coworkers and following some simple tips. 1. Dress to impress/dress the way your boss dresses. 2. Be willing to put in extra time/actually put in extra time. 3. Take on more responsibility. 4. Mentor/teach coworkers. 5. Be one step ahead of your boss. These are 5 things I did and in the end, I did not move up the career ladder. In fact, if I was to stay in insurance, in order to advance, I would have to go significantly backwards and work my way up again.
Here’s what I did: I switched from nice pants and tops to dresses and skirts exclusively. I even wore a suit occasionally. I put in extra time, regularly putting in over 10 hours of overtime a week, including working on the weekend - at the office, not even from home, although I did that too. I took on more responsibility, did more duties, worked for more people. I regularly helped out co-workers and become the go-to girl for Excel and Word. I would show others how to use the client database and was generally as helpful as I could be. I worked to anticipate the needs of the salesmen and often took on duties they should have done to smooth their lives.
In the end, I worked my butt off and had to change companies to get a promotion. The new place treated everyone new the same, as little more than glorified administrative assistants, when we were specialized personnel. I stayed there for a little over a year before I looked for better opportunities. I moved again, for a better position and was only there for 3 months before I was let go. I interviewed at lots of agencies, but they didn’t look at my qualifications, they only looked at my being let go and refused to give me a chance. They didn’t care that I’d worked hard to earn designations and awards. They didn’t care that I’d proved myself capable of advanced duties. All they saw was someone who “jumped jobs.” Didn’t I mention before this was an old school industry?
Anyway, as you can tell, I’m still bitter about this treatment. However, the lesson still stands - not every tip you read for getting ahead works. Sometimes you do everything “right” and you still end up with nothing.
9. When visiting a place you’ve never been before going with the flow can leave you missing out. I’ve visited Walt Disney World, Las Vegas, Grand Bahama Island, and Bermuda. Unfortunately, I would say I missed a lot at all of these places, simply because I took the attitude of: I’ll figure it out when I get there. Bad idea.
Maybe it comes from my idea that a vacation should be relaxing and not be scheduled to the minute. However, I realize now, it is good to know important things you will want to see at your destination. Get advice from others who have been there about the things you will want to see and how long you will want to see them.
I wish I had known when I went to Walt Disney World I would want to spend 2-3 days at Epcot and skip Hollywood Studios. I would not have spent time at the Hollywood Studios park and gone to Epcot instead. But, I didn’t read guide books, nor did I ask anyone who’d been there. I figured Disney World would be fun and I’d figure it out when I got there.
This lesson may be a surprise to some people, if you are the kind of person that does plan. Usually, I do, but I like my vacations to be relaxing. If you are like me, I hope you learn from my mistake and do some investigating before setting off on your next get away to somewhere you’ve never been.
10. Tattoos feel nothing like getting a shot or getting blood drawn, although they do hurt. When I tell people I have two tattoos, unless they have one themselves, they ask if they hurt. Yes, they do. However, the main reason I would say they hurt is because the tattoo is over such a small area of your body that the needles have to go over the same spot of skin again and again. The distance between one side and the other is so small it feels like exact same spot. After a tattoo is done, it does bleed, and it does hurt. However, I find that it hurts like a bad sunburn. Sore and sensitive, but not sharp and painful.
The other comment I get is along the lines of, “I could never do that, I hate needles.” Getting a tattoo feels nothing like getting a shot or having blood drawn. Those needles must go deep into your body. Either deep below the skin into the muscle, or prick through to a vein. Tattoos only go 1/32 of an inch below the surface. The “needle” is actually many tiny, tiny needles bunched together. What looks like one may be 6, 8, or more. The sensation is like a scratch from the sharp corner of a metal table. Initially sharp pain that last only a moment before fading to soreness.
Photo Credits: Blowing Bubbles by babasteve; Lock and Chain by Dazzie D; Misty Morning by The Wandering Angel; Grieving Woman by j.simpson; Soul Mates by paulshaffner; Married Couple by her wings; Name Graffiti by Kyknoord; Suit and Tie by jayniebell; Epcot by Joe Shlabotnik; Tattoo by rickyrhodes
There you have it, the top 10 things I’ve learned about life. A little bit of this and a little bit of that. Now I’d like to hear from you. What lessons would you add to the list?
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Thanks Cathy.
I too think CBT is useful but limited.
For my wedding (I’m now divorced) we rented a church campsite and invited people for the weekend.
Our friends helped with the catering and we had a dance the night before which friends played at. It was all fairly low cost. And the result was that we enjoyed our own wedding - something of an achievement and fairly unusual from what I hear.
That wedding does sound like fun. I wish I had done something along those lines because my wedding had so many issues. However, if we decide to do a recommitment ceremony for one of our anniversaries, it will be a lot different. We’ll have fun at that one.