Life Lessons: You Gon’ Learn Today

With each day that passes, we have the wonderful opportunity to learn and grow, and as human beings we need that to survive. In order to do said learning and growing, we must pay attention to our decisions and the world around us and be sure to extract the lessons from every experience, both small and large.

For example, after lots of drinking, you might learn your limit and not push past that when another night of fun comes up. After a cooking or baking challenge, you might learn that it’s important to follow the recipe for best results and after missing the bus, you might learn that lagging behind by even five minutes can have a bigger impact than you think.

The same must be true when it comes to love and relationships. There is always something to learn. In this context, it’s important to note that the word ‘relationships’ is not limited to romantic ones, neither is ‘love’. Romantic love and the relationships that come with it may provide us with big lessons in quick succession but platonic, familial and professional relationships along with the relationship with self are all areas we can learn from.

I said I wanted to get a little more personal with this space so let’s do just that. Below are things that I learned in life through different relationships. I’m pulling from my relationship with my parents and other family members, past and current friendships, experiences in romantic relationships and things I have noticed as the relationship with myself has evolved over the years.

Blaming yourself is a recipe for disaster

I feel things very deeply, even if I don’t always show it. I’ve had relationships where being emotionally open was a big deal and although I wasn’t always sure how to go about it, I would aim to meet the other person’s need.

So whenever someone wasn’t patient with me or soft with the emotions I expressed, I often pulled back and told myself that if I had stuck to the surface I would have been safe from their criticism instead of feeling like a failure who doesn’t seem to know how to express herself. I told myself that if I wasn’t so soft and emotional, I wouldn’t get hurt in the ways that I have. Self blame was a very big part of my life. Even with experiences like sexual assault, I blamed myself when I knew good and well that me being assaulted had nothing to do with me and everything to do with the person issuing the assault.

But what does blaming myself solve? Who does that help? All it did was leave me battling negative self talk and feeling worse than when I got the initial blow to my emotions. I wasn’t the one who hurt myself so why was I blaming myself for the actions of another person? Imagine learning that self-blame is a form of emotional abuse. The lesson there was to set that burden down and understand that some things are just not my fault.

“There’s a line between accountability and self sacrifice/blame and I feel like you’re flirting with it.” — a drape up from a friend

In order to reduce or eradicate self blame, you first have to release yourself from the chokehold of what others think. This doesn’t mean that you should shun feedback but pay attention to the narratives placed on you and interrogate if they are true. For example, if someone says you are difficult or the relationship you have with them is, sit with yourself and see if those statements are true. If they are, then you know you have some adjustments to make. If they are not, then they may have a different idea of you in their minds, which is also important to note.

Questions you can ask yourself: “is this true in my other relationships?”, “is there an accountability issue?”, “what are the expectations people have of me?”, “am I honest about the role I play in my relationships?”

Clear intentions are important

In anything you’re doing, you have to be clear. If you’re someone who prays, meditates or manifests, then you know the importance of being specific about what you want. Once your intentions are clear, you are able to set and hold boundaries, which are equally as important.

For example, if you want more responsibility at work because you feel you’ve plateaued in your current role, that’s the message you need to get across when you’re approaching the higher ups who can make it happen. You can’t be vague or leave anything up to their interpretation because you could be left doing something you didn’t desire to do in the first place. The same can be true for relationships.

I have been sharing with different people in my life that I desire deeper connections and for the most part, the responses have been positive and in the same vein. Look at that. I was clear about what I wanted and to my surprise, there are people in my life who want the same thing but either didn’t know how to express it or hadn’t given it enough thought to verbalize it. Imagine if I had just assumed that nobody would want to connect with me, I would be missing out on the opportunity to build and maintain stronger relationships.

I remember debating with someone and they said that asking people their intentions could be seen as offensive because a lot of people actually don’t have ill intentions. I fully agree that a lot of people are genuine and pure but hearing that perspective made me realise I needed to be even clearer with my words so the people I was aiming to connect with didn’t misunderstand me.

For me, asking and setting intentions is not to view a person with suspicion or negative feelings, but more to understand the parameters in which our relationship will operate so I can respect their boundaries and share my own. When you are clear about the kind of relationship you want with someone, they are now free to decide if that is the kind of relationship they want with you. I personally don’t like to leave room for people to feel insecure or uncomfortable in their relationships with me so I’m usually very clear about what I’m looking for.

“I’d love if we could talk more once you’re open”

“I would love to”

“Okay so how does this go? I haven’t made a new friend in a while”

“We can talk and share memes. Pretty sure sharing memes is the way forward”

“Omg let’s do it”

Questions you can ask yourself: “what does a deeper connection look like for me?”, “am I willing to be vulnerable with people?”, “am I in a space to accept rejection?”, “how will these intentions affect me and others around me?”

Sometimes you have to let people be who they are

A very hard truth I learned is that you cannot change anyone but yourself. For someone to change (and I mean really change), they have to want to do that for themselves. In an ideal world, we would love if people adjusted their behaviour when we express that they hurt our feelings but it doesn’t always go that way.

In my own relationships, I’ve had challenges addressing some behaviour because it’s what I’ve known and done my whole life, so I’m sure the same is true for many other people. In working on myself, I’ve learned there are times when I am the issue and it’s up to me to pick that apart, understand why I responded in the way I did and adjust accordingly.

I also learned that I have to want to do that each time.

When the shoe is on the other foot, and I want someone to see my perspective, what can be unnervingly painful is when they don’t believe that they wronged me or don’t want to accept that they did. What does one do then? I’ve been strung out emotionally over people who just didn’t think they did anything wrong to me because…I was expecting myself from them.

I would expect softness, compassion or curiosity and when I didn’t get them, I told myself that those things didn’t really exist and I didn’t really deserve them. The truth is sometimes people are just not the things we want them to be and we have to learn how to be okay with that. That does not mean we don’t deserve to be loved and seen.

When you realise this, depending on how important the relationship is to you and where you are on your journey, you can do one of three things: (i) you can respectfully communicate to the person or people and express yourself in a way they can understand and work toward repairing the rupture; (ii) you can ignore the issue in hopes that it goes away or (iii) you can make peace with the fact that this person may not ever change and let them be who they are. That last one can be very hard depending on the kind of attachment that exists.

Questions you can ask yourself: “how valuable is this relationship to me?”, “can I live with whatever the outcome is?”, “how can I approach this in a way that can get my point across but still make them feel safe?”

I’m sure there are more life lessons to come and I’ll be sure to share the rest of them with you. Actively try to find the lesson in everything life throws at you because it’s ultimately aligning you with your highest good. Here’s to learning and applying.