It's been a bit of a rough week. Not only have I had to go to the doctor for a health issue, that still hasn't even been properly diagnosed, but I've also been battling the continued memory of my ex. I am approaching what would have been out five year anniversary and very close to having been a year since she walked out of my life. I know most of my friends and family are over the issue and clearly she was over me months ago. I recall when she said to me that it was a process. I remember being clearly puzzled then and to be honest, still am some now. For me, this isn't a process.
I have tried many different avenues to get over her, too: therapy, mediation, mindfullness, becoming involved in many different endeavors, and yet, still, I can't get over it. So what is this process? I say that rather tongue in cheek because, as I've thought on this more and more, I think there is no process really and truly. I think I've hit on an important revelation that others might be aware of, but for which, I have only become aware recently. I think the answer lies in what is at the core of a person, are they more of a person to look at the world through the lens of hope and positivity or the opposite, looking at things with a more pessimistic bent. Neither is right, neither is wrong. People, I have come to discover though fall largely into one of the two categories. It's not just my ex who I have observed in this manner, but others in my life as well. It was relatively easy for my ex, for example, to get over the breakup because even during the relationship the negative in it was always more present in her mind. And by negative, let me say that I am not talking about anything even close to violence on either end. Our negative was fighting, often over silly stuff, and doing some things that aggravated the other. Instead of sitting down, talking and respecting one another and working it out, we seemed too focused on our own feelings and saw little of the other's point. I think we probably should have waited to have those conversations after we had both cooled out a bit from whatever the initial spark was. Getting back to the point though, I think it has been easier for her precisely because she can easily focus on the negative from our relationship. I am certain she sees every detail of a fight, but finds the positive to be fuzzy. I know when I would talk to her about some cherished memory from our mutual past, she would say things like, I don't really remember that, but let us get into a fight and she could quote things from a fight 3 years earlier while those fight memories were the fuzzy ones for me. Now, as she ended the relationship, of course, we both continue in the same basic core path - she only saw the negative, and it was easy to get over it, that was her "process". Incidentally, one of the techniques that my therapist tried to use and that I have seen in self-help articles and books have suggested that very thing - try to focus on the negative from a past relationship to work through it. I did try it, but my mind it seems won't let me really do that. I know some will say it's just a question of forcing your mind to do so, but in all honesty, I have tried and had no success. In any case, I have definitely become more mindful of how my mind tends to focus on issues and how it can affect my interactions with others, especially those who seem to focus more on the negative in life. I guess there might be something to those studies that have found pessimists live longer.
1 Comment
Dr. West
10/15/2014 12:54:27 am
this makes perfect sense actually
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
May 2023
Categories
All
|