Find a way to celebrate more often.
Yes, sometimes life can be dull. Yes, it can be dreary. Periodically, it is even painful.
However, that’s probably not the majority of time.
Seeking Long-Term-Relationship, Must Share Common Values
We are imperfect beings; therefore so too are our relationships.
We engage mouth before activating brain. We dismiss our partner’s concerns as irrelevant. We can be inconsiderate, petty, or cranky. It’s part of the human condition; we mess up, and since we live with others, we hurt them. We don’t intend to — but we cannot deny that we do. It matters not how much energy you put into it, nor how long you’ve been together; even the finest relationships cause some pain.
At our end of days, should we be so fortunate to take inventory of our most important relationships and can proclaim them as “good” more times than not; then indeed they were “good.”
A successful long-term-relationship is not without flaw; rather, it:
- Incurs less damage during conflicts
- Recovers from that hurt more quickly and fully
- Tilts the scale in the direction of “happy” rather than “unhappy”
Short of choosing the wrong partner — those whose relationships fall asunder did not necessarily disagree more often than those with “good” relationships. Instead they had unrealistic expectations, conflating conflict with failure; and did not possess a method to handle disagreement when it raised its unpleasant, but unavoidable, head.
When any relationship is smack dab in the midst of a “rough patch,” our initial reaction is to flee the pain.
Building Supportive Relationships While Taking Care of Yourself
In the end, we are remembered via the relationships we leave behind.
I stand five-eight, no one’s depiction of “towering giant.” Someone of my stature is supposed to tip the scales at no more than 165 pounds. When I was 39 years old, I weighed 250. More frightening was that at such an early age, I experienced chest pains with regularity. As a father for two young sons, I was a ghost. My career was in free fall; my 12-year marriage was in tatters. (When your marriage counselor suggests divorce lawyers, the odds for regaining your long-lost marital bliss are slim.)
Change is born of fear, force, or pain. No one wakes up one fine day and says, “Wow! I really love my life; how am I going to change it?” Rather, unhappy, dissatisfied, and overwhelmed, we resolve to do virtually anything to alter our circumstances; anywhere is better than here.
For me, that conclusion came late one night, sitting alone yet again, pondering sorrowfully the source of my life’s despair. Out of that sadness came the painful realization that the common bond among all my troubles was ME. It was ME who relinquished the reins of my life, it was ME who helped build a dysfunctional marriage, and it was ME who chose to stuff myself, medicating the hurt by eating instead of fixing it. Therefore, if anyone was going to transform my life, it too must be ME. [Read more…]
Giving Thanks for Wherever You Are On the Journey
Give thanks for what you are now, and keep fighting for what you want to be tomorrow. ~Fernanda Miramontes-Landeros
Give thanks for what you are now. That’s not easy when you’re not happy with what you are now. But, you’ve got to start somewhere, so why not start with exactly who you are today? That was the first step on my journey towards better health and happiness in my life – getting honest about who I really was, and accepting that as my starting place. That’s something you can do right now
Here’s how I got honest. I was 287 pounds, in physical and emotional pain and I knew I needed to change things. I didn’t know where to begin, so I asked my doctor. My doctor had been telling me for years that I needed to drop some weight, and I got angry and resentful every, single time. It took a lot of nerve for me to walk into his office and say, “Okay, let’s say you’re right, I do need to lose some weight. Where do I start?”
He referred me to a nutritionist. After my first meeting with her, she asked me to start a ‘Food Journal.’ In it, I was to write down everything I ate for a week. She asked me not to edit my food choices yet. “Just eat what you’d normally eat, and write it down after you’re finished,” she said. I bought myself a new notebook on the way home from the appointment, and I was very excited about starting the next day. Then came the morning, and suddenly I was angry. I don’t know where it came from – this defiance, this rebellion. Suddenly I was thinking, “I’ll show her what I eat everyday!” And I went off to the doughnut shop and bought six of my favorites and ate them all, with a quart of milk, for breakfast. And I wrote it all down. Then for lunch, I was feeling guilty, so I made myself a salad. It was a large salad, loaded with cheese, beans, and plenty of dressing, but I felt less guilty about that than I did about the doughnuts. Again, I recorded it all in my journal – this time with measurements. I had two snacks that afternoon – 18 vanilla wafers and two pudding cups, and “a bag of trail mix.” I’m quoting from the journal here. For dinner, I fixed spaghetti. I wrote that I ate a “full plate of spaghetti,” which was a lot.
The week continued on like this. Looking back now, even though I seemed to be eating with a vengeance, I don’t recall feeling as though I ate more in this particular week than I did most of the time. Eating a half-dozen doughnuts was nearly a weekly ritual. I’d just never made note of it before. Two snacks in the afternoon – pretty common for me. I didn’t feel fuller than usual, and I didn’t get a stomach ache from eating like this, so the guilt and shame I felt when showing my journal to the nutritionist at our next appointment wasn’t as much about what I was eating, as how I was living.
[Read more…]