Gratitude for Pain

Almost ten years ago now I made an insecurities fueled decision that changed the path I was on. At that time I had a good career with a great company. I had some self inflicted financial struggles that were manageable. I was having a couple of health concerns. I was not as close to my  None of those problems accounted for how unhappy and dissatisfied with my life that I was. 

That mostly stemmed from my insecurities and unresolved trauma that I had refused to deal with. I would continue to not deal with those things until the universe intervened in a series of events triggered by the death of my mother in 2018. I could spend this post writing about the darkest moments of my life. Looking back I can even see the things that impacted me and maneuvered me into poor choices. That is not a worthwhile activity. I believe that is called rumination and it is a toxic practice.

I have spent this month learning about and practicing gratitude. I have not been the type of man to count my blessings. I was much more likely to describe myself in terms like loser, outcast, or damned. I have always had a flair for the dramatic. I did not realize that penchant was influencing my thoughts and feelings. It hit me then that I had missed applying a very basic truth that I learned when I was still a young boy. That truth is that whatever we believe becomes true. 

What if the central thing you believe is that you are a trash person who does not deserve love or happiness?  The answer to that is that your faith in that truth is going to manifest it in your reality. You will become to tragic loser you believe yourself to be. The nature of the universe causes some natural resistance to your faith changing and shaping it. The further from reality your beliefs the longer it takes for your faith to bring about the manifestation of your beliefs. I also believe that the universe tries to correct negative manifestations. 

Think of it like this. You can believe you are fish all of your life. You will never grow gills. You might find yourself in situations where you are around water the majority of the time. You will improve your ability to swim and hold your breath. You will have a greater connection to and understanding of water than humans without your affinity for water. Yet, you still won't actually be a fish. 

Thinking of yourself as a loser who is unworthy of love, acceptance, or happiness manifests in a similar fashion. Your mood and attitude will change which will push people away from you. Your aura will telegraph to others on a very subconscious level that you are a negatively charged person to either be approached or avoided based on their own internal beliefs. Yes, some humans covet other negative humans to reinforce their internal pain. These things will impact all the relationships in your life causing changes like divorce, change of career, and alienation. 

Continuing down that road sets of a series of chain reactions. Your health is probably going to be impacted negatively. Your hygiene may suffer. You may neglect the care of your property. You may also do the opposite and replace the people in your life with collections of stuff or investment in loner activities like video games or excessive time in front of the TV. 

You might fire up a blog and complain on the internet...

Over a long enough timeline this can go really bad. It leads to anxiety, stress, depression, substance abuse, and even suicide. Those things aren't all caused by negative self image of course. You can wake up one day wondering how you ended up in such a state. The really insidious part of telling yourself a story about how much you don't deserve is that you will become blind to the fact that it is you who made the choices that lead you to your present state. 

If you are like me you will be really good at blame shifting. It normally starts with blaming your parents. Then you blame former friends and romantic partners. Then you blame God or Fate depending on your religious or philosophical point of view. You may even beat yourself up about your inability to have done better, but self pity is just a tool that your mind is using to bring about your loser transformation. Trust me on this one. Self pity, playing the victim, and making other people villains will never lead to any sort of personal growth or healing.

Those things get in the way of truth by coloring your perceptions of reality. It prevents you from learning lessons which would have helped you grow and develop into the person you are meant to be. Trust me on this one. I spent a lot of years feeling sorry for myself, blaming others, and feeling like the world wanted to keep me down. I was also utterly and completely full of shit. 

My journey to realizing this came with the death of my Mother. I had been on a bad road for a few years. I believe in my heart, with more gratitude than most people would believe, that she was taken from us to force me to face some harsh realities. Few things provide the wake up call that the death of someone you love and take for granted. 

The following eighteen months would put me through the ringer emotionally, mentally, physically, and financially. I am not recovered from it now. I had to begin thinking about my recovery from self sabotage in the same way that an alcoholic thinks about staying sober. Negative self imaging is absolutely an addiction. I could relapse if I am not vigilant. 

Recovery started with ownership. That part required a talented therapist. My therapist was talented and he confided in me later that he had trouble determining if I was being real for the first several sessions. Once the façade dropped and I let my self defense mechanisms down I was able to get some of the help I needed. 

How does a guy like me cover up a lack of confidence and a sea of personal insecurities? I built a fake persona of a confident and assertive guy. I acted like nothing phased me and everything was always under control. How did I come up with that mixture? I played to the opposite of how I felt inside. I was playing the big fake it until you make it game. I got through more things that I should have for more years than I care to think about completely faking my composure. Some of that got easier and I didn't have to fake it any longer. 

During 2018 and early 2019 I was confronted with several situations where being arrogant worked against me. It was difficult to drop that shield and show vulnerability. Brene Brown books helped. There also was a strange sense of putting down a burden when I stopped. Faking anything takes a lot of effort. Faking confidence when you feel insecure should be saved for life-threatening situations only. A show of strength will often scare off a bully even when you are actually feeling terrified. Does it work on bears too? I swear I cannot remember if you are supposed to make yourself look big or play dead for a bear. I supposed that isn't germane to the conversation here.

When I started to admit to myself that I had allowed my insecurities to control me and my choices that was ownership. Think of it like a diagnostic. It is like figuring out the alternator is the reason that the battery is dead and the car will not start. It is an identification. It is not a method of fixing the problem. Like replacing an alternator there are lots of steps in fixing it. 

My next step was developing some critical abilities to check myself. I started making myself communicate with my friends and family. I also started religiously journaling. It wasn't enough to write down my thoughts and feelings. I had to hold myself accountable that the thoughts I put down were honest. I would jot things down without any filter, put them aside for some time, and revisit them from a headspace free of judgement. 

I started to see that I had a ton of negativity. I was still masking it with other people. Yet, I was feeling jealousy, frustration, and still playing the victim too often. Don't take this as something I have cured. I have to check my bullshit almost daily. The funny thing journaling did for me was to show me the pattern. Now I can see it within minutes of spinning myself up for a rant most of the time. I also have a few people I trust with my tantrums.

When I investigated how to overcome innate negativity the universal answer was gratitude. I was skeptical. I am fairly certain I rolled my eyes. I ordered a book open to the idea but skeptical. I read. I thought. I practiced the exercises. I started to feel better. 

Then the voices in my head started telling me different stories. The most powerful of these to date has to have been about my Mom. I have spent four years and change grieving in a profound way. I am not grateful for her death. I have failed to remember until recently to be grateful for the 38 years that she was here with me. I had an amazing parent and person to help me for the majority of life. 

As soon as that paradigm shifted in my mind I felt this weight come off of my soul. I started to see the blessing of her presence instead of the curse of her absence. I also started being able to see clearly moments where Mom had prepared me for the day she wouldn't be here. I had a twinge of shame for the past four years of feeling sorry for myself. Then I realized that was negative and wrong as well. I needed to pass through that phase of my life to arrive in a better place. 

Since then I have spent quite a bit of my thinking time this month looking at the hardest parts of my life and trying to find the gratitude. There are still some things I just cannot wrap my mind around for sure. I must not be ready for those yet. I won't waste time ruminating on them. 

So much of the things I have been holding on to the pain of for the past near decade just hit totally different when filtered through a lens of gratitude. All the regrets I had about changing jobs and losing my friend group turned into gratitude for having those people in my life for so long. Even more importantly the friends who I have maintained close involvement with have helped me to learn and grow. I have a lot of gratitude for people walking the part of the journey that they were meant to. The hurt of missing them is gone.

All of that has been like losing mental weight. Getting rid of those burdens is lightening my soul. I feel more happy. I also feel more energized to do things. I may even get my desk cleaned off and organize my office. Gratitude is pretty magical after all. 

Here is the catch to all that preaching. Feeling gratitude when you are in the depths of struggle and buried in depression feels almost impossible. It should. I didn't jump directly to that step. I also know that gratitude will not be the last step in my personal growth journey. 

I do think it will help me feel better about all of this and I am thankful for that.