Useful Thought #1

I am currently sitting up in bed with the cat (who is in a dream and twitching violently) mulling things over, as I usually do, and I was just going over some of the main ideas that are integral to my happiness at the moment, and I thought I would make a kind of series of them here, though I'm not really sure how many there are -- there may only end up being two, but that still constitutes a series, doesn't it? Yes. Quite. Note that 'Yes.' and 'Quite.' are two very short sentences to make up for that ridiculously long one I began with. I hope the paragraph feels more balanced. I certainly do.

Thought #1: The only person who can hurt me, is me.

This is one of the best ideas ever. It's by no means a new idea and I definitely didn't come up with it, but it feels like my own because by applying it in my life I've given it a distinctly 'me' flavour; at least that's how I see it in my head. I guess what I'm saying is it's no longer a familiar abstract idea, it's very much a reality for me much of the time (though not always).

This is how the thought works for me: Whenever someone does something I don't like, and I feel that they need to do something different in order for me to feel good again, remembering this thought gives me back my power. When I find myself blaming someone else for hurting me, I need them to make it right. But when I realise that it's my reaction to their action that hurts me, I realise I don't need them to do anything at all. It's a wonderful feeling to realise that you don't need anyone else to make you feel better -- you are it.

I owe a lot of my sanity to this thought (though there isn't much of it), and it's been largely responsible for my fantastic relationship with the boyfriend-creature and the reason why we've never had a real fight in a very intense year and a half (it is our year-and-a-half month-iversary tomorrow). It's also served me wonderfully in relationships with friends, housemates and other humans (and animals, too). I do have trouble applying it where there are years of unexplored confusion and resentment involved, and that's something I'm working on. But in the meantime, this thought serves me very well.

When I have trouble believing it, I remember that not all people react to the same situation or action in the same way. If a certain situation or action had its own power to hurt, everyone would react in the same (or very similar) ways. As it happens, the same situation definitely doesn't elicit the same reaction in everyone -- in fact your own reaction to a situation at two different points could be entirely different, so it can't be the situation or action that's doing the hurting. For example, your partner may be sitting and reading a book. At one time you might think "Why isn't he paying attention to me? He doesn't love me." At another you might think "I love that he feels so at ease with me that he can just be in a room with me, doing his own thing." It can't be the person or their action that's hurting you. I love that.