“A
Good Life is
about Being Self Aware and Consciously Making Sound Choices”
Have you heard people say
you’re responsible for what appears in your life? That you
created it? Perhaps
you wanted to argue back: This isn’t the case. After all, I
never wanted a man
in my life who suffered from pathological narcissism, who was an
alcoholic, and
who slings emotional abuse and verbal abuse at me regularly. I always
envisioned myself married to a loving and caring man. So,
don’t tell me I
created this nightmare I live regularly.
Well,
you might not have consciously created it—as you would go
about creating a
house, for example. You, however, have likely been creating your life
unconsciously. Of course, you’re not alone in doing this.
Many of us are
creating things all the time unconsciously. We do this through choices
we make
that are habitual or automatic. They are typically programmed from our
pasts.
Your
Behavior is Driven by
Your Beliefs
When
we live unconsciously, we tend to experience more pain and hurt, and we
think
it is unavoidable, too. We don’t realize how our own beliefs
and resulting
behaviors keep us stuck in that pain.
Perhaps
you’re doing this? Do you accept your narcissistic
spouse’s emotional abuse and
verbal abuse as something unavoidable? Do you accept the negative
consequences
of his addictions? Perhaps you believe you have no choice because you
believe
in the sanctity of marriage; for you, divorce is out of the question,
in other
words.
Do
you realize you’ve made a choice based upon a belief, though?
You could change
your belief, and more choices would open up to you. If you came to
believe that
no person should be the victim of another’s emotional abuse
and verbal abuse,
or these were deal breakers in a marriage, you would be able to go
ahead and
get a divorce. You would then free yourself up to meet a man who could
be that
loving partner you always desired instead.
To
live more consciously, you want to look at how you are behaving now.
Ask
yourself what beliefs are underlying your behavior. Is it that you were
raised
as a child to believe in the sanctity of marriage? Or, perhaps, did
people give
you the message that as a woman, you can’t make it on your
own? Were you told
that it is always better to be rich rather than middle class, and you
would
fall back into the middle class if you divorced this man?
You
have to be honest with yourself. Discover the beliefs that define your
behaviors that in turn define your life. Do you want to continue to
cling to
them? Or, are they merely hand-me-downs from parents and other former
authority
figures in your life? Can you let go of them now? And in doing so,
might you
stand a better chance of getting what you truly desire from your life
now?
Do
You Take Pride in your Ability to Cope?
Many
of us resign ourselves to our lives as they are. As a result, we might
suffer
depression that hurts that has been brought on by being the victim of
ongoing
emotional abuse and verbal abuse, for instance. And worse yet, we
sometimes
even take pride in our ability to endure and cope with what life sends
our way.
We wear it like a badge of courage.
I
don’t believe you should have to endure ongoing painful
things. Okay,
painful things are going to occur from
time to time. It is ridiculous to expect only good times. But you have
to ask
yourself why the pain is there, and what it might be asking you to
awaken to,
when it drags on and on and on. See, it might be trying to awaken you
to the
fact it is time to make different choices. It might be time to give up
your
identity as someone who can cope with all that is thrown her way and
instead,
to become the active creator of a good life.
If
you are taking pride in your
ability to cope, you might want to look at your past and see if, as a
child,
you were forced to cope with painful things to be able to survive in
your
family. If there was alcoholism and abuse in your childhood home, you
might
have learned how to avoid the alcoholic and his wrath. You had to do
that
because you were a child and dependent upon others for your survival.
You are
an adult now, however. You can take care of yourself. Also, you
don’t owe your
life to your husband with his narcissism, addictions, and abusive ways.
He has
made choices that keep him engaging in these destructive behaviors. You
don’t
have to continue to make choices that keep you there as his victim. You
can
pack your bags and leave.
You
will not be a failure because you chose not to endure his emotional
abuse and
verbal abuse any longer. It does not mean you are weak and you
can’t cope with
what life throws at you. Instead, you might look at it this way: You
have a
newfound faith in your ability to cope with life as an active creator,
versus
remaining one of its victims.
Set
Aside the Programming from your Past
It
is never too late to wake up and accept responsibility for being the
creator of
your life. After all, remember, you’re already creating it
now by accepting
what is, or doing nothing about it. Some would say your life is perfect
not
because you like the way it is, but because it has unfolded perfectly,
or as
would be expected, based upon the choices you’ve
made—unconsciously.
Indeed,
you might have been programmed by your past to be attracted to a
certain type
of man—and not the loving and kind man you envisioned having
as your partner.
Then, because you were unconscious or unaware of what was driving you,
when you
felt that magnetic attraction, you believed you’d actually
found true love. But
of course, you merely had met someone who fit with what you were
programmed to
seek out because of unresolved hurts from your past. Sadly, this was
diametrically opposed to what you truly wanted.
That
wounded inner child part of you does not make the same choices your
conscious
self would make. It tends to pick someone who has the worst traits of
your
parents or primary caregivers. But then, it wants to try and rectify
the past
and get what it didn’t get before. However, after the
romantic haze has
cleared, scenes reminiscent of the painful past are typically
replicated by the
couple who thought they were so in love with each other.
Your
life’s mission, should you elect to accept it, is to become
more aware and
start living as consciously as possible. In other words,
don’t settle for going
along with the programming from your past. Don’t just do what
is habitual.
After all, most of this is not in your best interest today. Sure, it
helped you
survive as a child in what was probably a dysfunctional family. But it
only
leads to more dysfunction in your adult life. You don’t want
that, right?
You
want to make conscious choices, and then to act upon those. As you do
more of
this, you’ll find the quality of your life improves.
You’ll start getting more
of what you desire.
How
You should Respond to Your Feelings
There is another thing you
need to consider as
well. Some of us believe that we should follow our emotions, or our
feelings
should be our guide. There are both good and bad things about doing
this. Let’s
talk about them now.
Emotions
and feelings can lend guidance. For example, when you’re
married to a man with
unhealthy levels of narcissism, who also suffers from perhaps
alcoholism and a
drug addiction, and who engages in emotional abuse and verbal abuse
regularly,
you’re apt to experience a great deal of hurt and pain. Well,
you might learn
depression hurts, too. Then, you might try to distract yourself from
that pain
and hurt, or you might try to ease it through shopping, food, alcohol
or
medications, for example. You want to suppress the pain, in other
words, rather
than realize it is there for a reason—as a wake-up call to
start making
different choices. That choice might be to disengage from the painful
marriage.
After all, there is a high likelihood that his narcissism, addictions,
and
abusive behaviors are going to continue on. If you don’t want
to keep enduring
them, you have to make a conscious choice to get yourself out of the
situation.
A
woman sometimes won’t leave a bad marriage because she
professes to still love
her husband. It is okay to continue to love someone, but still
consciously
elect to depart the person’s company. Parents might love a
child who has
forsaken them for drugs, for instance. They may do this out of
love—because
they have been advised by mental health professionals to stop enabling
the
child’s self destructive behavior. Because those parents
aren’t continuing to
hang around as enablers, it doesn’t mean they don’t
still love their child.
You
don’t have to sacrifice your life and your health for a man
just because you
love him. Perhaps you need to love yourself first? And if you have
children,
you might well need to make a choice that best serves
them—even if it isn’t
what he wants. Remind yourself, though, what he wants isn’t
ever going to be in
your best interest; it is all about him.
Feelings
and strong emotions can be baggage we carry from the past, too.
Sometimes we
feel things strongly because the brain was activated due to a
similarity to
something that happened in the past, versus because of what is actually
transpiring in the present. In other words, we can’t always
trust our emotions.
We need to analyze them just as we need to examine our behaviors and
our
beliefs.
Strive
to consciously choose what serves you best now—to become the
person you desire,
or to live the life you now feel deep in your heart you were meant to
live—not
the life others have been telling you that you should live.
