THOUGHTS & MUSINGS

Silhouettes, Death and Behaviors

Replying to five prompts for the first week of KTHT’s Spooktober

During last week’s session at the coach, I admitted feeling blue. Upon speaking the words out loud, the tears came. The gloomy feeling had started two days earlier, and only got darker. I didn’t fight it. I allowed it to take hold of my being, knowing fighting against it would take more energy than just living through them.

I was still in an introspective mood when I saw the KTHT prompts for the first week of Spooktober. Looking through them, an idea sparked with each of them: to respond to them all.

Ghostly silhouettes

I’m in mourning, the coach said last week. I’m leaving old behaviours behind, and learning new ones — those where I don’t respond from the position of my inner child, but as a loving parent. All those ‘enablers’ who determined my behaviour for so long are turning into ghostly silhouettes. For all of my life, they had protected me, but also withheld me from growing into a balanced, autonomous individual. It’s time to move on, to take hold of my life, and really be the person I always knew I was, but never dared to show.

If death was my lover…

Only one thought kept turning over and over in my head when seeing the words ‘death’ and ‘lover’: my husband’s cancer. So many times in the past months, since we know, I couldn’t get rid of thoughts about losing him. When I saw this prompt, one horrible thought kept going round in my mind: I don’t want death to be my lover, and I don’t want my lover to be dead…

Which behavior that I know has negative effects do I repeat over and over again?

To treat myself as unimportant — that’s the one thing I do in every relationship, putting the other’s wishes and demands ahead of my own, and never speaking up about my own desires and needs. So many of my relationship — romantic and friendships — stranded when I started voicing my needs, and the other couldn’t deal with it.

I’ve shown this same behavior with my husband, but he always took and takes my needs and wants into account — bless him. This doesn’t mean I have let go of this behaviour (yet), but I will get there in this journey towards taking better care of myself, setting my boundaries and being the first to attend to my needs.

When and how do I question myself in relationships?

If I look back on previous relationships — two failed marriages — I never really questioned myself. Abuse of my children made me leave both marriages, but it was only after my second divorce I started questioning myself.

I realized I wasn’t true to myself in either of those marriages. I had changed myself to be who I thought the men wanted me to be. After my second divorce, I had vowed never to change myself again. If whoever didn’t accept me for who I am, it wasn’t worth it.

Now I’m married to the love of my life, and happier than I ever was in a relationship. Still, I don’t question myself, maybe because of the happiness in my life. However, I am learning to question myself about my behavior, but the questions are mostly not about the relationship with my husband, but definitely about my professional ‘relationships’.

What is right is often forgotten by what is convenient

This is one thing the coach reminded me. As my behavior changes, it will not be perfect immediately. I will forget about the new things I have learned, and fall back on my old behaviors, to what feels convenient; what I knew for the bigger part of my life. But, she promised me, the stronger I feel, and the more I exhibit the new behavior, the less I will fall back on the old.

Where I am not fond of change, I know this change is good. I will finally be able to live by the words I have said so many times: Be true to yourself and I am who I am.

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