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Being Comfortable In My Own Skin

Sharon Hayes — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 09:03:11 +0000

For many reasons, this has been a tumultuous year for me. It’s been a huge year of personal growth. I feel I’ve made incredible progress. I’ve had some huge epiphanies recently and I wanted to share them here:

On Letting Go

If I’m actively thinking about how I am letting go of something or allowing the subject I am letting go of occupy any part of my brain space, that means I haven’t let go. I have let go when it’s no longer something that takes any part of my conscious or subconscious thought.

An analogy: Imagine you have a sore back. You tell people for weeks about this sore back. Your back gets better. Eventually you forget you had a sore back. Then you see someone you haven’t seen in a while and they ask how your back is doing. It may have been days or weeks since you thought about it. You can smile and simply say the sore back is better. New topic and the sore back is forgotten until someone else mentions it or your back becomes sore again.

On Acceptance

I’ve come to realize that a lot of my issues with people have been centered around one or both of us feeling a need to change something in the other or pointing out the flaws or feeling an expectation to change the flaws for the sake of the other person. I doubt I’m alone in this. But I’ve had a mind shift lately. I’ve come to realize the world is a beautiful place because we are all different people and we’re all flawed in our own unique and beautiful ways. The best relationships I have with others are ones where we simply accept each other as we are. These are the types of relationships I want to focus on.

On Being Alone

Whenever I’ve been involved in a heavy relationship, I’ve always felt a need to back up and get some personal space. So much brain space was devoted to all the “alone” things I missed being able to do. Rather than feeling miserable about my current situation, I’m actually enjoying it and the freedom I have. I can read until 5 am with the light on if I want. I can go to bed and get up when I want. I can eat my meals when I want and eat what I want.

Sticks and Stones

I am happy and proud of who I am as a person. It’s unrealistic to expect everyone to like me. There’s no need for everyone to like me. I will not sacrifice my personal integrity in an effort to get others to like me. I don’t buy into the idea of keeping friends close and enemies closer. That’s not how I roll. I’m not in high school.

Taking Action

Although I need to know in my head where I am going, I don’t need to have a clear picture of exactly how things should look before I start to take action. I don’t need to have all the information before I make decisions. The old me used to be able to make decisions and take action very quickly. The old me based decisions purely on logic. The new me is balancing logic and emotion in decision making. Bringing emotions in doesn’t need to slow me down. I’ve learned that my gut instinct is right 99% of the time and I have to trust it.

Damaged vs Toxic People

The older I get, the more I realize most people are damaged in some way. It’s inevitable that almost everyone has had at least some shitty time in their life – most of us many shitty times. For some people, the bad experiences help them grow into better and stronger people. Unfortunately some people just end up damaged to such a degree that they end up being toxic to those who get too close to them. Being able to recognize the difference between someone simply damaged and someone toxic is something I need to work on – but at least I am aware of the difference now.

Where To Focus Energy

A few months back, I hit a very rough patch. I lost some major clients going into my slow period. Not through fault on my side but because of the general economic situation. I had serious overhead and no easy way to scale back immediately. Although not a long-term issue, it represented a serious short-term one. I did what I could in the short-term to deal. But I also used up a lot of energy worrying and stressing over the situation. The misplacement of energy likely made the situation much worst than it had to be. Many bills got paid late. Payroll got behind. Vendor payments too. I’d never had this happen to me before. Some tough times, yes. But nothing ever to this extent. Given the money my businesses gross, it was almost ludicrous that it could have even happened to begin with. But it did. The strange thing is – the world kept on going. Nothing fell out of the sky and landed on me. I survived. But the bounce back would have been so much easier if I’d not worried, not lost sleep, not stressed over the situation. If I just focused on doing what I needed to. If I’d put my energy into fixing things rather than wasting it senselessly. I now know that stressing over things isn’t going to help things. If anything, it will make the bad that much more difficult to overcome. Rough patch: I’m prepared to take you head-on should you ever decide to rear your ugly head again.

Care to share any thoughts on the above? With the end of the year steadily approaching, what have you learned?

What Everyone Wants

Sharon Hayes — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 02:40:04 +0000

A couple of years ago, I had a very intense friendship with someone. It was someone who really pushed me to take a serious look at many aspects of my life. We came in contact through business. He is an incredibly successful person by anyone’s standards. We came to know each other as individuals. Not prejudging the other in any shape or form.

During one of our exchanges, the subject of personal happiness came up as it would often again in the future. In spite of having more money than one could spend in a lifetime, he was really an unhappy person when it came down to it. I asked him why. He told me it was simple: he wanted the same thing that everyone wants and it was something that no amount of money could buy. I asked him what he thought that was. His response: someone to believe in him.

This was a pivotal moment for me. You see, as I mentioned in my last blog post, I had ongoing issues with my mother. But I never really could figure out what it was. I just knew that it felt like she did her damnedest to make my life miserable in so many ways. After this discussion with my friend, upon reflection, I realized that the biggest thing a parent can do for a child is to believe in them. To show confidence in who they are and who they could become.

It dawned on me that what was wrong – the breakdown in communications with my mother and I – came down to a continual lack of faith in me. No matter how good anything I did was, it simply wasn’t good enough. This caused a lot of damage – both to me as an individual and to our relationship. It made me afraid to share even the good stuff with her because I felt that she’d still find something bad in it.

Although our family didn’t have much when I was younger, during my last few years of high school and CEGEP (junior college), my mother’s small business was doing well and our standard of living improved a bit. When I was about to start university, my mother decided it was time to retire. My father had already retired a few years previously. I had always expected that I’d take over the business. I had worked for her off and on during school. It wasn’t complicated to do. It would have helped me get my adult life on a good track. Something inside her didn’t think I was capable of doing it. Instead of even giving me a chance, she simply closed the business down.

Around the same time, I was involved with the first person I was truly in love with. He was from a very wealthy family. I hadn’t even known who he was never mind how much he was worth when we had first met. It was irrelevant. Everytime we did anything, I paid my fair share to make sure the reasons I was with him were clear. In spite of this, his mother believed I was with him because of his money and said that I’d never end up with him. I was 20 or 21 at the time of a specific conversation with her and I still remember it like it was yesterday. Eventually this sentiment crept into our relationship.

I was engaged very young. A total mistake in hindsight. But one of our big issues – which set the tone for many of our future relationships – was resentment or jealousy of how things came to me apparently “easily” while he had to work hard and still didn’t see results. I remember we were both writing for the McGill Tribune (student newspaper). He had aspirations to be a journalist. I enjoyed the creative outlet of writing but didn’t see it as a career for me. He started at the newspaper the year before me. One semester in, I was asked to be an assistant editor. For almost a week, he didn’t talk to me.

My life seems to have a recurring theme of people who don’t believe in me, believe I’m not good enough on some level, who don’t think I need the emotional boost to do what I do or who in some way have been jealous or resentful of what I’ve been able to do.

I have no idea some days how I’ve been able to accomplish some of the things I have. It’s been a lot of self-motivation. It’s been a lot of ignoring what everyone else says or doesn’t say around me because it does little to contribute to me moving forward.

What has been a big disappointment for me is that I have expended an incredible amount of energy over my life in encouraging and motivating others. I’ve believed in others when they didn’t believe in themselves. Time and again. I’ve yet to experience how that feels – to be on the receiving end of someone who genuinely believes in my abilities and who does so without any resentment or expectation of getting something in return.

I’m not saying I have never received any support from people. But it’s a matter of lacking in consistent support from individuals over an extended period of time.

If I sound bitter in any way, I’m not. It is what it is and it’s contributed to who I am as a person today. It hasn’t made me care less about supporting others to the extent that I can. Maybe if things had been different for me, I’d not have succeeded to the same level.

Not having someone in your life who truly believes in you and who can cheer you on through successes – big and small – is tough. It’s not where I want to be.

Take a look at the people in your life who mean something to you. What do you do – and what can you be doing better – to let them know you believe in them? What difference can you make in someone’s life just by saying 4 simple words: “You can do it.” Whether it is a child, a spouse, loved one or a friend – the 30 seconds a day it takes to give encouragement can mean the world of difference in what his/her life will ultimately look like.

Putting Up Walls

Sharon Hayes — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 02:26:11 +0000

As I write this, I feel crushed and drained.

For several months, I’ve wanted to start this blog. I’ve felt the need to have some outlet where I could express “stuff” that has been going on inside of me. Countless times, I’ve found myself staring at the WordPress editing box. Sometimes as many as a dozen sentences will actually get typed. Then I end up backing up when I realize that I’m simply not comfortable putting myself out there to the extent that I feel the need to. A few days ago, the reason why I was having this difficulty clicked. Ironically, it is the reason why I wanted to start this blog to begin with. I’ve lived most of my life putting up walls. No, this isn’t uncommon. I suspect to some extent everyone does it. But I’m not so certain if the way I handle things is normal.

I’ve lived most of my life on the surface. I had some really bad things happen when I was young. That combined with an incredibly difficult relationship with my mother resulted in two things: recurring issues with eating disorders and letting myself live a surface happiness to avoid dealing with massive pain inside.

Most people put up walls of varying kinds. There’s the public me – who is sociable, outgoing, fun-loving, confident and not afraid to express herself. That is who I want to be. But bubbling beneath the surface is a completely different person. Someone that never really dealt with issues that should have been dealt with..who goes through this continual cycle of feeling the need to deal with it then realizing the best way to deal is just to avoid. I rationalize it away by saying you can’t undo the past. I’m not into psychological mumbo-jumbo.

On September 11th, it will be 10 years since my mother died. More than an anniversary of a loss of a person, I identify with it as the anniversary of a loss of the ability to get closure on some very difficult things. After she died, I had to take care of my dad. He moved in with me not long after and had started to have health issues of his own.

I think it took probably a year for me to realize the pain associated with my mother’s death. I was too busy making sure my father was okay to deal with my own emotional issues. For the second time in my life, I wasn’t able to cope on an emotional level. I couldn’t block out what I was dealing with. I decided it was time to get professional help. (Note: the only time in my life I’d ever seen any kind of therapist was when I was very young because of my purported “genius” level IQ and concern by educators that I wasn’t maximizing my abilities.)

I went to see one psychologist. Since I was never one to talk about the things going on inside me, never mind doing so with a stranger, it was very difficult to get started. Once I did, everything just started coming out. He didn’t say very much during the session. At the end of it, he said to me he didn’t feel I needed therapy. He thought what I needed was to get pregnant and start my own family. In his words: to create my own happiness to replace the bad. Say what? Needless to say this left me more than slightly disenchanted with the idea of seeing a therapist.

One of my good friends is a counselor. Although she knows a lot of what I’ve dealt with, in spite of our friendship, I’ve never been able to let her in the full way. Around 6 months after the failed session with the psychologist, she encouraged me to see someone else. She suggested it was failure on the part of the psychologist and at the very least, I could benefit from talking with a professional.

I saw my GP and talked to him. I wanted a referral to a psychiatrist. I felt myself slowly becoming unhinged. My GP’s initial solution was to put me on anti-depressants. He said he didn’t feel I needed them. He said I seemed like an incredibly strong person. I had the prescription filled, but never took one.

I saw the psychiatrist. I went through a couple of questionnaires. Diagnosis: perfectly “normal.” After a brief discussion, he said most people would not have been able to cope with some of the things I have. Ergo, I am a strong person.

Just over a year ago, I decided to give a distance therapist a try. I spent a fair amount of time trying to find someone that I thought would be a good fit. The initial session went well. She had me do some follow-up work on my own. But instead of dealing with the emotional baggage inside of me, her focus in the next session was on helping me formulate a plan to change the exterior. I tried to explain to her – the reason everyone thinks I am strong is because the exterior seems to be mostly together. It’s the inside that is having issues. I was frustrated. I saw we weren’t going to get anywhere so that was my last session.

I’ve worked hard lately at trying to let people in. There are probably a few dozen people that know bits and pieces. There are fewer than 10 that know more. Taking the walls down that I’ve worked so hard at putting up hasn’t been easy. I’m used to being the person there for people. I’m not used to letting others even get a glimpse of what is inside. It’s difficult. I am someone that thrives on logic. The cut and dry answers to things. But the minute emotional stuff comes up or I let myself open up, it becomes very difficult. People feel selectively “safe” for me. This isn’t a reflection on them as individuals but more about me. When you open up to someone, when you let the walls come down, along with it come expectations. I’ve always had a difficult time asking for what I need from people. This is part of what I struggle with. When expectations aren’t met from someone you’ve taken the walls down for, how do you react?

Part of me desperately wants to go back to the old me – the person that was fully functional on the outside, where I just didn’t think so damn much and over-analyze every relationship with the people in my life. It was easier. You have no expectations of receiving or worry about how people will perceive your shared vulnerability, there is no disappointment. But the other side of me realizes that if I ever want to find true happiness, I need to get myself to the point where the exterior is a true reflection of what is inside of me. I used to think if I kept the walls up, eventually I’d get there. Now I realize that it can only happen by taking them down.