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SHOUTOUTISIMO!

To everyone from A More Peaceful, Less Angry Work-In-Progress

Instead of coming to you and begging you for advice to "fix my relationships" (mostly lack thereof), I decided to share part of myself instead. A little sunbeam that appeared out of nowhere, a golden nugget of knowledge that will help me to help myself... And I think it might help someone else, too. Well, normally, I go off on a personal tirade about how unworthy I am, and how everyone else deserves to be in a decent end all/be all relationship except me, or how come I kept meeting all the WRONG people. And saying all the WRONG things. Dealing with my past hurts and pain in a victim way has been an albatross around my neck and always led me to repeat history over and over... "Why does this always happen to *me*?" yada yada yada. I made myself sick just having these pathetic thoughts all the time. Which made it worse, of course, and round and round I'd go again. How could I stop this? I'd date or hook up with someone for a really short time, get all excited, think future thoughts, then BOOM! All of a sudden they lost interest completely. Promises made were not kept. Phone calls never came. Offers for dinner never materialized into actual meals and then, ultimately, AGAIN, nothing. Leaving me alone again. Sad. Dwelling. Pathetic. Vulnerable. Well, you get the idea...

The one constant here is that I did not stop going out and meeting people. And I am passionate about playing pool, so that's where I'd usually meet people. But I knew that I was angry about having been hurt, and with each new dating fiasco, my attitude must be suffering; and there was very little room for me to grow and actually *Figure Out* what was wrong with me and what I was doing Wrong because I just wanted to be with *someone* with who, miraculously (and with ZERO effort on my part), things would be different. However, little by little, week after week, I began to drink less; spend less; SEEK less, and actually just *be* with me and be *okay* with being with me. That's when IT hit me. You see, for a long time, when I was still a beginning pool player, I would get emotional if I didn't win a game. Or I'd get upset if I missed an important shot. Really frustrated. And all the while I knew that this was hurting me and my own game, and I was undermining myself, but I couldn't Figure Out how to get a handle on it. How could I stop getting angry and frustrated?

Then one day, I decided to "trick" myself, and tell myself that "oh well, any game that I don't win, I will just consider more practice!" That change in attitude changed my game, and I am realizing that it can change my anger in my life in general. I started to not focus on what I was doing wrong to lose games; I started to focus on what I had learned about that particular game. And I began to feel like, so what if I lost? More practice! Good! And then my games started to improve, and my life no longer depended on one single shot. Or one single game. Because there are ALWAYS more games to play! And the more I play, the more I can learn... For the first time in my life, I am seeing that I can look at this dating/love life/significant other situation in a similar light. A light (and perspective) that I had to find for myself. One that no matter what you would have told me, would never have been something real to me until I *really* took that time to really *take some time* and not rush to tie everything up in a pretty psychobabble bow (like I usually did). I now have a new tool to play with, instead of just another wall to bang my head up against. Thanks for listening!

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