When you come from a not-very-functional family, oftentimes you're not given the life tools you need to be functional and emotionally healthy in your adult life. Skills like resilience, anger management, self-esteem, assertiveness, speaking up for oneself, and a slew of others didn't manage to get instilled in me. What I'm finding out as a trying-to-be-functional adult is that all of the skills require practice. What a bummer *that* was! I thought that just because I wanted all those things, that <POOF> they'd automatically be mine. The reality is that just like a muscle, emotional skills require maintenance and upkeep. It's very much a "use it or lose it" reality.
I also believe that people and situations are brought into our lives in order for us to practice what we most need to learn. Often, however, we see these things as annoyances, or the world being against us (not true--the universe is always for us and never against us), or some people even see these challenges as "just my lot in life." I think if we take the opportunity to look at the situation and ask why this might be happening and ask what we could possibly learn from it, then we can see it for what it is. A chance to practice. A chance to become something beyond what we are now and move forward into something new and maybe wholly different than what we could have ever expected.
So, what have you all been "practicing" lately?
I totally understand your points Mary. Might I add that I think it is a bit or maybe more than a bit cultural. I was raised in what sounds like the same way. And it does take learning on your own to "un-learn" how you were brought up! But the good news is that it CAN be done! :)
ReplyDeleteThis is Gina BTW ;-)
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