47.5 – For Last Week’s MM:

A healthy relationship should periodically make you a little uncomfortable. The conversations that matter are uncomfortable. The vulnerability required for intimacy is uncomfortable. Finding compromise and forgiveness is uncomfortable.

A comfortable relationship is likely an empty one.

Resentment is the compound interest on conversations you were too afraid to have.

Are you too comfortable in your relationship? If so, what conversations are you avoiding?

Have the uncomfortable conversation this week. Let me know what happens.

This makes me wonder where the scale tips from “a little uncomfortable = high quality” to “so much uncomfortable = low quality”… I do not have a comfortable relationship with The Boyfriend. His addiction and all the “uncomfortable” (to put it mildly AF) things that it entails ensures that it is not, and probably won’t be for a while. Don’t get me wrong – there IS good quality in the relationship itself, in him, in myself… but his is buried so deep under the layers of protection he’s built up over the years that it’s agonizingly slow peeling back each layer one by one. I know that layers have been removed, but they’ve been so super thin that the progress feels immeasurable, and not in a good way (is there a bad way?!).

And it’s feckin exhausting…

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48.0 – Sorry, Success Won’t Make You Confident

Two things for you to think about

Self-doubt doesn’t go away when you succeed. In fact, the higher the stakes get, the more doubt will continue to show up.

Confidence isn’t about removing all doubt. Confidence is knowing you’ll be all right if things go wrong.

Reflect: Then consider sharing this thought with others.

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Two things for you to ask yourself

What stakes are making you doubt yourself right now? What would doing it anyway look like?

Recommended: Use these as journaling prompts for the week.

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One thing for you to try this week

Pick one thing you’ve been putting off because you doubt yourself, and do it this week. Reply and tell me how you felt after.

Remember: Small changes lead to lasting breakthroughs.

https://markmanson.net

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As for how I’m doing…

Funny Side Quest?: My best friend (Granny Sidhé) and I talked this morning, as we do every Monday. She told me some really nice things about me that – surprise – made me uncomfortable (in a good way!). She is aghast at how much patience and perseverance I have had these last 2.5 years regarding The Boyfriend and his addiction. She predicted that I would be some sort of therapist in the next 7 years, because (her words) everything I’ve been through in my life, all the hardships and traumas, relationships of all kinds, raising my son, and the continued work I do in EMDR, Ketamine, and other manners of self-growth work and therapies… put me in such a unique position that I would be a phenomenal person for that kind of work.

GAH! Stop being right and telling me what the Universe has in store for me, damnit!

I will say, though, that it made me have this cool, stretchy flashback to just before my son was diagnosed with autism, which – I fully believe – is where the new/improved version of me started. And everything (literally) from that point on that came into my life did so to teach me something that I would need later on, way in the future… which, let’s be honest, is a helluva lot closer now (obviously). I had to point out that I still have ducks I need to line up (my mental and physical health, specifically) before I can even begin to be ready for something like that, but… right now, in this moment, because of the most recent work I’ve done on myself? I can see it being a whole thing I could do. And that, my friends, is a massive step from where I used to be less than 3 years ago…

Until next time, nerds…