It may take some time for people to understand you changed

Recently I saw a post on my favorite Forum, Powerful Intentions, a post about a person who was very negative, and was working very hard to be positive. But his friends and family still saw him as that negative person, and treated him accordingly. Would it be possible that people weren’t seeing he changed?

Every behavioral change is a change in the relationship’s balance. This is actually studied by psychologists. I’m sure we have psychologists around, they will know more about this than I :) Please comment to this post with your 2 cents. But I like the subject and I study a little on my own.

It is rather common, for instance, that a overweight daughter starts a diet and the mother (unconsciously) start sabotaging the diet by making cakes and other fatty dishes that the daughter likes. This is not because the mother doesn’t love the daughter. But the overweight relationship is known by the mother. The mother is comfortable like it is. The moment the daughter decides to change, the relationship will need to find a new balance. The mother will have to deal with the change on the daughter self esteem, clothes, image, even friends, dates, etc.

This is a lame example, but the same happens when you decide to change your train of thoughts. Your friends are used to see you negative. Maybe they’re used to the fact that, compared to you, they’re positive. Maybe they even like that, to have someone to take care of. Maybe the balance of your relationship with them is that you’re the complainer and they’re the solution provider. Once you don’t need their solutions anymore, you and your friends will need to find a new balance for your relationship. Some friendships that are too focused on the old balance might not survive. You’ll straighten some other friendships, and you’ll make new friends.

I know this because I actually lost my husband when I became a positive person. Today I see he was an awful choice for me, a choice of a negative person. But back then I needed him to help me and he liked to be the solution provider. Once I didn’t need him anymore, our relationship couldn’t find a new balance. He consistently tried to put me down so I needed him again. He did awful things just to make me feel depressed, so he could again be the positive person on the relationship and I the one who needed help. He wanted to be the strong one, and as I gre stronger, the only way he found to be the strong one again was to make me feel like s**t, pardon the word. But I didn’t need his help anymore. If he couldn’t be my friend and husband instead of being the one who supported everything, then we couldn’t be together. We spent a terrible year together until he did something so awful I had to leave. The best decision I ever made :)

Today I have a wonderful fiancé, who loves me and wants to walk besides me. He understands that I don’t need help, I need a friend, company and love. I need someone to be there if I need it, but I have no intention to need help. We’ll get married soon, with church, party, the whole package. I’m so much happier now, you can’t even imagine. I never thought I could love someone so much, and he thinks the same way. He’s the best person I know, and I’m so lucky to have him.

So don’t give up if for an instant it seems like nobody gets you. Being positive will bring you happiness, even if some short term events might make you feel disoriented. But believe me, you’re on the right track! And the people who stay besides you now will be much closer. You’ll meet new people, who are more like you are now. Your live will improve 200%.

Love to y’all!

Tell me the 5 best things that happened today!

I was really down today, and as usual when I’m down I went to the powerful intentions forum.

I saw a post called “Tell me the 5 best things that happened today!”. I never respond to those posts, but today I had what I thought was a terrible day. I thought I would get to 5.

I got 9 :o) And I can only think of two bad things that happened today. And I didn’t even realize that! I was crying when writing my list. What is more important than you have a terrible day, and your love says he admires you? That’s what really matters. All the rest we can find a way through.

My love and I live 5 hours by plane apart. I applied for a job to be near him. I wanted to bad that the job worked out, that the job was going to be mine. Didn’t happen. I was crushed. He said he admires me. Isn’t he a doll?

So, here’s my list for today:

1. My love said he loves me
2. My love said he admires me
3. Got an important business contact
4. Got a business proposal
5. My mom called and said she’s doing well, and had a great weekend
6. My father said weekend was like “old times”
7. A former manager complimented me
8. It was a sunny and beautiful day (this time of the year… miracle!!)
9. Got a new and free content for my work newsletter

I’ll do that every day now. Go to bed and list all the great things that happened to me. I think when something bad happens, I tend to see that as my entire day. My love loves me. My mom and dad love me and they had a wonderful weekend, something that didn’t happen for a while. I love my life. Who’s luckier than I am?

Lone track

Getting rid of him was the best thing I could ever do. Or he got rid of me, whatever way you want to see it. And I was so spectacularly, amazingly devastated. I could not live in that apartment again. I didn’t want to sleep in the same bed, use the same glasses. I was disgusted by the idea that that creature ever touched me. That idea alone made me so sick that I literally vomited. I vomited a lot for the first days, every time I thought of my shame. I was feeling raped, in my body and my moral. I was ashamed, and I could not believe that anger could be so solid. I had a constant feeling of dirt, dirt on my hair, my arms, my legs. I had to make a pact with myself, only take one bath a day. And just after I bathe, I felt dirty. I threw away the clothing that he touched, my clothing. I bought new ones. And I felt angry. Oh, the anger. Anger is a hot feeling, sadness is a cold feeling, that’s how I always describe them. I was burning. I could feel my mandibles hurting because of the heat. I felt like that nonstop for a couple of months, I think. After that, the feeling kept coming back intermittently for a long time. Maybe half a year, and then it lowered to what I call “normal levels”.

But please understand, I was angry at myself too. I thought a lot about the time I wasted being unhappy and seeking the wrong people. I thought about the opportunities I lost, specially the opportunities he made me lost. He became somehow a symbol of my unhappy past, representing everything I hated about myself.

My parents invited me to move back in with them. I accepted, even if our relationship was crap, and I accepted only because I didn’t want to be alone. I sold every single piece of furniture I had, including glasses and napkins. I had no idea how I was going to buy all that stuff again, but I just wanted to see it gone. I removed from my life any object that he ever touched or that could remind me of him, of my shame and my anger. I sold them for a symbolic price, glad that someone simply came and took them away.

Now, I’m glad to say I’ll stop telling the story of my past. I’m going to stop talking about anger, shame and bad stuff. The sad part of my life ends here, and I’m glad I can stop talking about it. I actually had a nightmare last night, after I typed part of this story. I know it sounds bad when you read it, but believe me, it’s worse. I’m just not strong enough to read everything again and polish the text to reproduce how bad it was. And I see no point, because now it’s over.

But the reason why I added this information here is because I think it’s important for you to understand how it started. I was hoping that somehow this could justify why I believe so much in affirmations.

So now… drum rolls… beginning the happy part of the blog!

Scott Adams and The Secret

If you read this blog, you know I’m a Scott Adams super fan :-)
I was very amused by his entry on The Secret.

When I first read The Secret, I think I agreed with 85% of the content. But the weight part was huge problem for me. One of the things that I thought ridiculous was when she said you’re not supposed to observe fat people if you want to be thin. You need to focus your thought on people who have the weight you’d like to have:

“If you see people who are overweight, do not observe them, but immediately switch your mind to the picture of you in your perfect body and feel it. (...)Make it your intention to look for, admire, and inwardly praise people with your idea of perfect-weight bodies. Seek them out and as you admire them and feel the feelings of that-you are summoning it to you.”

I think we are all entitled to some narrow minded hypocrisy. And like everyone else, I read this part and felt somewhat disgusted, like if the author was being prejudice against people who are overweight. Again, Scott Adams opened my eyes. Look at what he wrote in the Dilbert blog about reviews on The Secret:

“One skeptical reviewer picked the most outrageous sounding example in the book to point out how ridiculous it is. Apparently the book claims, without science to support it, that if you want to be thin, you should avoid overweight people, even to the extent of avoiding looking at them.

Clearly, that’s mumbo jumbo.

Today I read in the news that researchers have discovered weight to be “socially contagious.” Your chances of becoming obese are 57% higher if you have ONE friend who is obese.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/25/health/webmd/main3097001.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_3097001 “

I then thought to myself… after coming to work on my new company, I’ve been dressing down a lot. The reason is… everyone here dresses down. Women don’t really look like women most of the time. I think some of them don’t really brush their hair in the morning. And to blend in, I’ve been unconsciously trying to copy the way they dress. My new circle of friends in the US is also much heavier than my previous circle of friends. Since I got here, I gained 6 pounds that I cannot find a way to lose. Coincidence? Or maybe it’s me, trying to fit into the ugliness of the place?

Well, maybe I should stop being a hypocrite, because I think it’s ok to avoid unhappy people because they make me feel sad. Maybe the same applies to weight and appearance. Maybe I should invest in better looking friends that have the same health values that I do.

***

According to the research, if one friend becomes obese, your chance of getting obese too increase by 57%. If two friends become obese, your chance of gaining weight jumps to 171%. And the most amazing thing is that the chance increases even if your friends live far away from you.

The researchers said they are “stunned” with the results. I’m not.