Let’s Be Friends

Posted on by stilllearning2b

I hear it often –

“After my divorce, I lost so many friends. The couples I knew no longer invited me to join them. It’s like they thought they could only socialize with other couples.”

And that’s sad.

Not only for the single person, but also for the couples.

Because both have quite a bit to offer each other.

So how about it?

Can we be friends?

 

To the Couples –

 

Send the Invitations

Oftentimes, couples refrain from inviting a single person to join out of a concern for them feeling like an awkwardly attached third wheel. Instead of assuming that they don’t want to attend, ask and let them decide for themselves. If they decline, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they will never have an interest. Give them a little time and ask again.

 

Save the PDA and Inside Jokes For Later

In order to allow the single friend to feel included, make sure that you’re not acting in an exclusionary way. You don’t have keep your partner at arm’s length, but this probably isn’t the best time for an extended make-out session either.

 

If the Single Person is Recently Divorced, Allow Them to Set the Tone Regarding “Ex Talk”

Maybe they want to engage in a little ex-bashing or maybe they prefer to keep quiet. Either way, allow them to dictate when and how much they say about their situation. Sometimes, couples want information about a breakup in order to reassure themselves that they’re “safe” from a similar outcome. That’s your stuff to deal with; it’s not the responsibility of your single friends. And finally, if you”re also friends with their ex, keep that in a separate space unless you’re asked to do otherwise.

 

Be Sensitive to the Emotions the Single Friend May Be Experiencing

It can be an alienating feeling to be around couples when you’ve lost your significant other. There may be moments of profound sadness and periods of envy. Sometimes, a newly single person finds it too difficult to be around couples, especially ones that were part of their old life. None of this is a reflection on you.

 

To the Singles –

 

Communicate Your Wants and Feel Free to Initiate

Maybe you want to get together but you need a little time to get yourself together first. Or, you find that you do better with small groups instead of a triad right now. Communicate what it is you’re okay with right now. Furthermore, if you want contact, initiate contact. Too passive of an approach can easily be read as disinterest.

 

Be Thoughtful About Who You Unload Your Emotional Struggles On

If you’re dealing with a lot of emotion right now, you will need people to talk to. Your couple friends may not be those people. As you know, the thought of losing a partner is terrifying and so the couples in your social circle may need to keep that thought at a safe distance. And unfortunately, you are a reminder that loss can happen.

 

If You’re Experiencing a Sexual Reawakening, Express it Elsewhere

After divorce, it’s common to have an excess of sexual energy. There is nothing wrong with this, but also direct that energy away from your coupled friends. One of the reasons that the newly divorced tend to be exiled is the fear that they will “steal” a partner. Don’t give that fear any fuel.

 

Be Sensitive to the Emotions One or Both People in the Couple May be Experiencing

One or both partners may be doubting their own marriage and they might be envious of your freedom. Alternately, they may be terrified of their relationship ending and you’re walking proof that it could happen. None of this is a reflection on you.

 

It’s a shame when people that like each other and have a shared history end a friendship because of a status change.

Coupled or single…

Let’s be friends.

Unraveling Expectations: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Join me on a little thought experiment as we consider two different situations…

Situation 1 – You go on a blind date, knowing nothing at all about the person before you meet. The date went well, not great but also not terrible. You had some good conversation and you think they’re a quality person, but you doubt you’ll ever see them again.

Situation 2 – You meet somebody on an online dating site. Due to your schedules, you are unable to meet in person for several weeks. During that time, the two of you have been texting and messaging constantly. The texts are flirtatious and even begin to tiptoe into some deep territory. “Maybe they’re the one,” you think to yourself as you excitedly get ready for your first date. The date goes well, not great but also not terrible. You had some good conversation and you think they’re a quality person, but you’re just not feeling it.

Even though the dates themselves are identical, how would your feelings about them differ? I would expect that the first situation would be easily shrugged off, whereas the second situation may well knock you down a bit, possibly even prompting worries about being alone forever.

What is the difference between the two?

 

Expectations.

 

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As anyone with a dog around dinnertime knows, expectations are a powerful force. Unless you live a life without any predictability or patterns, expectations are necessary to navigate efficiently in a complex world. We expect the sun at the beach to be intense, so we respond by bringing an umbrella and sunscreen. We expect a toddler to become irritable on a long car ride, so we stash snacks and toys in anticipation.

But expectations are not always so benign. They have a way of sneaking up on us, whispering temptations into our ears and then running away unrestrained. We follow, only to end up face-planted as we trip over our own predictions when they fail to materialize. Other times, past trauma has primed the pump for expecting the worst, even when the worst is no longer the reality.

We cannot eliminate expectations from our lives. They’re innate and needed. But we can also learn to understand them better and we can become better at managing them so that we don’t continually break our own hearts.

Expectations can be trip wires in all areas of life – relationships, work, health, etc. I’m going to focus on expectations in relationships, although much of this applies to expectations in other arenas as well.

 

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Expectations

 

The Good

Since we often face counsel to “let go of expectations,” we rarely take the time to reflect upon their benefits –

Opportunity to Gain Self-Awareness

We all develop our own personal narrative, stories that pass through our brains, spinning yarns and asserting beliefs. All too often, those personal narratives become tainted, as drops of fear or insecurity bleed throughout the story, altering and staining it without enough external influence to right the path. And expectations can come from those painful places. After all, a fear of abandonment is really an expectation of abandonment sparked from some prior experience.

We are not always aware of our internal narrative. It’s too close, too much a part of us. But disappointment is a handy way to recognize when our expectations are out of alignment. So let those times when you feel let down by someone become an opportunity to look within. What were you expecting? Where did that expectation come from? The answers to those two questions can give you some great insight into yourself.

 

Keeps Us From Settling For Less

Sometimes expectations act to inform us what we deserve. This is especially true when we come from a healthy and loving family and we anticipate others to treat us in the same way.

Expectations can act like a minimum fill line in a pool, alerting us to behaviors that fall below a certain threshold. In a relationship, it is perfectly appropriate to expect to feel safe, to feel loved much of the time and to have an atmosphere of honesty and respect.

 

Allows Relationships to Operate Efficiently

Expectations and habit allow us to shift some of our daily lives to autopilot. This isn’t always ideal, but in a busy world, it’s often necessary. When we have an idea what to expect from our partner, we can shift our own choices accordingly. For example, if you want an opportunity to reconnect with your spouse over a meal and you know they’re not a morning person, you propose a dinner date as opposed to brunch. Expectation and adaptation.

 

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The Bad

Of course, expectations have their downsides –

We Are Set Up for Disappointment

We recently received a widespread lesson in the danger of unchecked expectations. I don’t think any series finale has been so widely anticipated as that of Game of Thrones. After years of a wild – and emotional – ride, the expectations of fans were at an all-time high. And the disappointment after the ending was almost palpable.

No matter what happens in reality, it will never align perfectly with our expectations. So when we become too wedded to a particular outcome, we are guaranteeing our own disappointment.

Related: Are Expectations Dooming Marriage?

 

Other’s Actions Are Outside Our Locus of Control

Sometimes we act as though our internal narrative is script and others should be reading the lines and following the stage directions we have prepared for them.

But of course that’s not true.

We can have expectations all day long, but unless it’s something within ourselves, we have little influence on what actually happens.

 

We Confuse Boundaries and Expectations

Expectations say, “I’m assuming that you’re going to…”

Boundaries say, “If you do …, then I will…” 

Note the difference. The first isn’t giving the person a choice. It’s guilty until proven innocent. Whereas the latter gives the other permission to act and then provides information about the consequences.

Letting go of expectations is not the same as permitting others to treat you poorly. If they act badly, let them face the consequences. But also give them the opportunity to make that choice before you enact the repercussions.

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The Ugly

And then there’s this. Expectations can cause worse effects than disappointment. They can set us up for catastrophe –

When Expectations Are Too High, We Are Always Chasing Contentment

I have been outspoken in my disdain for the concept of a single soulmate. I mean, talk about a high expectation! I have to somehow manage to find the one, single person that is perfect for me. And then once I have them, everything will be easy because we are meant to be together. So then what happens when you first face discord in your relationship? Does that mean that they were the wrong person and you need to resume the search?

We are constantly bombarded with images of perfection. And so we can easily find ourselves lacking. When expectations are unrealistic, we will never be happy because the bar is set at infinity and we’re mere mortals.

 

Expectations Can Influence Reality For the Worse

I love the studies that have been done in schools where the teachers of two comparable classes were given different – and false – information about their students. One teacher was told that their students were exceptionally bright and they could expect great things from them. The other educator was informed that their students were slow learners and have never really shown much promise.

Same types of students. Different expectations. And VERY different results.

I bet you can guess which class did better.

People have a way of acting as we expect them to act. After all, even if we say nothing, our unconscious interactions will reveal some of our internal beliefs. This chicken-and-egg dance often happens with infidelity. We often assume that the cheating happens first, followed by the suspicions. Yet it is not rare for the distrust to enter first with the infidelity following behind.

When expectations are too rigid, we fail to give others the space to change. And if we’ve inadvertently set the bar too low, we may just find that it’s met.

When we lead with expectations, we are not truly seeing or hearing the other person. Instead, we’re interacting with the mental construct we have of them. We’re in an echo chamber, seeing and hearing only what we expect. Confirmation bias is a powerful force.

 

Toxic People Can Hide Behind Our Expectations

Sometimes our expectations of people are too high. We start from a belief that they are kind and operate with integrity and then we assume that their actions will be in accordance with those characteristics.

And if they’re not honest and kind? They very well may take advantage of those expectations, manipulating things behind the scenes like a magician’s assistant behind a screen.

Expectations can blind us to truth as we confuse desire with belief. And that’s a dangerous road to travel.

 

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Learn to Work With Your Expectations Instead of Fighting Against Them

 

First, let me state that I am by no means an expert when it comes to managing expectations. I struggle with it on a frequent basis. But I HAVE gotten better at keeping them in check. Here’s what has worked for me:

 

Awareness of Expectations

Expectations can become so ingrained, so knee-jerk, that we often take them for granted and hardly even notice them. In order to become more aware of my own expectations, I’ve committed to paying attention to my disappointments and where they are coming from.

It’s been an interesting and eye-opening exercise. I’ve learned that my expectations anchored in trauma have all-but-disappeared, yet I still struggle with plenty of other maladaptive expectations. And as I become aware of them, I’m better able to adjust them to the actual circumstances.

 

Shift Your Expectations Within Your Locus of Control

When I first started dating post-divorce, I did one smart thing in a great big tangle of not-so-smart things.

I decided that my expectation for every date was that I would learn something. Here’s the beauty of that expectation – it had a 100% chance of being met every single time because I was the one in control of it. I was even able to learn something on the times I was stood up:)

In contrast, if I had expected for every date to go well or every man to be attracted to me (or me to him), I was guaranteed to fall short.

 

Practice Being Flexible

Sometimes when my expectations aren’t met, I don’t become disappointed.

I become irritable.

This happens when I’m knee-deep in my planned tasks (thanks, anxiety!) and I’m having trouble shifting gears when my predictions go awry.

As with everything, practice makes better. So the more I practice being flexible and trusting that it will be okay even if it doesn’t go to plan, the easier it becomes.

 

Keep Your Expectations Realistic

I love to travel and I love to travel with my husband. However, he is not as enamored of trips as I am. So whenever he mentions a possible trip, I get excited.

I used to get too excited.

I would research, plan and dream. Then, I would present him with the information and he would be all, “Eh.” I took his rejection hard, feeling like my hopes had been machete-cut like a coconut on some tropical beach.

But here’s the bigger picture. My husband is an extrovert with ADD. That combination means that many of his thoughts are shared aloud, even the impulsive, not fully-matured ones. So he may want to go on a trip, but the casual mention doesn’t mean that he has fully thought through all of the time and financial repercussions. And that’s who he is, not something I can ask him to change.

As an analytical introvert, I fully think (okay, overthink) anything through before I speak it. And I was listening to him as though he was me. Which of course, he’s not.

So I’ve learned. Now, when he mentions a trip, before I do anything else I ask a few questions – What sort of timeline are you thinking of? Where are you with commitment to this on a scale of 1 to 10? And with just those questions and any needed follow-ups, I know where my expectations should be.

Result? I don’t get disappointed and I thoroughly enjoy the trips I do take – with or without – him.

The best bet is to keep your expectations high, but also realistic.

 

Communicate Your Expectations

If birthdays are important to you, you might get your hopes up as the first birthday approaches in a new relationship. After all, it’s easy to assume that what is important to you is also important to someone else. And then when the day comes, if their excitement isn’t on par with yours and they either fail to appreciate the celebration you created for them or didn’t meet your expectations for the recognition of your birthday, you feel dismissed and unimportant.

Yet it’s also not fair to expect others to meet our expectations if we don’t communicate them. Until Elon Musk develops some sort of implantable mind-reading device, we have to express both our expectations and the importance of them to others.

If we don’t say anything about the expectation, the resulting disappointment is on us.

 

Try to Replace Expectations With Curiosity

Some of my favorite yoga teachers are consistently good, yet I never know what to expect from them since every class is good in its own way. They have helped me shift my thinking before class from, “I hope we do some hip-opening today” to “I wonder what goodness we are going to do in class today.”

When we’re curious, we are not wed to any certain outcome. Instead of closing our minds and sealing the cracks with conclusions, we are throwing the doors wide open to see what might show up.

 

Give to Give, Not to Receive

It feels good to have your efforts recognized and affirmed. But if that’s the only (or at least, a major) reason you’re giving, you will be disappointed. Whether from a lack of awareness or a lack of caring, you will not always be validated for your efforts. Give because you want to give, not because you expect something in return.

 

Distinguish Between Needs and Expectations

Needs are requirements. Expectations are hopes.

Sometimes I confuse those, feeling as though not having my expectations met is a personal attack that causes great damage.

Yet I’ve survived every disappointment that has ever come my way.

We don’t always get what we want.

Yet sometimes as a result, we end up with exactly what we need.

Good Ol’ Gratitude to the Rescue Again

When I do feel disappointed because my expectations have not materialized, I like to pause for a moment to think about the good that has come from the situation. And usually, it’s surprisingly easy to find once I let go of the image of how things are supposed to be.

 

Ultimately, it comes down to this –

You have a right to your expectations. You have a right to feel disappointed. You have a right to not accept behaviors. But you don’t have a right to expect others to act the way that you want them to act. And the sooner you accept that, the more at peace you’ll be.

 

 

 

When All You See is the Path, You Lose the Destination

Posted on by stilllearning2b

I took my second jiu jitsu class today. For the most part, the language of the mat is as unfamiliar to me as Latvian was last month. But every so often, a phrase will reach my ears that makes perfect sense.

At the end of class, my husband has everybody circle up and share one thing they did well in class that day.

(As an aside, how awesome is that? Jiu jitsu is one of those sports where you spend years getting your ass handed to you over and over again. It’s easy for people to leave a class feeling defeated. This one simple ritual helps overcome that negativity spiral. And this is an easy habit that we can ALL do at the end of every day.)

One relatively new student shared about how he’s starting to understand how moves link together and the importantance of not becoming too wedded to a particular attack.

I immediately nodded in understanding, as this was a lesson I learned many years ago in fencing. When you become too committed to one particular move, you become frustrated and easily stuck if that move is thwarted. You become more focused on the specific path than on the desired overall outcome.

My husband described it this way –

 

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The picture on the top is what happens when you become too committed to a particular attack. You develop tunnel vision and you no longer are able to see the other possibilities.

The bottom picture shows a better approach. Know what you’re going for, but also be aware of everything around it. And don’t be afraid to change your approach.

Good stuff, that.

On my afternoon run, I got to thinking about how this same idea applies to life. It’s so easy to get overly focused on how we’re going to reach our goals (a specific partner, a particular job, a desired number of children, an anticipated income), that if those are taken away from us, we feel frustrated and stuck. We become so wedded to those particular things that we cannot see another option.

I went through a little thought exercise on my run. I’d like to share it with you and have you try it too.

 

First, I want you to think of your major life goals/values/driving principles.

Nope, those are too specific. Try again. To help keep them broad, limit yourself to two.

Here’s mine –

  1. I want to leave my little campsite that I’m occupying for my time on earth just a little better than I found it.
  2. I want to live a life that is driven by love not fear.

 

Next, think about what you’re doing in your life right now that helps to meet that goal.

Again, I’ll share some of mine with you –

Goal 1

  • As a teacher, I’m using some of the deficits in my own math instruction to help me reach more students in a meaningful way.
  • After feeling so alone during divorce, I’m working to use my experience to help others that are going through similar.

Goal 2

  • I continually find ways to persevere despite my anxiety about a situation. This could be anything from going down a hill (seriously. I know.) to initiating a difficult conversation with my husband.
  • In the classroom, I choose to handle classroom management through relationship building rather than punitive discipline, which is often motivated by a fear of the kids gaining the upper hand.

 

Lastly, brainstorm some other ways that you could also work towards that same goal that you do NOT currently have in your life.

Here are just a few of mine for goal 1. This is brainstorming, so they run the gamut –

  • volunteer in my community
  • win the lottery and donate a significant sum to a charity
  • pick up trash that I encounter on the trail or the river
  • make an effort to make everyone I speak to feel valued and important
  • go camping and leave behind a “welcome” note with a little firewood for the next guests
  • use my teaching skills to train people in a particular skill so that they can find employment

 

It’s amazingly freeing to step back sometimes and truly see how many possibilities there really are. Even if I lost my job tomorrow, never wrote another blog post and ended up divorced and broke again, I could still find ways to move towards that life goal. (Note to the universe – this is NOT a challenge!)

And that’s a pretty awesome realization.

Even when you lose one approach, you’re not out.

It just means it’s time to try something else.

 

 

Owning Your Ugly

Posted on by stilllearning2b

I was tagged on Twitter yesterday as someone who “owns her ugly.”

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It made me smile.

And then it made me reflect.

You see, I didn’t always own my ugly.

In fact, I engaged in all types of mental gymnastics to wall myself off from it and to distract others from looking at it (Hey! Look over here!).

I was afraid that by allowing others to see my ugly, I would give them a reason to leave me.

And abandonment has always been my greatest fear.

But that’s silly, isn’t it? Not the fear of being abandoned. That’s a very real monster. But the thought that I could somehow fool people (and I’m including my ex-husband in this category) that I didn’t have any ugly.

Because we ALL do.

We all experience motivations at time that are ego-driven. We all fail to fully listen to others at times and instead assume what we want to believe. We all can overreact to something in the present when it twinges on a nerve laid down in the past. We all can allow our insecurities to dictate our actions.

We all try. And we all fall short sometimes.

 

 

This particular group on Twitter has been brought together through the experience of infidelity. Some were the unfaithful partners and some are the betrayed. It’s easy when you’ve been cheated on to spend your energy pointing fingers at the unfaithful partner. It’s a lot harder to look at yourself, especially when your own ugly seems so minimal when placed next to something so horrific as an affair.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not important.

In fact, it’s critical. At least if you want things to change.

 

I can identify three different iterations of ugly in myself that surrounded my husband’s infidelity:

 

Reactivity

In a purely hypothetical, if my ex-husband had come to me and revealed that a friendship with a woman had started to cross some boundaries, I would have screamed at him, cried until my face was purple and swollen and made him feel “less than” for even having an attraction to someone else.

My reaction would have been fear-driven (What if he decides he likes her more than me?), but it would act to intensify my husband’s shame as well as encourage him to hide things from me instead of bringing them out into the open.

Related: The Unintended Consequences of Overreacting

 

Righteousness

This was at its ugliest right after my husband left. I felt like I had some sort of moral superiority over my ex, yet under that guise of virtue was really a desire to punish and a need to be loved.

When he left, my ex was generous with his criticism of me, painting me as materialistic, negative and unaffectionate (none of which are my brand of ugly). And so I became defensive, needing to prove that he was bad and weak whereas I was good and blameless.

And yes, unlike him, I was faithful in my marriage. I never lied to him or withheld important information. But that doesn’t make me better than him. It just makes me different. For a time, I thought that admitting to my own weaknesses would justify what my ex to me. But that’s not the case. No matter my uglies, he’s still responsible for his choices. That part is all his to own.

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Victimhood

“Look what he did to me!” I would cry out to anyone who would listen. “Look at these unjust wounds!” I would exclaim, detailing the exact nature of his betrayals. It felt good in the moment as others would rush to comfort me and condemn his actions.

But it also felt disempowering. As a victim, I was faultless, but I was also impotent, unable to change my situation. It was scary to let go of this guise because it meant taking responsibility for my own healing (It was WAY easier to insist that I needed something from my ex to make it happen).

 

Once you own your ugly, three powerful shifts occur –

1 – Nobody can use your ugly against you. Think of it like blackmail. Once it’s in the open, the blackmailer has no power over you.

2 – You are no longer threatened by the ugly in others. You understand that we all have our faults and you respect those that are willing to face and address their own.

3 – Before we own our ugly, we often try to change others. Once you own your ugly, you recognize the power you have in changing yourself.

 

 

 

 

 

Guest Post: The Best Relationship You’ll Ever Have

Posted on by stilllearning2b

By Adriana Verdad

 

You Should Date Yourself

After failed attempts at dating, and developing feelings for someone who had none for me, I decided I really should try dating myself. Yes, I’d read about it, multiple times, on the internet, in your typical articles geared towards single women. Honestly, at first I thought it sounded super cheesy, and I even had a friend tell me that it was really cheesy, and maybe calling it “dating yourself” is. I’m not going to feed you some crap about how it’s not cheesy at all. It’s wonderfully cheesy. It’s as cheesy as The Notebook, the notion that someday some man will show up to take me on a surprise picnic, or the fact that after all I have been through, I still truly believe in true love. I embrace the cheesy, and I make zero apologies for it.

So, when I first decided to date myself, I thought of what it would look like. I thought of what types of dates I would go on with someone I was dating in the traditional sense: movies, dinners, drinks, coffees, picnics, festivals around town, the art museum, etc. I decided these types of things would work, but I also thought maybe I should see what other ideas were out there, and so yes, I turned to Google and Pinterest. I thought why not think outside the box, so I let others think outside the box for me, at first. I created a whole list on my phone of different types of date ideas, and I will share some of them with you in future posts.

I was more organized about this dating time I carved out for myself at first, clearly marking it down in my daily to do lists as a date with me. I protected this time, and rarely went outside of it, unless of course, a better opportunity came along, like an outing with my girlfriends, or a an actual (very rare) date popped up, or if I had a chance to hookup with someone, but in general these times were sacred to me, and I like that I was so protective of that time at first. It’s when the kids are at their father’s house of course, but I don’t really refer to it as dating myself , although it is. It’s akin to when you’re dating another person, and you settle into such a comfortable routine, that you don’t think so much about it anymore. Like at first, you are so worried about you wear, look like, or what you are going to plan at first, but you slide into a routine, a comfortable routine, with one another. I started to make it less organized, but I still definitely date myself. Now, it’s a Friday night of Netflix, or a Saturday full of reading on my sofa under a big cozy blanket. It might be a Sunday afternoon where I get cute, and take myself to the Art Museum to check out an exhibit I’ve been eyeing, or even my Tuesday night running club, that’s a date with me. I’ve spent a couple hours listening to my favorite music and coloring mandalas. I rarely cancel with myself if I don’t have to. Sometimes, I will go out to a bar, and people watch as I enjoy a couple new beers, or I will stay home and give myself a spa night. The point is, I make it a part of my regular routine. Let’s call it what it really is, self-care.

Just like you would devote time to a relationship that’s important to you, this is how I approach dating myself. The truth is, the relationship we have with ourselves, is far more important than any other. While, I’ll quickly tell you that my children are the most important people in my world, and they are, the reality is that if I don’t take good care of myself, then I’m not at my best to be there for them. This goes for your friendships, your romantic relationships, and even your career too. Dating myself will be something that I will never stop doing until I’m dead.

As I discussed in my last post about how being single has ensured that I will be a better future partner, time and space for yourself, and your partner, are essential to being at your best for one another. So yes, my future partner will have to realize that I need regular time to me. I am more than understanding that they will need time to themselves as well, and I not only highly encourage it, I think that they need it to be at their personal best. I know that when I’m in a relationship, I won’t be able to take a date by myself three times a week, but yes, I will most definitely be taking time out for myself to do things that excite my soul. I think once a week, or every couple weeks, is a good goal if you’re in a relationship, but I am saying that you should make it a priority. It’s called self-care, and it’s so important to helping you be the best lover and friend you can possibly be.

As I’ve said previously, I lost myself in my relationship/marriage, and I forgot who I was. I forgot about the things that brought me joy, put me into a state of flow, like reading and writing. I think that this was incredibly unhealthy for myself, my children, and my marriage. Here’s the deal- your relationship with your kids is significant, and your relationship with your partner will be there, and need to be whole, once the kids have grown up, and moved out, but in the end, you are what you really need. Let’s face it, kids will grow up, and won’t visit as much, spouses pass away, or move on sometimes, but you will always have you as long as you’re alive. While we certainly must give, nourish, and support our children, partners, family, and friends, even our colleagues, we cannot give to everyone else if we are not at our best.

Dating yourself, or if that phrase bothers you, self-care, or just calling it taking time for yourself, is important to keep your cup from overflowing with stress. So, please tell me in the comments below about how you’ve taken time for yourself this past week, or if you didn’t, how you plan to do it this upcoming week. I hope you will take literally one minute to fill in your email address and name below, and follow my blog so you can continue to learn to love the other side of life- whether that’s as a single person, or just loving the other side of your life, as in, the second half of it. Please share this with someone who could use a little encouragement, or validation, in the area of self-care. Thank you!

 

About Adriana Verdad:

I spent over two decades with a narcissistic sociopath, but after leaving him, I have found myself. I’m learning to love life on the other side of marriage, love, and life. I write so that I can help others learn to love the other side as well.

Check out Adriana’a blog, Love the Other Side!