I was well on my way into that murky, mucky, not-liking-myself place earlier this week when I remembered something key. And this is big...are you ready??
I AM going around and around and around!
Holy shit! Hold the phone! What?!?
Spirals, friends. Spirals. Lessons happen in spirals. It's like climbing a giant spiral staircase. We keep going up and up and up, around and around, passing points we have already seen, but we are on a slightly higher level each time, learning the lessons on a different plain, a different playing field, each time with new people and places and ways of thinking and being (maybe...I've had some lessons in life where only the "ways of thinking and being" were different and the people and places were the same. Just sayin'.)
The reminder came this week while talking with a good friend. He was telling me how he always gets stuck in the same sorts of relationships and feels like he's never learned a damn thing from any of it. After our conversation I was thinking about how I used to feel that way, too, but then I realized that my relationships, romantic or not, had come a long way since the beginning, even though it sometimes felt like I was just learning the same things over and over. But that's just the thing. I WAS! Sort of. I was slowly learning more and more about myself, learning what was important to me, learning what I believed, learning how to be more assertive or honest or real. Each time around I would gain something new, some little spec of wisdom about myself, some slice of greater understanding that I would then take on with me to the next round.
So the reminder for me this week is this: Don't beat yourself up if you're experiencing the same things you have in the past. It's easy to get stuck on the idea that you're stuck, that you never learn. Just remember, peeps. We're all going around and around and around.
And around.
this reminds me of a joni mitchell song :)
ReplyDeleteThat's a pretty cool way to look at things. spirals.
ReplyDeleteSame thing happens to me. I learn something, but then not so long later I'm learning it all over again. But the thing is that it's different. Every time. I notice this particularly with relationships--like you said romantic and not. Maybe because relationships make up our lives entirely. But, my girl and I have been together for a few years and even now sometimes I get fed up with things in our relationship because it seems like we learned that already and it shouldn't be an issue anymore. I think the key for me to remember, especially with her, is that we change every day. Learning to love my girl is a continual process, and even if I learn something about her now I might still be learning that same thing ten years from now.
Great post. Very thought-provoking.