Does having the last word matter?

I had the last word. Pretty much… but my last words weren’t exactly what I felt.

I guess this is the price you pay when you choose to be amicable about things. People would probably tell me that it’s not worth it. This person isn’t worth my time, my anger, the trouble to speak to him. But I just feel that I have kept everything inside for all this time.

I can’t say he didn’t suffer in any way. But at the end of the day, I don’t know how he feels about it all, and I can only examine and deal with my own feelings. At first it was just disappointment, sadness, regret… but now, it’s changing into anger.

I don’t identify with the all’s fair in love and war thing. Yes, I have received forgiveness for hurting people before, and the person said the same to me; there is not right and wrong in a relationship. But if you ask me, I would say that despite this ‘doctrine’, there are just some things you don’t do to people if you want to be viewed a normal human being.

At this point, I just want to sit him down, and rant, and tell him how I felt deceived, how I felt hurt, how I felt used, how I was not appreciated, how he could’ve been more honest in the beginning and how he can’t keep treating people this way. I know he may not care for what I have to say, and obviously it’s not going to change him, but I do want to get it out of my system. Why? Because I have never once confronted him about anything… not with anger.

I’ve always wonder if it really is a virtue that I never throw tantrums, or it’s just stupid of me for never expressing myself when I needed to. Each time I felt angry, I would end up talking around in circles because I didn’t how to express my thoughts. Full-blown anger would rile him, emotional blabber annoys him, and while I know the best way is to stay calm, be rational and give good examples to illustrate things, it’s so difficult when you feel upset. The biggest problem is when he starts responding, and I lose my train of thought, and get swayed by his opinion. Sometimes I even get intimidated, God knows why…

I’m rambling now. I can feel my emotions welling up and I’m starting to lose my train of thought, but somehow writing always seems more effective for me; at least when I get lost, I can compose myself and try again. I am well aware that this post is pointless, other than helping me air my thoughts… so… yea. I just want to yell at him now, because I never did.

I wish I were a cold, hard bitch sometimes. It might have either made me more resilient, or at least I would not take shit from anyone. But I guess one can never eliminate their true nature. The fact is I will always be a softie, and I just need to learn to put on some armor. Anger is how I protect myself from feeling sad and forlorn, so I guess my defense mechanism is kicking in now.

I honestly hope I never have to write a post like this ever again... It's not productive at all :P

The Power of Forgiveness

All this time, when I read about forgiving and moving on, I simply took in the idea, and agreed. I have never really carried out a proper act of forgiveness or felt its true power before.

Today, I was thinking about something hurtful that happened to me some time ago. I relived the pain, the hurt and bewilderment I felt back then in the 5 to 10 minutes that I replayed the incident over, and over again in my mind. I realised that I was starting to feel sick. My chest felt constricted, my stomach souring from the gastric juices that were secreted due to the stress, and my heart felt so heavy with sadness and pain. Then, all of a sudden, I decided it was enough. What happened had happened. It was already in the past. I no longer wanted to relive it or even be controlled by the fear it had created and planted in me. If it happens again, I would definitely have the sense and courage to remove myself from the person who is hurting me, but for now, what I need to do is to forgive.

A friend told me: To forgive a person, you need to express it to the person. Let the person know that whether or not he/she is worthy of your forgiveness, you will forgive him/her. Only with this sincere expression of forgiveness, you will be able to move on and be released from the pain.

But I believe that sometimes, a person may not be ready to hear of your forgiveness. This person may not understand what needs your forgiveness for perhaps the incident had passed, and they prefer if it not be dredged up again. Or maybe this person is no longer part of your life? This is where I am applying my personal method. I did it today, and I felt freer of pain than I had been in a long time. I am now free of the fear that this incident had planted in me all this time, and I can take another step forward in my journey to personal freedom.

At first, it was only a thought in my head. I told myself it was time to forgive and move on. If you love yourself enough, or even if you loved the person enough, you will forgive them. But that does not mean you tolerate the action. It only means that you recognise it as a hurtful action this person had done unto you, and you will not continue or repeatedly judge or condemn the person for it. After this thought had materialised in my head, I felt some of the load had lifted, and I felt so happy. I was so happy, that I decided to move on to the next step.

The next thing I did, was to verbalise the forgiveness. Since I couldn't say it to the person, I wrote a letter to the person. In the letter, I wrote about how I recognise the action had been done, but because I would like us both to move on and heal from it. I am forgiving this person for it because I want to release the person from the burden of carrying the blame for hurting me. I want this person to know that what was done is forgiven. Because I want to be able to continue to love this person in earnest, I will forgive, and hopefully from now on, this person will feel nothing but love from me. No more blame, no more judgement and no more condemnation... I wish this person to be free from the dark moments we had because of the incident.

By the time I finished the letter, I felt like a different person. It's like one of those scenes in a movie, where a smoke of darkness leaves a person's body to dissipate into thin air. I felt free of pain... to the point that the very thought of that dark time didn't even prick me. It became just a thought, a happening... sort of like a leaf that happened to fall on the pavement; nothing.

So if you have always thought that you forgave someone for something they'd committed against you, but all you did was just ignore the person or incident, try to forget it, or simply suppress it in your memory... I am here to attest that this pain will come back to haunt you. The best way to move on and release yourself from this is to face it; understand that what the person did was nothing personal to you (refer back to Don Miguel Ruiz's The Four Agreements), and forgive them... for it is not your fault or doing that they did it, and to understand that you have no control over what people do. It is especially easy to believe that none of this is your fault, if you have done your best to be impeccable all this time. You can take your moment to relive the whole incident and reassess it, but once you are done, tell yourself that it was not your fault it happened. Once you have done that, tell the person...

"I forgive you. Whether or not you are deserving of forgiveness, I forgive you. Because I want to release myself from this pain so that I may heal and move on, and I wish for you to release yourself from the guilt and burden of hurting me so that you may do the same."

Well... do it in any way that you like, but just try to express the forgiveness; be it on paper or verbally to the person in question. Whether or not the act of forgiveness is appreciated, it doesn't matter. The most important thing is... you are now free from that pain :)

Of Disappointment & Heartaches

I'm writing this on behalf of myself and some stuff my friends are going through... and I'm thinking... we all need to read The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman.

So many of us, in so many occasions, have probably done something for someone we like, love, cherish, respect and care for... only to feel that they don't seem to feel the same about us. In return, we become depressed or upset, and we react in possibly the stupidest ways people can imagine. What does it bring us? Only humiliation, disappointment and heartache because we acted on that impulsive moment of dissatisfaction.

I can't count how many times I have done this in my entire life, with so many relationships... be they with my boyfriend, my friends or my family. When they don't react in the way I expect them to towards something I have done, I start to get depressed. I'd wonder why the person doesn't understand my intentions. I'd wonder why the person wouldn't react the way I wanted him/her to. I'd wonder why he/she is being mean to me. These feelings of depression sometimes escalate into resentment, and if I'm lucky... full-blown anger.

The worst thing a person can do is to try all means to get the expected reaction from the other party. This is where the humiliation I mentioned earlier starts to surface. You don't realise it, but you demean and humiliate yourself as you attempt again and again to get the attention and required reaction from the other party. And when you fail again after your N-th try, you may start thinking, "Oh my god... I've made such a fool of myself. The other person probably thinks I'm a psycho, nutcase, needy bitch, retard, etc." (insert any other description of a fool you prefer). Then you may start doing stuff that's supposed to 'redeem' you for your earlier bout of insanity. And the cycle continues until you regain your sanity and realise it's time to just S-T-O-P! Stop before you reach the point of no return... stop before you destroy everything you have. The silliest thing is that maybe, and you'll be damn lucky if this is true... the other person was not affected at all. They didn't even know what has happened nor do they know about the torment you've put yourself through because of them.

I just told a friend earlier "No point being disappointed in people who don't understand your true feelings and thoughts. Let them be..."

This is not to ask the person to write the other person off, but to understand that different people have different ways of expressing themselves to you. If the world actually understood that everyone has their way of expressing love, care and concern, I believe everyone would be much happier. I've been seeing a lot of writings of this topic as of late, so I'm also putting in my 2 cents worth on this issue.

It's a tough process... to understand that while your partner may not be into cuddling, it doesn't mean your partner doesn't want to be near you... to understand while a person you like always gives you full attention, it doesn't necessarily the person likes you the same way yet... to understand that while a person only checks in on you with short messages throughout the day to see if you're well, it doesn't mean the person doesn't care as much as a person who has long conversations with you all day long... to understand that while a person has sooo much to say to you, it doesn't mean that they want your attention 24/7 because they're needy. If all of us took the time to see the good things these people do for us, we may be able to downplay the things that don't seem to go right for us.

And for those 'unaffected people', it may be good to reflect on how you treat others and understand the impact you have on them. Maybe you need to try not to be too nice if you don't mean for the other person to mistake your niceness for liking? Maybe you need to be a bit more sensitive to the other person's feelings so that you don't say something callous when they need some comforting words from you? Maybe you need to speak less and speak of things that really matter so that your words will carry more weight, or so that the other person will pay more attention to what you want to convey?

I'm beginning to learn how to accept the good that people do for me, and discount and move on for the times they don't really react the way I want them to. Eventually, it's not about winning anymore, and if there is always tomorrow, there is always hope to try another day. Hehe! But... if you've managed to upgrade your mindset, you won't really care anymore if the person doesn't react exactly the way you want them to. Instead, you're just happy if they reacted at all. LOL! Some people may say this is being 'easily contented', but I will just call this 'counting your blessings', and not letting your dissatisfaction take you for a spin. You may realise much later that it was so petty, it wasn't worth the disappointment and heartache to begin with.

Good night people :)