To know a person - part 3

In my opinion one of the most important thing you ever do as a human being is trying to find out who you are and how you function. It is a never ending task but to me it is the essence of being spiritiual or as some like to call it, religious. I have searched for my inner peace for many years, sometimes I think I have it but so far I have only scratched the surface. But a few situations in life has brought me closer to the core of my soul and showed me the diversity of what is really me.

People who does not know me very well usually refer to me as being a calm, positive and confident person. I am always so surprised to hear that because I often feel so nervous, negative and insecure. But I cannot say that it is a facade, at least not a facade that I intentionally have built. I can be confident about myself and about my work, but I also have a very low self esteem. It is better now than before...and it is a work in progress, but so far it is only skin deep.

What I do know now that I did not at 25 is:

1. I have a tendency to be an over achiever and a people pleaser. I have tried to learn how to say no and to trust my gut feeling. And as so often in life I had to learn that the hard way. As a new teacher fresh out of university I took a job that I never should have taken had I listened to my gut feeling. I lasted 2 weeks and during those weeks I went from being a normal tired person to being depressed. I never wanted to kill myself but I did consider walking out in the street to get injured so I had a physical excuse to leave my job...
That experience has made me more in tune with myself and it also made me feel comfortable with talking about depression and therapy. I was fortunate to meet a GOOD doctor who saw the whole me and gave me anti-depressant medicine as well as the phone number to a therapist. During the past 12 years I have been in therapy 4 times and I ended the last session in december last year. For the whole of 2008 I went once a week to group therapy. I was soooo sceptical in the beginning and when they started to talk about using phsyco-drama in the sessions I thought: I am outta here!!! But I stayed. And it was good. It is very weird to realise that acting out stuff that has happend to you actually makes it a little bit easier to then leave it behind you. Group therapy taught me many things but what springs to mind now is: that I am a very open person with very little prestige, that I have a hard time accepting people who have NOTHING to say (I just don't understand how they work, they are like aliens to me) and that I in my subconscience always long to be somewhere else.

2. At 25, 30 or 35 I would have said that I could never ever forgive and forget an affair. In 2005 it happend and what did I learn? Well, for me it was a journey in different directions. The other woman was not so important to me as I thought she would be. I never really tried to find out who she was - the damage was done anyways and it really was not her fault. She was not the one who had made me any promises. In that sense I felt strong, focused and very much in control. When it came to my anger towards my ex I found out that I have a monster inside me. A few times during this period I got so angry with him and it felt like being possesed by some scary force. I could hear my own voice, but it did not sound like me...it was much darker and stronger and completely uncontrollable. I am glad I found that power in me and that I had the courage to let it out. I think that helped me to move forward.

3. When I was younger I had quite a few things that "I would never do". Most of them I have already done and in the beginning of last year I broke one of the most profound promises I had given myself. "Never get involved with a married man". I have still not completely accepted that it happened. But it did. And I guess my lesson here was that life is not black or white, it is not always they way you want it to be and that you will find yourself in all kinds of situations that you never would have imgagined. And that is a GOOD thing! Life is a mystery and that is exactly what makes it beautiful, cruel, fun, scary, unfair, exciting and worth living.

So what I try to tell myself is to: be open, be greatful and don't be afraid. We are all so much stronger than we think we are. And nothing lasts forever, not the good nor the bad.