(no subject)
It's astounding how blind we can be to our own self projections.
I had to set a boundary with someone the other day - I should have set it long ago. But I didn't have the sense of self and the clarify of mind about my feelings to do that until, well this point in life in my 30s.
So, I sent an email where I set the boundary, and explained the reasons why it important. I have really struggled with setting boundaries in life, and so this was a really big, positive step for me.
I really struggle with setting boundaries, because when I did try to set them in my younger years - I was told things like, "can't you just be nice", "can you just allow so and so to ..." and "it's not really that important". Well fuck that, is how I feel now. After years of letting my needs go unmet and then getting really, really angry after awhile and exploding (verbally) at someone. I finally realize that there was something I wasn't doing out of fear - which was saying something sooner. Like, when your gut first goes, "ugh, that's not right. I don't feel good about that."
So, with a feeling (with my recent surgeries) that my health is on the line with this kind of stuff (back storing so much of the anger that I think it was starting to solidify into physical manifestations), I say my piece now.
I feel that that is EXACTLY the thing I needed to do - take responsibility for what I was allowing to happen before, and taking a step to do something to take care of it myself. Now, what I asked the person to do was to NOT do something within our friendship relationship. And I'm sure she thinks (with her Aquarian parts and Capricorn moon), how DARE you try to control me and limit my freedom. But, really, I'm not. I'm offering her the terms required for a continued active relationship with me, where I consider and treat her as a friend. If she doesn't like those terms, and she doesn't want to do what I need her to when it comes to interacting with me, then she doesn't have to. But then, I don't have to spend energy trying to mend this friendship and grow it into something new that we both like (which is what I've tried to do). SO, I can unplug from her, take my energy back and re-invest that particular energy on actions and people that provide better returns for me.
And you know, when I was laying in bed last night, just about to fall asleep and thinking on this, a thought drifted in on that inbetween waking and sleep state: It makes sense that as you change, your friends change. And so, maybe that's the answer here.
To note, what I had asked her to do was not to obligate me in plans and plan changes without talking to me first. Oh heaven's to Betsy! Having to take my needs into account in activities in which I would invest my resources (time, money, travel). She's used to a lifestyle where she does whatever she wants to do. But I think in relationships, you can live like that - but if you turned a blind eye to what is supportive to the well-being, good-feeling of the "other" in your relationships, well, they probably will go spend time elsewhere where it's easier to feel good / get their needs met - at least, if their needs end up going unmet for a long enough time.
I do not mean this to say that the other people in our relationships are responsible for making us feel good - not at all. The opposite, in that - if I'm responsible for making myself happy. Why in the name of the Powers that Be would I continue to put myself in situations where there were frequent instances of active opposition and obstacles to getting my needs met, that were put up by others? Why wouldn't I go, "Huh. There must be a better / easier way." And start looking for other environments, relationships in which to get those needs met or to find support for getting them met?
This one particular friend has ceased to offer me much in benefit as far as support. Sometimes she's supportive. But a lot of times, she's like an old wooden floor in an attic. Sometimes you can put your full weight on a spot, and it holds. And sometimes, though the floor looked solid, it totally falls through. And the spots on the floor all look so similar in condition, it's really hard to tell when the support will hold and when it will fail.
I consider the most important thing in a friendship to be regard for each other. If you do not have a regard - and a similar sets of values where you can relate to what's most important to each other, and offer support for it. ... then don't you end up in conflict-of-value situations, where you only support each other in the sense of offering challenge for growth? Which, frankly, I think you can get in all the other relationshps in life, just fine - and aplenty. We don't choose our family (usually, at least consciously after birth, to my current thinking), but what friends we invest in, that is a conscious choice. Even a marriage - I can see weathering out value conflicts, but friendships where there are so few shared values that there is more conflict than support? I am sure there are value in those kinds of relationships for some, but not for me. I want my friends to be like a non-physical home for spirit - true, real friends where there is a genuine exchange of love. Which is like, at best, looking upon each other with genuine appreciation and recognition of all you are. And perhaps to a lesser degree is just, holding space for you - that what you do is o.k. In the end, after perhaps some disagreements, that's what it resolves to.
SO, the thing with the friend above is that, I set the boundary, and perhaps made the mistake of explaining my reasons. Probably I should have just said what I specifically require. And somehow, I felt it would be more gentle if I logically explained that in the past, she's done what I was asking her not to do, and I just can't allow it anymore - and so in case she was going down the same path she has before (involving travel to the same city). Perhaps I should have said more simple, "Don't do this."
The reason I think this, and I KNOW I don't have information and could be off base. But I'm not having any Neptune transits to my knowledge, and the puzzle pieces line up unusually neatly, where I am suspecting that she shared my email with another semi-mutual friend. And then that friend posted some update on FB about people who act like victimes over and over and over again. [EDIT: To explain this, I sent the email early in the morning yesterday, and still haven't heard back from the friend. And there is a history with this particular group of friends where there will be something I think is really important and that bears emotional processing, and that they think is me whining.]
And I just thought a) IF I am correct and this happened, the hipocrisy is so glaring, it's almost a rediculous act on the parts of both of them - so if my friend feels "victimized" because she thinks I was acting like a victim, and then shared it with another friend, who then also felt so "victimized" by watching what she perceived to be a victimization of my other friend ... erm, aren't they BOTH playing the victim they accuse me of being?
b) I wasn't playing victim. I said outright in my email that I had ALLOWED what happened in the past. and that held myself ACCOUTABLE for preventing future occurances. But I also held her accountable for performing the action in the past, and even so - that I couldn't really blame her for it, because I hadn't told her what I needed. And hence, I was taking responsibility to make sure that I no longer allowed it to happen. And set a boundary. To note, I also further noted that I may be jumping the gun - but it was very important to say something before a repeat could happen. (That was part of my responsibility to myself.)
There actually was a lot of love energy behind the words in the email, because it really is easier for me to find ways to love other people, when I am just sitting there feeling so kindly towards myself. It's like, if I get a bunch of money, one of the first things I want to do is share it. I do the same thing with feelings of well-being.
BUT, I also admit that later, I became conscious of some old anger that had been behind the words, too - that later coalesced into a thought of "putting that bitch in her place". That is long overdue anger. She's been able to run rough shod over me for a long time, and I had a lot of backlogged anger that needed to be expressed and cleared before other better feelings/thoughs about her could backwell in - it was basically a big "NO!" the kind you are supposed to shout at someone attacking you at night, alone, in an underground parking garage. So, Ashley, I say to you on changing plans that involve me without regard to my preferences/needs, on the inconsistent-attic-floor support, the sharing of the inner exchanges of our relationship other mutual friend in order to try to gang up on me: "NO!"
Do not start making plans in front of me on FB, with other friends, for the timeframe when were supposedly coming from Colorado to visit me without talking with me about what's going on, and expecting me to *not* have some input or a reaction. And do not, any longer, pretend you have no emotional responsiblity for your involvement and feelings around any email I've sent or interactions we've had - in particular in the past several years.
[And here I just need to vent old-fashioned style, and YES it's WHINEY - because indulging in it for just a bit makes me petty, instead of angry, which is a step up the emotional scale that is not so far from optimism and hope]
It's not that this could not have been worked out very peacably to meet everyone's needs. It's that Ashley is always very me-me-me and likes to do whatever she wants (no matter the impact to others) and thinks we'll just work out the details later. Well, in the past those details were expensive for me when I allowed this. ANYHOO I'm tired of defending my feelings on this. And I think it's un-necessary.
[End vent.]
SO, and to make matters worse, if she DID then involve our other friend - which I suspect because there was a meltdown with that particular group of friends, where I have really resisted letting them go. And I kept thinking, if I can just get them to understand and have regard for me. Give me space and show me that they feel I'm important, that they appreciate and value me for who I really am - then maybe we could stay active friends.
But this is where I've gone "wrong" in that, they now just see this as me "holding on to a victim mentality" and rehashing something over and over again. And they do not see anything else. I do need regard for me to continue the relationships in the future. And I do know that what happened in the past repeats unless the other person takes accoutability/acknowledges the dynamic that happened. If not, then I do become responsible, from my own perspective, for the repeat behavior - because I know that's how poeple tend to work, unless there was some outstanding/unusual context/impetus for them to behave a certain way that was out-of-general-character in that situation. And so, I feel I have two choices - get them to acknowledge, at least, that it's important how I feel. And quit dismissing every non-positive feeling I have as "whining" and "complaining". And then, what I really have to do, I think, is take the other option because I also, I have to admit, finally know in my gut (and I used to just know logically), that you can't expect people to change what they think in these ways; if they haven't changed after your explanantion #1 or #2, further explanations are wastes of energy. And you can work really hard to try to influence how they feel, but if they feel good about what they're doing now (or at least better about it then how they think they'll feel trying to look at things from your perspective) - they aren't going to change, and why should they? And so, then option 2 - my way of taking responsibility for having better feeling experiences with friends is ... to let these friends go. Really let them go.
And I don't see any benefit in letting them go with a negative feeling around it - I like the image of setting little wooden boats adrift in lake. Letting them go, to ride the waves they will without a direct connection to me, even a very loose one.
One philosophy that I have heard is that, once formed, "relationships are forever". I'm not sure yet if I really get what that means, but I think it means that while we can set the wooden boats adrift, there is still a line of awareness between the sender and each boat. Because once we are aware of someone, it's difficult to truly become (even unconsciously) unaware of them. But how that's a relationship, exactly, I'm still not sure. Maybe it's a relationship in that there is a connection - but not in the sense I'm used to using the word, which includes interaction.
So anyway.
One last thing I wanted to note - I think the friend with the Capricorn moon is working in its shadow form, by not growing into taking emotional responsibility for her emotional involvements. I was going to say more here, but then I realized she may read this. And I don't particularly want to invest energy in training / teaching her, because, well, what's in it for me?