Self-exploration

My resolution for the upcoming year (and remaining days of this month) is to go on an adventure! The journey I'm embarking on is self-exploration, and it is the start of what will certainly be a life-long quest to having a better understanding of me.

With all the intense processing and grieving I've been going through, I have decided that it is time to stop analyzing myself with a critical eye.  I mean, self-analysis and self-reflection is good. But it's time to stop being judgmental, condemning, and condescending to myself.

For as long as I can remember, I've been a reflective person in the sense that I am really good at scrutinizing myself.  I actually take the time to deal with questions that I have for myself, which have to do with: "How did I mess that up? What did I do wrong? How could I have done that better? What should I have done differently? What would anyone else do? What would most people do? What is wrong with me that this ended up badly? How can I fix myself so I don't make the same mistake again?"

This is how I talk to myself all the time.  This is how I've been reflecting for the past decades, under the guise of self-reflection, self-help, and self-improvement.

I see now that my "growth" really hasn't been a positive, encouraging, reinforcing, or even pleasurable experience. What I've done is critique myself harshly by giving me the permission to judge myself with no holds barred and to let loose my tendency to bask in self-contempt. I thought that blaming myself and changing myself would be the best form of growth for me.  But what's actually happened is that I've nurtured self-blame, self-hate, and self-criticism. I've felt perpetually terrible about who I am as a person, and have tried to compensate in every which way.  I change myself as much as possible to make a situation better, to make someone happier, to please some other entity because my perception of myself is not good enough, not worthy enough, and based on external criteria.

I didn't even realize how much self-judgment I had until recently.  Thanks to blogging, journaling, processing with friends, going through meta-reflection, and also going to therapy, I see now that what I was doing was quite unhealthy.  For the past 7 years, I've tried to "grow" by compensating for whatever it is I did that led to me and Robert's breakup.  Without knowing why we broke up (and I never will), I took on that responsibility, 100%, and attributed all the problems to me-- whatever they are/were.  I assumed that I must have been too demanding, too selfish, too busy, too whatever-- so that is why Robert left me.  I blamed myself because that was the only way I could experience some sort of control over what was unpredictable and uncomprehensible to me.

Well, no more self-blame.  I am deciding to respect that Robert is a grown man capable of making decisions for himself.  I will borrow from the medical field in which there is a belief in client autonomy because each person is assumed to be responsible for their own decision-making.  Robert ended things with me by choice, not by circumstance or situation.  For so many years, I assumed it was anything and everything but his choice.  I imagined that his choice was to be together forever, but that external factors drove us away from each other so that we had to wait to reunite one day.  I realize recently, that my mentality was unreal and simply untrue. Our breakup was not due to circumstance, it was/is a choice that Robert made-- and therefore something that I must respect.  Just like we respect opinions that we don't agree with, I have to respect his opinion in which it is acceptable to break up without having an excuse. I have to live with this reality anyway.  And I can either let that fact be his decision or I can attribute to a never-ending list of my shortcomings.

As I think about it in this new way, I choose to believe in his decision-making and therefore, I choose to finally let go of my idea of "us".  I choose to focus on me more positively from now on, without the intense judgment and contempt that I have always had for myself.  Of course, I will continue reflect on my relationships with people and my role in each of those dynamics.  But I will not assume that I am always to blame. And I will not assume that something is wrong with me and needs to be changed.

Because I am embarking on an adventure that is focused on "exploration"-- I will not assume anything, I will simply explore without any judgment.  I will explore me and what even means! Who am I?  What are my beliefs? What are my core values? What are the things that cannot be compromised? What do I like to do? What do I not like to do? What makes me happy? What doesn't make me happy? What are my priorities in life?

I am sure that as I move through life, these answers will change because I will evolve.  But that I'm even asking these questions is a wonderful and conscious start to self-exploration, self-curiosity, and self-learning.  I cannot fathom being in another relationship without knowing myself more.  I cannot fathom losing myself in another relationship, and relying on another person almost exclusively to help me feel whole.  I absolutely need to know who I am so that I can know what feeling whole will feel like-- what being me feels like.