life lessons – Yellywelly

I’ve just finished binge watching Off Campus. Yes, yes, I will be a forever card carrying girly girl and I do love my rom coms. I know some of the romcoms don’t necessarily reflect real-life relationship scenarios and some people will say that most of the relationships in movies or TV series are dysfunctional. But sometimes romantic comedies are just that — a showcase of romance and a little something-something to make you giggle. You can’t always take life too seriously!

Okay SPOILER ALERT. What I did love about Off Campus was the cerebral bit (that’s what I’m calling it in my head. Deal with it!). There was a discussion of Kierkegaard’s two contrasting truths, how the objective and subjective truths can coexist at the same time. I loved how the concept was explained. It was like an on-screen CliffsNotes on philosophy. I can’t believe Netflix had a real teaching moment!

A swan can look serene on the surface but furiously paddling below.

You can fall apart and still be full of wonder. Both are true at once. — Unknown

We can hold space for two truths all at the same time. Humans are a wonderful paradox and have this amazing capacity for contradiction: we can be competitive but kind, we can act in complete defiance of our beliefs and yet live lives that embody our values, we can be completely heartbroken and yet laugh out loud while watching a rom-com movie, you can love someone and yet know that you can’t be in that space anymore. We don’t have to live in single-box identities.

There are no hard and fast rules when you are in the recovery road. You don’t have to be serious and all about the learning. You can laugh and find joy when it presents itself. Learning to deal with the trauma and also notice the glimmers can be simultaneous when you are healing.

Every choice you make has a consequence. Choose wisely and choose often. — Unknown

We’re encouraged to choose, to choose wisely, to choose what’s best, what feels right, what feels good. Eventually, following all the choosing, we’ll need to face the consequences of our actions. No one actually prepares you for how soul-destroying and heart-wrenching it can be when it all goes wrong, and you look at how your choices have impacted your life, how you’re going to pick up the pieces, if the choices you made don’t necessarily lead to the life you thought it would lead to.

What do you do? Where do you go from here? How do you manage? Then the worrying wheel starts turning. Then the anxiety starts climbing. Then the panic starts choking you. Your brain starts screaming: What the hell have you done?!?

The first thing you do is you stand still. The need to move will probably feel inescapable. But you need to keep still. You need to breathe. You take a breath to settle and stop the spiralling and spinning.

Then you need to forgive yourself for the decisions you made. They were choices you made with the capacity and knowledge available to you at the time. You are where you are now, and it is what it is. Settle and learn. See the lessons.

After that, you accept responsibility for your actions, but also accept that you did what you could with the emotional capacity, wisdom, and life experience you had at the time. You were learning, processing, synthesising and executing in real-time. Stay still long enough to learn the lessons. Settle so that the wisdom and evolution bakes in and takes hold.

Then map out where you go from here, armed with lessons learned, kindness for yourself. You didn’t know then what you know now. And that’s okay. Now you can choose better.