When I reached 30 years of age, I gave myself a party as my gift. I invited my friends and we closed a bar for a karaoke night. It was fun, as we laughed a lot and the night was smooth and joyful. The memories of that night still live today in my mind. At the same time, it was my “leaving do” party, as some days latter I left Brazil for good, moving to Europe, firstly Portugal, and after 3 years to my current home: England, the country that I love and that adopted as my second homeland. 10 years later, I don't have the smallest intention of moving countries again! Beside, I am Taurus, do you remember that e-mail that circulate on the internet about how many people from Taurus are needed in order to change a lamp? None! Taurus doesn’t change anything! I think this is a little over the top, but slightly true. I can see therapy coming on my way!
I am now going towards my forties. The famous age where people tend to revaluate their life, and usually take drastic attitudes, mainly the men, I have to say. Why the number of women going through midlife crisis is not that high? Because they have the menopause to go through! It is impossible to balance both. Going back to the males, it doesn't matter if they are gay or straight, the process and the consequences are the same. Erratic behaviours appear from nowhere and they make fool of themselves, some abandon their family, and some change their beautiful wife of 40 years for another, with half the age: 20, or maybe they swap her for two of 20 years old each. Swapping for 3 with 15 years old would be paedophilia, which is a crime! Some radically change their job, or even carriers. All of that is because they want to be happy at any price. Men going through midlife crisis have a strange relationship with time. They see time flying and they don't want to repeat in the future what they did in the past. A curious point here about me is that until this moment I don't get to see any symptom of this crisis happening. Will my midlife crisis, that was supposed to hit me now, arrive when I am fifty? God have mercy upon my soul! It will be very sad if that happens! Watch out here, I do not have anything against people that are looking for what they believe to be the right thing to do in life; therefore you can hide the stones, the cross, the hammer and the nails!
Throughout my childhood, adolescence and even during my adult life I have lived very close to Peter Pan: My father. In many occasions I questioned his attitudes towards life, family, children and other important subjects for a married man. Today I can see that he was in search of happiness, in his own way, as we all do, and for that I would never say that he was wrong. Maybe the pain he caused to a lot of people was not right, but hey, life is short, isn’t? Besides, what is the point of living with someone that clearly is not going to fulfil your expectations in life?
The truth is that I refused the invitation to live in Neverland. I preferred to live in the land of reality, where people move from passion to love, and from the last one to partnership and friendship. I won't talk about passion now, because that deserves pages and pages of writing. So, returning to my father, he doesn't look the age that he has, actually a lot of people think that he is my older brother, or a distant uncle. Good genes, I hope I have acquired these genes, that will save me a lot of pounds in plastic surgery and perhaps I can use that money to pay for the therapy sessions that I will have to do after having Peter Pan as my dad!
Was my Peter Pan complex resolved along the years? Is the fact of me being part of the fellowship of the silence an important thing that somehow created an immunity to this mid life crisis that I should be going through now that I am approaching the age of the wolf? The true is that very early in life I learned how to believe that stability in life is something cool and important, and I grew up believing that a relationship should be forever... that we have to try to make things work, therefore it is important to have somebody that walk with you side by side. Well, that is nice and well written, however I can not stop thinking that there must be something very wrong going on with me, as my historic of past relationships are not exactly a success, after three failed long relationships, five, six, and ten years respectively, I am back to single town. Oh my God, more money to spend in therapy!
Today, in the middle of the emotional hurricane I am experiencing, I feel strong, ready to face the next years of my life with dignity and tenderness in my heart, with discernment to see my mistakes and my areas of emotional deficiency that need to be tackled. I am sure that adolescent behaviours are not more acceptable, and I do not even want to have them, but at the same time why I do not feel I am forty? It is a duality that for sure will increase the number of hours with my therapist. Oh crap! I need to verify the balance of my savings account; I am becoming really concerned about the costs of it! I am under the impression that the price of each closed gestalt will be very expensive!
Speaking about therapy, I cannot complain about investment so far, it has been showing results. In fact therapy is something wonderful that every person should go through from time to time. In my last session I came to a conclusion that when you are going through the process of ending a relationship or even death, you will be immersed in a process where is necessary to elaborate the mourning for the loss, in another words, you have to grief what you lost. That is a vital process that happens not only when a loving relationship ends, but whenever we lost something that is dear and close to our heart.
The first stage of grief is the one where we suffer for what we had. The past frames us and throw at our face all the good things we had. It is impressive that during this period we never got to think about the bad things that happened; only the good things appear to be relevant! During this time it is good to stay far away from pictures, cheesy songs, and mainly bathtubs. Who never cried in a bathtub before? Besides, the risk of having a mercy fuck is too big! So be strong!
The second stage of the grieving process is the one where we mourn all the things we could have had if the relationship was not ended. This means, we suffer for the future that was robbed from us. We won't travel together, we won't buy that house, and we won't go... anything! You won't make anything else as a couple. Forget it! It’s over! I still thinking that it is not a good idea to come close to a bathtub! And remember, whatever happens to you, stay away from the bottle!
The third and more important stage of the grief process is when we begin to mourn the possibilities. It happens when you start to imagine how things could have been, if you have saw the whole thing coming before reaching you, and if you had made some changes or arrangements to avoid the end. What if I had made this or that? Would it have been worthwhile? What if I had been more careful about his feelings? Is the “what if” phase! Stop torturing yourself. Probably the answer to all the previous questions will be... NO. But the ugly side of this is that you will never know with certainty. And this is the vital moment of this whole process of mourning living people. When you finally come to terms with the fact that this doubt will never clear, you overcame the suffering of the loss, and the world will become more cheerful, the days will become less heavy and the will of living will appear in your soul again.
Now, fill the bathtub with hot water, add some nice aromatic salt, light some gorgeous candles and don't forget to add some petals of roses as well. Pour yourself a nice glass of wine or champagne and take a long relaxing bath, listening to a cheerful song that you like, you will soon realise that life is not complicated and to know how to live is also easy.
The proximity of my birthday has been touching me, not sure for the normal reasons, in fact I have to say that I do not know exactly what is normal or not. All I know is that all the important people around me is insisting that it is a special date, and for this reason I have to commemorate in big (as the Portuguese people say) and my work mates already told me that we should do something, not sure yet, but maybe go to a fancy restaurant, or maybe go to a day trip outside London. My mother and some of my best friends in life will be on route to England in some days, in fact I need to sort things in the house to receive them, I know that will be a pleasant day, because I will be in the company of dear people and that it is all that matter.
I think the conclusion for me is that doesn't matter if you are celebrating your forties or your fifties. Birthdays are just a date where unavoidably you rethink the events in your life and plans the future, something like New Year’s Eve, therefore the thing I will do is to take advantage not from the day itself, but from the company of the people that will be around me, because they deserve to see my happiness, as well as I do. So bring on the Forties!
Finally I will leave here a quote of one of my favourite Brazilian poets: The wonderful Mário Quintana:
“I want, one day, to say to people that nothing was in vain… that the love exists, that it is worthwhile to give it to friends and also to people, that life, yes, it is beautiful, and that I always gave the best of me… and for that, it was worthwhile"
Have a good day.
Laureano Marques
Thursday, 15 April 2010
Monday, 12 April 2010
“We are the result of our choices"
When I was still a student of Psychology in Brazil, more than twelve years ago, in a time that I and my friends thought we were more powerful than God, students of Psychology possess that habit, they are arrogant and petulant and this is scaring! I learned a concept from the Gestalt Therapy that has been kind of guiding my life in a certain way... “We are the result of our choices ".
When we want something, we fight for it. We focus our energy on the subject, on the person, or on the cause we want. Current fact is that we do not measure the consequences for satisfying our desire. Is the desire of the ownership of someone or something larger than everything? In my opinion, it is super normal to fight for what we want; as long as we combine our ambition to the respect we should feel towards other people around us. This is more than healthy, actually I would say that it is vital for our development, after all, nobody wants to be that person that is moved around places without any capacity of making choices, right? That would be sad!
I guess that what I am questioning here is our posture when we are faced with choice situations. It is about the way we behave. What takes us to choose A instead of B or even C? The concept that I am referring here is the one about making the choice itself, because a lot of times the desire to have something alienates us in relation to the other possibilities that we have in front of us.
One of the interesting aspects about what moves us towards a specific option is that on a daily basis we even don’t notice we are making choices at all, but if you stop to think about it, every moment we are opting for something: soup or sandwich? Should I give up chocolate for good? Should I ring him, or should I wait for him ring me? Should I go out or stay in doors? God, so many questions… so many choices! So many things gained, so may things lost!
When we are faced with a choice situation, usually we just do it. We do not think about what we are not going to gain if we had chosen a different option. Especially because, when we are due to make a choice, in a certain way we are already inclined to a certain one. I won't discuss the reason why this behaviour happens, it is not the point now, but I am sure it can be the result of countless situations, but the fact is that the tendencies exist, whether you believe it or not. These tendencies combined with our feeling of urgency, which is inherent to our personalities, are responsible for our decisions and then, exactly like that, we reach to the alternative that we think will give us more pleasure and happiness… and the choice is made...
Great! You now have that feeling that you are and you will be happy with your choices for the rest of your live, well done you! Think about, we do not marry thinking about breaking-up; we don't have children planning to get rid of them in the future and so on. We are the lord of our destiny and choices, we are adults. After all we have chosen the ideal companion, we have accepted the best job offer after carefully consideration, and we decided for the ideal place to live, we picked-up our friends and we haven’t choose our family, we just have them around!
So what? After all these choices, finally everything is beautiful and life proceeds as it should be, like a fairy tale. Small addendum here: I don't believe in fairy tales! Just for the record. Anyway, suddenly... your world falls apart, something very bad happened in your kingdom and you feel your crown is in dangerous. Maybe your beloved husband/wife gave you a beautiful and great kick on ass, which means you were dumped! Or maybe your boss felt like being tired of looking at your face and fired you, moreover, an earthquake maybe happened in the city where you live, or your family... does your family still the same? Well, don’t bother about this one, after all you have not chosen your family, remember? At least you don't need to suffer for that! You were just born among them!
So now it is already too late, there is nothing that you can actually do. You can see the depression knocking on your door with the suitcases and looks like she is coming for good to live with you. The dissatisfaction already entered trough the window and is sat down on your sofa in your living room without being invited and it is sipping a nice cup of tea, readily available to make you company. On top of that, the despair already contacted you letting you know that he is on his way as well. It is all lost now, you are feeling like crap. By this time, only one exit remains, to starts blaming the world for your misfortune! However, you notice that blaming the world is not getting you anywhere, then you begin blaming the God almighty, and not satisfied you then bring the Devil to play a central role in your drama, and finally, any thing or person that can be made responsible by your personal tragedy, after all you are the victim right? You are the poor guy. How could that happen to you? It is not your fault.
Well my friend, here is a little piece of advice for you. If that is happening to you in this exact moment, or when that happens to you again, because I am sure that it is going to happen at some point in time, it is just a matter of time, and no, I am not cursing you, although I have my connections from beyond the grave, they would not go to far! The point is, when that happens, stop and think about how you ended up to the point you are now. Contemplate the whole happiness that you lived previously, and of course you had happy moments, do not be such a drama queen! Think about the whole path you travelled and please, for the love you have to God, or Shiva, Prophet Mohammed, or any saint, remember the reasons that took you to pick this road in the first place. Revive the reasons that took you to make this choice ten days ago, ten weeks, ten months or ten years ago. Do use the pain for the good, stop complaining, grow, learn with your mistakes and you may have lesson for life here: try to do right choices next time.
Do "Stop crying over the spilled milk” How many times you listened to your mother or probably your grandmother telling you that? An unalterable truth exists in this sentence. You are responsible for your life; you choose your own paths. Did anybody force you to make this or that decision, or were you under life threatening circumstances? Did you have a weapon pointed to your head? In case you have answered yes for any of the above questions you are then excusable and do not need to continue reading this text till the end! You were one of the lucky ones.
The human being is endowed with free will, the capacity to choose independently; therefore what about to take the lead of your life and stop imputing blame to the others? Your family, your parents, your friends and also the world out there do not hate you, on the flip side there is a lot of good people outside that worries about you want to see you well. Do make use of your friends, but doesn't abuse them ok? After all everybody have their own problems. I don't think that is an easy exercise, on the contrary, it is something painful, that we force us to see things in us that a lot of times we just deny, but in some way we need to become better people, not only because the others, but for us.
Within three weeks I will reach forty years of age and I remember when I was still a child, where I ran free in my imaginary and physical world, where my innocence allowed me to travel to the future, I used to sat down under this giant mango tree in the back yard of my house and I would then imagine how my life would be when I would finally reached my forties. In that time even my mother had not arrived there. I have to admit that in some moments of my life I doubt I would reach the 03rd of May of 2010, but in spite of my human doubts, I am more and more close to this milestone. I have got the intention for this day to be a special day, where I want people that love me around me. I want to feel special and in some way the memories of this day will help me to get through the next ten years and then I can celebrate my fifty birthday.
The winds of the change blow unmercifully towards our life and suddenly we came across situations that force us to revaluate our life and old choices and promises. Sometimes we have to look back and face the facts about why we took that specific rod? I have been learning that whatever may happen to me I will continue to try to be happy, and I will always try to analyse my possibilities before making any choice.
A good week to you and remember to think twice before making a choice, use your wisdom and with care, do considerer all your alternatives and options before opting for something, however, when you choose the road to follow, don't look back, follow it, fight for what you believe, work everyday to proof to you that you have done the right choice in your life and if you find out that it was wrong after all, no worries, go back, analyses the remaining choices you have and begin again. This is what we call leaving!
When we want something, we fight for it. We focus our energy on the subject, on the person, or on the cause we want. Current fact is that we do not measure the consequences for satisfying our desire. Is the desire of the ownership of someone or something larger than everything? In my opinion, it is super normal to fight for what we want; as long as we combine our ambition to the respect we should feel towards other people around us. This is more than healthy, actually I would say that it is vital for our development, after all, nobody wants to be that person that is moved around places without any capacity of making choices, right? That would be sad!
I guess that what I am questioning here is our posture when we are faced with choice situations. It is about the way we behave. What takes us to choose A instead of B or even C? The concept that I am referring here is the one about making the choice itself, because a lot of times the desire to have something alienates us in relation to the other possibilities that we have in front of us.
One of the interesting aspects about what moves us towards a specific option is that on a daily basis we even don’t notice we are making choices at all, but if you stop to think about it, every moment we are opting for something: soup or sandwich? Should I give up chocolate for good? Should I ring him, or should I wait for him ring me? Should I go out or stay in doors? God, so many questions… so many choices! So many things gained, so may things lost!
When we are faced with a choice situation, usually we just do it. We do not think about what we are not going to gain if we had chosen a different option. Especially because, when we are due to make a choice, in a certain way we are already inclined to a certain one. I won't discuss the reason why this behaviour happens, it is not the point now, but I am sure it can be the result of countless situations, but the fact is that the tendencies exist, whether you believe it or not. These tendencies combined with our feeling of urgency, which is inherent to our personalities, are responsible for our decisions and then, exactly like that, we reach to the alternative that we think will give us more pleasure and happiness… and the choice is made...
Great! You now have that feeling that you are and you will be happy with your choices for the rest of your live, well done you! Think about, we do not marry thinking about breaking-up; we don't have children planning to get rid of them in the future and so on. We are the lord of our destiny and choices, we are adults. After all we have chosen the ideal companion, we have accepted the best job offer after carefully consideration, and we decided for the ideal place to live, we picked-up our friends and we haven’t choose our family, we just have them around!
So what? After all these choices, finally everything is beautiful and life proceeds as it should be, like a fairy tale. Small addendum here: I don't believe in fairy tales! Just for the record. Anyway, suddenly... your world falls apart, something very bad happened in your kingdom and you feel your crown is in dangerous. Maybe your beloved husband/wife gave you a beautiful and great kick on ass, which means you were dumped! Or maybe your boss felt like being tired of looking at your face and fired you, moreover, an earthquake maybe happened in the city where you live, or your family... does your family still the same? Well, don’t bother about this one, after all you have not chosen your family, remember? At least you don't need to suffer for that! You were just born among them!
So now it is already too late, there is nothing that you can actually do. You can see the depression knocking on your door with the suitcases and looks like she is coming for good to live with you. The dissatisfaction already entered trough the window and is sat down on your sofa in your living room without being invited and it is sipping a nice cup of tea, readily available to make you company. On top of that, the despair already contacted you letting you know that he is on his way as well. It is all lost now, you are feeling like crap. By this time, only one exit remains, to starts blaming the world for your misfortune! However, you notice that blaming the world is not getting you anywhere, then you begin blaming the God almighty, and not satisfied you then bring the Devil to play a central role in your drama, and finally, any thing or person that can be made responsible by your personal tragedy, after all you are the victim right? You are the poor guy. How could that happen to you? It is not your fault.
Well my friend, here is a little piece of advice for you. If that is happening to you in this exact moment, or when that happens to you again, because I am sure that it is going to happen at some point in time, it is just a matter of time, and no, I am not cursing you, although I have my connections from beyond the grave, they would not go to far! The point is, when that happens, stop and think about how you ended up to the point you are now. Contemplate the whole happiness that you lived previously, and of course you had happy moments, do not be such a drama queen! Think about the whole path you travelled and please, for the love you have to God, or Shiva, Prophet Mohammed, or any saint, remember the reasons that took you to pick this road in the first place. Revive the reasons that took you to make this choice ten days ago, ten weeks, ten months or ten years ago. Do use the pain for the good, stop complaining, grow, learn with your mistakes and you may have lesson for life here: try to do right choices next time.
Do "Stop crying over the spilled milk” How many times you listened to your mother or probably your grandmother telling you that? An unalterable truth exists in this sentence. You are responsible for your life; you choose your own paths. Did anybody force you to make this or that decision, or were you under life threatening circumstances? Did you have a weapon pointed to your head? In case you have answered yes for any of the above questions you are then excusable and do not need to continue reading this text till the end! You were one of the lucky ones.
The human being is endowed with free will, the capacity to choose independently; therefore what about to take the lead of your life and stop imputing blame to the others? Your family, your parents, your friends and also the world out there do not hate you, on the flip side there is a lot of good people outside that worries about you want to see you well. Do make use of your friends, but doesn't abuse them ok? After all everybody have their own problems. I don't think that is an easy exercise, on the contrary, it is something painful, that we force us to see things in us that a lot of times we just deny, but in some way we need to become better people, not only because the others, but for us.
Within three weeks I will reach forty years of age and I remember when I was still a child, where I ran free in my imaginary and physical world, where my innocence allowed me to travel to the future, I used to sat down under this giant mango tree in the back yard of my house and I would then imagine how my life would be when I would finally reached my forties. In that time even my mother had not arrived there. I have to admit that in some moments of my life I doubt I would reach the 03rd of May of 2010, but in spite of my human doubts, I am more and more close to this milestone. I have got the intention for this day to be a special day, where I want people that love me around me. I want to feel special and in some way the memories of this day will help me to get through the next ten years and then I can celebrate my fifty birthday.
The winds of the change blow unmercifully towards our life and suddenly we came across situations that force us to revaluate our life and old choices and promises. Sometimes we have to look back and face the facts about why we took that specific rod? I have been learning that whatever may happen to me I will continue to try to be happy, and I will always try to analyse my possibilities before making any choice.
A good week to you and remember to think twice before making a choice, use your wisdom and with care, do considerer all your alternatives and options before opting for something, however, when you choose the road to follow, don't look back, follow it, fight for what you believe, work everyday to proof to you that you have done the right choice in your life and if you find out that it was wrong after all, no worries, go back, analyses the remaining choices you have and begin again. This is what we call leaving!
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