I use sporting events. My move back home because breakup with my boyfriend. Happened during Cubs playoffs I seen no hope in my life but I didnt want to miss seeing Cubs in world series. Just live to see another day. I found doing random Google search I dont need everything fixed just one thing.
I have found that one of the most difficult things about being a teacher is giving hope. What makes it difficult most of the time is that a person, usually a student or a parent is using a situation as a control mechanism. They don't really want any sort of hope brought into the situation. For example, some parents don't want to hear too many good things about a teenager who they are having trouble with at home. It makes them feel like they aren't in control. When the positivity I am bringing into their situation is not regarded as genuine, as they don't want it to be true, it leaves me feeling a bit hollow. I used to bring some of this home with me, even on breaks and vacations. I came to a reckoning that, even though I have worked mostly in expensive private schools, I am not in the people pleasing business. I leave that to the admin and I focus on academics and classroom management. I gained a lot of "me" space and even found time to publish a book. I look forward to every passing day, even when I wish some parts of some days would pass faster than they do!
I had a crushing experience of being stood up last week. While I bear no malice, and not even much anger towards that person for 100% failing to show up, WOW! It crushed me. All I needed was 15 seconds of care or consideration — a simple text that said, “I’m sorry, I can’t make it today.” I got crickets. No communication, no idea why they weren’t there — ghosted. Still-faced. Totally ignored. Instead of connecting — something I’d been looking forward to, and preparing for — I got nothing. A deep, aching nothing.
I texted once. Twice. Three times. Four times. Still nothing. I called. Voice mail.
I’m usually a pretty hopeful, positive person. But this came at an unusually bad time for me, because I’ve been going full-on with my inner work: facing the darkest of dark stuff. I was already pretty low and dysregulated. This absolutely tipped the bucket. I didn’t have my normal resiliency to bounce back. I hit bottom. I lost all sense of hope.
At first, I was just numb and tried to carry on as usual. But as one day, and then another day went by, with still no communication, I entered a horrible hell realm of leaden greyness. Parts of me questioned everything – what did I do to deserve this? What had I done to this person to deserve such cut-off? What was wrong with me because I thought we were friends and I trusted this person, but this is what I got in return? Combing over the preceding days, I came up with various theories about what I’d done wrong, what I could do better, and what I won’t do in the future blah blah blah. None of that helped though. It was like acid had been poured on my soul, and it just kept eating away at me!
I kept in communication with the parts of me who were feeling so utterly abysmal—simply talking about how much it hurt. Cycling around and around and around the event and the timeline leading to being stood up and the aftermath.
Finally, at around 1 AM two days after it happened, I texted for a fifth time, requesting that this person please let me know if they are OK. I mean, maybe they were hit by a car! To their credit, they did text me back.
That let me know it wasn’t an accident, which helped me get some traction and understand that, for some reason, it wasn’t available to this other person to consider how it would impact me if they 100% removed all contact in our relationship out of nowhere.
I realized I’m not able to be in a relationship with someone who is capable of doing this to me.
I realized part of the extreme pain and grief I was feeling, was the extreme pain and grief of facing into the fact that the relationship was over — that by treating me this way, this person had unilaterally decided to end the relationship. Whether it was intentional or not, whether that was what they meant to do with their actions, that was the outcome. Being still-faced is one of the most painful and dysregulating experiences humans can have in relationship. You can go on YouTube and search “still face experiment” and see how exquisitely horrible it is. In good faith, I can’t be in relationship with people who do that to me. No matter what their reasons are, the impact is just too apocalyptic for my little parts.
As I came to understand that the pain wasn’t just the initial experience, but also the reality that it meant our relationship was over, it brought up the end of pretty much every friendship I’ve ever had in my entire life! It was like dominoes tipping over, one hitting the next. The grief was astounding! I had no idea I was still carrying sadness about the end of so many past friendships.
As I allowed the grief to rise up, at various times I felt like I was being stabbed in the heart, the gut, and even at one point in the ears! It was as if I didn’t want to “hear“ about how viciously painful it was to reach out towards another person, and find that they simply weren’t there.
As I allowed the pain and grief to surface, allowing it to come “up to clear,” I eventually reached a point where I felt I could cut the cords between me and these people I was still — quite shockingly —carrying connection to, up to twenty years after our relationships had ended.
I visualized the connections — some were little chains, like necklaces — others were thick ropes like you see on ships— and I cut them and set them on fire and watched them burn and turn to ashes that blew away in the wind. I let them go and basically cried myself to sleep.
This morning I feel lighter, freer and restored to my baseline of positivity and hope. Although the wound of losing this relationship is still raw, by going through the deep reckoning with grief, I feel better.
I was stuck and hopeless in part because I was in the first phases of grief: denial and bargaining. Once I moved into sadness, I could move into acceptance that the relationship is over.
Fundamentally, as I wake up this morning, I see that when someone relationally hurts you, it brings up the question: will I choose myself or will I choose this person? Will I choose a relationship in which I am liable to be profoundly harmed or will I choose my own well-being and wholeness instead?
We all have a line in the sand, a dividing line between what is relationally OK and what is not. For me, being stood up is that line in the sand. I don’t do relationships where people ghost me. The level of despair and hurt it causes is too much for me to tolerate. It truly made me feel hopeless as a human being, and I never want any relationship with any person to cut me off from my fundamental foundation of feeling hopeful and whole.
Now that I’ve come out the other side and accepted the relationship is over, I have been restored to my basic sense of hope. The future looks good! A future without someone like this in my life.
This used to be my reality: wake up on Saturday morning (while dating)—“ugh, not free. Must request permission to do anything. Must compromise, etc. VS. waking up on Saturday morning while dating no one: wow! I can go anywhere! I can explore anything. I can eat whatever I like. Never made the connection that dating (for me) equalled misery and not dating was being true to me. Always choose you. Glad you came to the lighter side of a ghosting nightmare. People only consider themselves. Make time for you. You made absolutely right decision to remove jackass from your world. Block him on your phone. Don’t let him steal any more of your sunshine. You deserve the very best you can give yourself. Choose joy for yourself. Infinite blessings to you.
The simplicity of this post was just perfect for your message. I love how you acknowledged that hope is often elusive while gently reminding us how powerful hope can be if we only open our eyes to see it.
I read somewhere that the looking forward stage/planning stage is the most fun vs. the actual end result. So planning a vacation and looking forward to it is somehow better than the actual vacation. I think this might be true for the same reason that the book is always better than the movie. We run movies in our head that bring all the senses together while the movie is someone else’s interpretation. I tend to agree with those who say it’s the journey rather than the destination that’s most meaningful. You learn so much getting to that destination especially overcoming the obstacles.
I don't know why but when I read the first sentence I was reminded of an old episode of Ally McBeal. It is titled Nine One One, season 5 episode 7. Ally says to one of the other lawyers tell me something good and he says "we have souls." This episode had me in tears. If you do a search on this a video of Josh Groban singing "To Where You Are" should come up. Even thinking about it makes me tear up. The ending is very moving to me. It is a tribute to the first responders who were killed on 9/11. Tom Berenger's speech in this video is also very touching, but in my mind it also very hopeful. Maybe this is a little broader than you were going for but it's where my mind went.
This resonates with me so much. I've been dealing with an injury for the better part of a year and a lot of the time I felt hopeless, like "this is my life now". Now I'm finally starting to feel better, I'm about 80% there and I feel hopeful again. And this feeling reminded me that there's always light at the end of the tunnel, things do get better even though sometimes it doesn't feel that way. Thanks for the reminder 😊
I didnt realize other people do this :)
I use sporting events. My move back home because breakup with my boyfriend. Happened during Cubs playoffs I seen no hope in my life but I didnt want to miss seeing Cubs in world series. Just live to see another day. I found doing random Google search I dont need everything fixed just one thing.
Very inspiring, and I loved the audio for the extra personal touch.
I have found that one of the most difficult things about being a teacher is giving hope. What makes it difficult most of the time is that a person, usually a student or a parent is using a situation as a control mechanism. They don't really want any sort of hope brought into the situation. For example, some parents don't want to hear too many good things about a teenager who they are having trouble with at home. It makes them feel like they aren't in control. When the positivity I am bringing into their situation is not regarded as genuine, as they don't want it to be true, it leaves me feeling a bit hollow. I used to bring some of this home with me, even on breaks and vacations. I came to a reckoning that, even though I have worked mostly in expensive private schools, I am not in the people pleasing business. I leave that to the admin and I focus on academics and classroom management. I gained a lot of "me" space and even found time to publish a book. I look forward to every passing day, even when I wish some parts of some days would pass faster than they do!
I had a crushing experience of being stood up last week. While I bear no malice, and not even much anger towards that person for 100% failing to show up, WOW! It crushed me. All I needed was 15 seconds of care or consideration — a simple text that said, “I’m sorry, I can’t make it today.” I got crickets. No communication, no idea why they weren’t there — ghosted. Still-faced. Totally ignored. Instead of connecting — something I’d been looking forward to, and preparing for — I got nothing. A deep, aching nothing.
I texted once. Twice. Three times. Four times. Still nothing. I called. Voice mail.
I’m usually a pretty hopeful, positive person. But this came at an unusually bad time for me, because I’ve been going full-on with my inner work: facing the darkest of dark stuff. I was already pretty low and dysregulated. This absolutely tipped the bucket. I didn’t have my normal resiliency to bounce back. I hit bottom. I lost all sense of hope.
At first, I was just numb and tried to carry on as usual. But as one day, and then another day went by, with still no communication, I entered a horrible hell realm of leaden greyness. Parts of me questioned everything – what did I do to deserve this? What had I done to this person to deserve such cut-off? What was wrong with me because I thought we were friends and I trusted this person, but this is what I got in return? Combing over the preceding days, I came up with various theories about what I’d done wrong, what I could do better, and what I won’t do in the future blah blah blah. None of that helped though. It was like acid had been poured on my soul, and it just kept eating away at me!
I kept in communication with the parts of me who were feeling so utterly abysmal—simply talking about how much it hurt. Cycling around and around and around the event and the timeline leading to being stood up and the aftermath.
Finally, at around 1 AM two days after it happened, I texted for a fifth time, requesting that this person please let me know if they are OK. I mean, maybe they were hit by a car! To their credit, they did text me back.
That let me know it wasn’t an accident, which helped me get some traction and understand that, for some reason, it wasn’t available to this other person to consider how it would impact me if they 100% removed all contact in our relationship out of nowhere.
I realized I’m not able to be in a relationship with someone who is capable of doing this to me.
I realized part of the extreme pain and grief I was feeling, was the extreme pain and grief of facing into the fact that the relationship was over — that by treating me this way, this person had unilaterally decided to end the relationship. Whether it was intentional or not, whether that was what they meant to do with their actions, that was the outcome. Being still-faced is one of the most painful and dysregulating experiences humans can have in relationship. You can go on YouTube and search “still face experiment” and see how exquisitely horrible it is. In good faith, I can’t be in relationship with people who do that to me. No matter what their reasons are, the impact is just too apocalyptic for my little parts.
As I came to understand that the pain wasn’t just the initial experience, but also the reality that it meant our relationship was over, it brought up the end of pretty much every friendship I’ve ever had in my entire life! It was like dominoes tipping over, one hitting the next. The grief was astounding! I had no idea I was still carrying sadness about the end of so many past friendships.
As I allowed the grief to rise up, at various times I felt like I was being stabbed in the heart, the gut, and even at one point in the ears! It was as if I didn’t want to “hear“ about how viciously painful it was to reach out towards another person, and find that they simply weren’t there.
As I allowed the pain and grief to surface, allowing it to come “up to clear,” I eventually reached a point where I felt I could cut the cords between me and these people I was still — quite shockingly —carrying connection to, up to twenty years after our relationships had ended.
I visualized the connections — some were little chains, like necklaces — others were thick ropes like you see on ships— and I cut them and set them on fire and watched them burn and turn to ashes that blew away in the wind. I let them go and basically cried myself to sleep.
This morning I feel lighter, freer and restored to my baseline of positivity and hope. Although the wound of losing this relationship is still raw, by going through the deep reckoning with grief, I feel better.
I was stuck and hopeless in part because I was in the first phases of grief: denial and bargaining. Once I moved into sadness, I could move into acceptance that the relationship is over.
Fundamentally, as I wake up this morning, I see that when someone relationally hurts you, it brings up the question: will I choose myself or will I choose this person? Will I choose a relationship in which I am liable to be profoundly harmed or will I choose my own well-being and wholeness instead?
We all have a line in the sand, a dividing line between what is relationally OK and what is not. For me, being stood up is that line in the sand. I don’t do relationships where people ghost me. The level of despair and hurt it causes is too much for me to tolerate. It truly made me feel hopeless as a human being, and I never want any relationship with any person to cut me off from my fundamental foundation of feeling hopeful and whole.
Now that I’ve come out the other side and accepted the relationship is over, I have been restored to my basic sense of hope. The future looks good! A future without someone like this in my life.
This used to be my reality: wake up on Saturday morning (while dating)—“ugh, not free. Must request permission to do anything. Must compromise, etc. VS. waking up on Saturday morning while dating no one: wow! I can go anywhere! I can explore anything. I can eat whatever I like. Never made the connection that dating (for me) equalled misery and not dating was being true to me. Always choose you. Glad you came to the lighter side of a ghosting nightmare. People only consider themselves. Make time for you. You made absolutely right decision to remove jackass from your world. Block him on your phone. Don’t let him steal any more of your sunshine. You deserve the very best you can give yourself. Choose joy for yourself. Infinite blessings to you.
The simplicity of this post was just perfect for your message. I love how you acknowledged that hope is often elusive while gently reminding us how powerful hope can be if we only open our eyes to see it.
I read somewhere that the looking forward stage/planning stage is the most fun vs. the actual end result. So planning a vacation and looking forward to it is somehow better than the actual vacation. I think this might be true for the same reason that the book is always better than the movie. We run movies in our head that bring all the senses together while the movie is someone else’s interpretation. I tend to agree with those who say it’s the journey rather than the destination that’s most meaningful. You learn so much getting to that destination especially overcoming the obstacles.
I don't know why but when I read the first sentence I was reminded of an old episode of Ally McBeal. It is titled Nine One One, season 5 episode 7. Ally says to one of the other lawyers tell me something good and he says "we have souls." This episode had me in tears. If you do a search on this a video of Josh Groban singing "To Where You Are" should come up. Even thinking about it makes me tear up. The ending is very moving to me. It is a tribute to the first responders who were killed on 9/11. Tom Berenger's speech in this video is also very touching, but in my mind it also very hopeful. Maybe this is a little broader than you were going for but it's where my mind went.
This resonates with me so much. I've been dealing with an injury for the better part of a year and a lot of the time I felt hopeless, like "this is my life now". Now I'm finally starting to feel better, I'm about 80% there and I feel hopeful again. And this feeling reminded me that there's always light at the end of the tunnel, things do get better even though sometimes it doesn't feel that way. Thanks for the reminder 😊
This feels like a wonderful essay on the essence of resilience
Thank you for writing this, as sonething I needed to hear.
Beautifully communicated! TY!
Beautiful! Thank you. Love the audio format.