You don’t know how much pain you have until you get help. I heard this statement come out of my mouth after a recent hip replacement. I feel renewed and with no pain I can do what it takes to be walking well again. I sat and pondered this statement and started to think back over my life.
This is an interesting statement. I was thinking about how I stayed in a destructive relationship for 23 years. There was a lot of good but there was also a lot of bad. Some would say you need to take the good with the bad. I stayed in that relationship because of some flawed beliefs. I was brought up in the church and was told, till death do us part. You know I lived with the pain of that relationship focusing on the good parts because when it was good it was really good! However, over time, the bad got worse and worse.
I started taking courses to find answers. I took counselling courses to help those I was working with but also for myself so if you see the initials LCT it means not only did I do the book work, but it was my life experience that sent me on that quest. I learned a lot of skills but the biggest thing I learned about was Dr. William Glasser, world renowned psychiatrist.
As I studied his work, it seemed to simple and really spoke to the pictures in my head of the kind of relationship I wanted, one where I felt loved and where I wanted to love in return. But when young you hear things like: “it’s normal to have fights.” I drank the cool aid for a long time.
Learning Reality Therapy and the reasons why we do what we do, I learned that my expectations were not crazy. I wanted to end the power struggles in my relationship. I started practicing the “caring habits.” You see I had become someone even I did not recognize! By using the caring habits, I soon became who I wanted to be, but the more I became me, the more the power struggles escalated but now I had some skills to help me. I had to leave that relationship.
It is a process, but this many years later (25 plus years) when I say: “you don’t realize how much pain you have until it is over” I realize it is not just physical pain but mental pain. Both are so important. There have been many pains in my life- time and I am glad I have the skills to bounce back and to be able to share and help others!
Would you like to learn these skills? I am offering the Basic Level of a five- level certificate training program on February 3,4,5. Registrations are coming in so don’t wait to find out more. You can find out more by going here: www.choicetheorytraining.com and download a brochure and/or contact me.
Yours in growing awareness
Maureen
