Life hack #19: Be grateful for what you learned, and document it

Life hack #19: Be grateful for what you learned, and document it

[00:00:00] Life hack #19 Be grateful for what you learned, and document it. I know it sounds like a cliche to be like, you know, you're in your shittiest time of your life and you're like, so what are you grateful for? You know, but the truth is it's a life hack. It's a life hack to look at a really tough situation, through a different lens, just as valid of a lens. And find the things that you actually are grateful for, find the lessons that you learned about yourself, about your ability to be in a relationship.

Maybe you learned where some of your triggers were, maybe you learned that you have an anger issue and you got to work on that. There's lots of things that you can dissect or do in an "emotional autopsy" of a relationship that's over and say, hey, I got some good shit out of this. You know, like let's just put a list together.

Are you grateful that you learned that you could fall in love again or at all? Right. Some people don't know if they're ever going to find someone out there. So if you do find someone and you feel those really strong, powerful feelings of love, yeah, it sucks when it's gone but at least you're able [00:01:00] to do it.

At least you felt it, at least, you know it's possible out there for you. So that's something I'd be grateful for is that, you know, I was reminded that I could feel love and that I could be in love. That's something I would put on the list. Some of the lessons you learn could be very shocking. It could be that, you know, the lesson is that you put up with too much, maybe at the end of a relationship, you ah, with a few days or weeks sober, emotionally sober. You look back and you realize that you let some things slide or you moved some of your personal boundaries for someone else to try and be a good partner maybe, or for whatever reason, maybe you were people pleasing.

And maybe you just want to reflect on how you feel about that and what the next relationship that you get in, would you want to still move those same boundaries or would you want to enforce them? Right. And I think sometimes you learn what you need in a relationship. Like, for example, I have a sensitivity to men being angry and like loud and whatever. You know, we could go into therapy if you want to know why, but it doesn't matter. I need to be with a [00:02:00] male partner who is not going to yell and scare me. I need a male partner who is more even tempered than that. And I'll know real quick if I'm dating some guy and he blows up or loses his shit on me, in a way that makes me feel unsafe for even a moment, that would not be a partner that's compatible with me. So I'm looking for someone who's got his anger issues under control for the most part.

I mean, not everyone does, but that's the one I'm looking for. I also learned in relationships, the most recent one for me, I learned that I do not want a polyamorous relationship. I dipped my toe into a world where there was multiple romantic relationships at the same time. And I didn't really feel like it was a good fit. So for me, I'm excited.

I don't feel restricted by going back to monogamy or monogamish. I'm excited to go and announce on my next dating profile that I'm looking for that. It's also important to realize, did you date somebody with kids? Did you date somebody who had an ex or an ex-wife? An ex husband, maybe that kind of gave you some [00:03:00] drama.

So maybe the next time you're in a relationship you kind of do a little bit of a scan in the conversation and see what kind of, uh, ex drama there is so that you can decide right from the beginning if you want to invest something like in that, right? So sometimes you learn the red flags too, with people. You can learn some shocking things on lessons that are absolutely heartbreaking, but still very valuable to learn. One of the lessons I've had to learn in this lifetime is that people are very good at lying to my face sometimes.

I'm an intuitive person. I actually feel like I read energy really well, but I've realized that reading energy and intentions is actually different than somebody lying. Um, if their intentions are still good. So it's one of those things. It's a little bit of a nuance there, but I have realized that as good as I think I am, at being able to tell when people are being truthful, I was recently shown wrong and I have to realize that, that's a great [00:04:00] lesson.

Yeah sucks to be like, oh yeah, I know people out there may pull some shady shit on you. But at least I'm ready for it. You know, at least I got the lesson. So that's what we mean. Write down these lessons, look for the gratitude in what you've learned. And hopefully if you take these lessons with you and hold them close, you don't have to keep repeating them in your next relationship.

Right. So I know what I'm looking for in my next relationship. I think I've got it dwindled down. Pretty pretty precisely now. And that's the benefit of all my past relationships and everything I've learned in combination or accumulation of them all has gotten me to where I am today. So be grateful for the lessons and in a weird way, be grateful for the pain because also learning how to heal, learning how to pick yourself back up again when you've been knocked down in life, it's also one of the biggest things to be grateful for is that sense of resilience. So be grateful.

Even just acknowledging you're grateful for your support system. You're grateful for the fact that you have a safe bed to cry [00:05:00] in.

Even if you're sad, hey, at least you have a bed to cry in, some people don't. Right. So there's lots of things that you can look at in your life and be grateful for, and I want you to write them down. Don't just let them come like clouds across your mind and then drift off, write them down. Reread this, in two weeks from now or three weeks from now, reread it and be like, yeah, I am grateful I learned that about myself. You know, I am grateful that I had these experiences because it made me a better, more prepared person for love and real relationships.

And at the end of the day, if the biggest lesson that you can take from your whole situation is that, hey, you can count on yourself. You can be there for yourself when you're sad, when you're struggling. And then you don't have to be so scared about the future because no matter what happens, you've got your own back.