It’s Not All About Me
When my stepfather got into a serious relationship less than a year after my mother passed away and I discovered that “it’s not all about me”, it was one of the most significant lessons I have learned.
The Backstory
After my mother passed away, her husband, my stepfather, and I became very close. It was a strange, yet beautiful phenomenon because, throughout the entire length of his and my mother’s marriage, we hardly spoke to one another. Most of our conversations revolved around topics that my mother didn’t want to handle or needed the backup and support from “the father figure”. I was really OK with this dynamic and I never really thought much about it. It wasn’t until my mother died that I was able to get to know, love, and respect him more deeply.
At the time of her death, I was living with him and my mother. Since it was just he and I now, we were able to have conversations and learn things about each other that we just did not have the opportunity to learn about when my mother was around. We both loved my mom very much but she had the kind of personality that sometimes just didn’t allow for open and honest communication. Without her being around, we could talk about things that we couldn’t talk about before. We could talk about how our lives were with her and the feelings we had while her health was deteriorating. It’s funny how stuff comes out after a person dies.
This matters because…
This matters because over a short period of time, around six months or so, we grew to be good friends. We had great conversations and had fun doing things together that we couldn’t do when Mom was alive. She had a debilitating health condition that limited what she could do physically. I love and miss my mom very much but her passing was a relief to not only us but for her as well. She suffered for so many years. Her death brought peace to all of us.
Of course, as time moves on, the living must go on. I started dating someone about six months after her death and it was hard on my stepfather. We had spent so much time together and had a lot of fun. This was a new transition for him.
A few months later, he started dating someone, too. I won’t go into detail here, but I will say that this relationship moved too quickly for me and I had a very difficult time adjusting to it. Now, five months later, I still struggle with him having a romantic relationship with someone other than my mother. I have a feeling I will struggle with it for a very long time.
The Ah-Ha Moment
As happy as I am for him, I still sometimes can’t get past how I feel about the situation we find ourselves in. My mother is gone, never coming back and he is in an intimate, committed relationship with someone else. This was so hard for me at the beginning and still continues to be as I write these words on this page. I’ve given this a lot of thought because I truly did want to feel happy for him and I wanted to just get over myself because I knew that this wasn’t about me. After a lot of soul searching and self-reflection, it hit me! My ah-ha moment came when I was in the shower and I finally realized that all of my feelings and emotions, although, valid, really did NOT matter. What mattered was my father’s feelings and emotions and how if he was happy who was I to throw a fit about it?! If I could just shift my focus off of myself and onto him and his happiness, then I would feel a helluva lot better!
The Lesson
Just shifting my focus, even for just a moment, I was relieved of some of the anguish I was feeling. I knew this discovery was powerful when my body literally felt different when I changed my thoughts and focus.
I learned that if I can just take the focus off of myself and focus on what actually matters, which is the other person’s happiness and feelings, it would change my entire life! It would change how I feel not just on an emotional level but on a cellular level as well. I literally felt it in my body! Once I changed my thoughts from “poor me” to “he is happy, so I can be happy too!” Everything changed.
A Work in Progress
If I’m being honest, this lesson, even though I am now self-aware, is still something I need to practice and be mindfully conscious of. Focusing on the other person, my stepfather’s happiness is not something that just comes naturally to me. When I find myself going down the rabbit hole of “poor me”, “I’m not the center of his world anymore” kind of stuff, I need to slow down, take a breath and reframe. It’s a real-life exercise in thought control!
Even as I continue to work on changing my thoughts in regard to his relationship, I am grateful for the practice. I have learned that in real life if one is able to control his or her thoughts he or she is all the better. They are better because they can CHOOSE how they react in a given situation and not just let the circumstance or outside world determine the result or outcome. I shall remain patient in this process and allow myself some grace. After all, I’m only human and I’m a constant work in progress.
