Updating your software
Making Minor Adjustmets
Today, when I was in therapy once again my therapist aid something that really hit me in the gut. (every time he does this, I give him this look of "ugggghhh, you're right!").
You know that feeling when you finished writing a paper and you have a sense of relief, then you remember you have to edit it. And the editing process seems to take forever. And sometimes after you literally only edit three sentences, you take a whole break.
That is exactly what it feels like when you are making adjustments to your life. And as i set on the floor of my therapist office (yes, today I decided to sit on the floor it makes me feel more comfortable) me and him began to talk about the "edits" I am beginning to make to my life. I was (and am) exhausted from just the little changes I have begun to make, because let's face it making changes exhausting--especially when those changes are to your way of life.
So as we talked more, I began to disclose some of my changes. Even though they seemed really small, after talking about them out loud I realized that I actually made quite significant changes to my life. And they were things that have slowly begun to make my life better overall.
All of a sudden my therapist says: Well you're updating your software, you cannot work with an old operating system. This caused me to remember all those annoying "Update" alerts that I get from Apple almost monthly.
What is something that you notice about these software update alerts? Well the one thing I notice is that they are rarely something extreme. They are always little bitty things. It is an update to fix little tiny bugs. Things that we may not have even noticed were wrong in the first place. Or we get so used to operating with something "broken" with our phones that it becomes our new normal.
That is what my therapist was getting at; that I was finally making updates to my faulty way of thinking. Honestly, there is no right or wrong; however, there is something that is healthier for me. I had been operating with the "system" that fifteen year old me was used to. Allowing certain family members to treat me a certain way. Allowing certain people I thought were my friends to treat me a certain way. And fifteen year old Joy Melody wanted to be loved by everyone, but 24 (almost 25) year old Joy just wants peace in her life.
I did not even realize in the moment that something was unhealthy with the way I was handling certain situations. Just like when your phone has a bug in it but there is not an update yet so you just figure out how to work with it, that is what I was doing. There was a couple of bugs in my software that needed an update in order for me to run just a little bit smoother.
I have slowly begun defining who I am and what I need at this moment in life and that is a slow process; but it is an important one. Its little fixes here and there. While I was altering my processor, I did not realize it; however, now that I have looked back I have seen how much easier running certain "apps" has been. And in a practical sense, those "apps" are relationships, schooling, and even working out.
Every now and then we have to make a change. We have to update our software. We have to fix the little hiccups that may have been causing us to move slower and work even harder to accomplish specific tasks.
Once again, my therapist met me where I was at (literally, they joined me sitting on the floor playing with a stress ball) and made an analogy that I would understand and that would be applicable. And I was able to see that they were right.
