Reflecting on the past can work in any relationship whether personal or business when situations which call for a crucial decision come up. If you haven’t had a similar experience, try being positive first. It could save you time, money and effort, and a good friend or business associate. A negative response may cause you to have to start all over and lose something or someone very valuable to your life. The following story is a good example of my theory.
Yesterday I was visiting my boyfriend (yes, I have a boyfriend at my age, but that’s for another discussion), and he said something that “hurt my feelings,” and for a moment I froze. I say “hurt my feelings,” although no one can “hurt” your feelings. They are your feelings and you alone control how you feel. He could only direct my positive or negative response, which I also still control.
Anyway, the super-sensitive, low self-esteem, jealous, ejective Paris pulled her head in like a turtle and began to sulk. That was my first reaction and the old me would have been plotting ways in her head to break away from the relationship. She would have become angry and mean, and probably would have said some rather nasty and unladylike things involving body parts and personality traits.
But thank God I remembered a very similar situation from over 30 yeas ago in which the man wasn’t trying to hurt my feelings. He was sharing a decision he had made and an action he had taken which put me at the front of the line. (Ladies, there’s always a line, whether in fact or in fiction (such as the Playboy Channel). So, being the new me, my response became positive, and worked to draw me closer to him rather than to “throw the baby out with the bath water.”
I would have preferred not to know about his actions, but the fact that he was willing to share them with me let me see that he trusts me enough to tell me something which could have caused a very bad reaction. I appreciated his trust, which deepened my feelings.
If I had not have had that past experience, and recalled it, I would have made a very bad current mistake. My wish for you is to live life, love deeply, and laugh often.
