Premeditated Meditations are calming meditations designed to bring us down from our most common unhealthy emotional reactions. We write them while we feel great, and therefore have access to all of our wisdom. Then, when we’re upset, we have only one job: read the letter we wrote to ourselves.
This letter is from a fictional mid 30’s woman who can feel her jealous and often damaging emotions starting to build and whirl inside of her.
Hi.
Good. You read it. I knew I could count on you. If you’re good for one thing it’s that you like commitments. Hopefully each time we grab this we do it a bit sooner, so it’s easier to slow the spin of thoughts down.
Okay, you remember writing this. It was almost embarrassing how consistent the pattern is. But as Scott said, that’s helpful in these letters. So I know you know it, and you might think you don’t need to read it again, but this is the part that helps.
We have to put these thoughts through our consciousness because they are what push the other thoughts out and that’s what calms these emotions. If we just scan this and then go back to thinking like we were, then the letter was like a parachute I/we never opened. So just keep reading.
A) Context
Remember, Dad cheated on Mom, after which you lived with her and listened to five years of a really hurt woman talking all the time about how untrustworthy men are. I’m not sure which was worse, Dad’s cheating or Mom making sure that was burned into our brain but whatever –it’s there.
Remember: we have an inclination towards suspicious thought.
Then, the way patterns work, we picked a guy just like Dad and married him and then we acted out Mom’s life. That was not a helpful reinforcement, but it’s happened now so forget it. Not every guy is Dad or Sammy, but if you treat them like they are they’ll just leave. And that goes for the really good ones too.
Let’s stop here for a moment and really think about this. You’ve dated some guys that other women went on to have good marriages with, yet you ended it over fears they were cheating. Remember how lousy we felt when we realized we didn’t have a single bit of evidence that any of them ever actually did anything?
Remember how every bit of suspicion we had was just made in our thoughts, but there was no real evidence unless you could tie unrelated stuff together with those thoughts? And then that sick feeling when we realized we had now pushed back happiness another 18 months because we threw away something that might have really been good?
You’ll be alone forever if we keep doing that. Remember, every marriage has this risk. What saves us from it is having a good marriage, and that isn’t made using rules, that happens through joy. So stop letting your thoughts whirl every time you don’t get a reply back fast enough. Those are just thoughts.
You have to stop doing that. No nice guy that wants a normal, calm relationship wants to be accused of cheating every single time his girlfriend can’t reach him by text.
B) Facts
What are the actual facts? Because in most cases when you’ve done this it was just he hadn’t gotten back to you fast enough. But our sense that he’s too slow is never measured based on what he’s doing, it’s always measured based on how insecure we feel.
This is important: you are not at more risk, you are just feeling more insecure.
Remember, it’s all thought. The chemicals that feel so overwhelming are coming from the thoughts. The chemicals that feel so overwhelming are coming from the thoughts. The chemicals that feel so overwhelming are coming from the thoughts.
They are not coming from him or what he’s doing because for all we know he’s asleep. The chemicals that feel so overwhelming are coming from our thoughts, not from the situation.
C) Reaction
So far so good if we’re reading this. But if we’re reading it, it’s because we were starting to spin. So this is the key part of this battle right here. Remember: we’re re-wiring our brain circuitry. We are not Mom, every guy is not Dad. This is not our past. Live in this moment, with this person, and react to them, now.
The judge we/you work for spends most of her time on what’s ‘reasonable.’ Just because I come up with a reasonably reasonable explanation for the facts I have, that does not mean it is the only explanation possible and many more are likely to be far more reasonable. But you just think yours like it’s the only explanation. You know we do that.
Before you go making calls or texting angry accusations that will just push another guy away, stop and think. Because tons of the times you do this, it’s just been a dead phone battery, he was visiting with his grandma, or he was asleep.
Remember the time you actually drove all the way to house because you didn’t believe him? Do you remember what an idiot you felt like, when the neighbour saw you looking in his window? She thought you were nuts. Because we were.
What were we doing? He was laying there sleeping, cuddled up to his kid and his dog. But in our mind we had him at an orgy. At 2pm on a Sunday. Come on girl. Breathe. You could have gone for a massage that day and instead you got a ladder and acted like a Peeping Tom.
Remember: healthy girls don’t tie guys to them with commitments. They are simply attractive people to be with because they are fun. Remember that quote that you like so much that you saw on Scott’s page.
Okay, so if I calmed you down then you’re probably breathing more deeply. Your chest is looser. Your shoulders aren’t so tense. But if you aren’t, then we both know what pattern your mind wants to follow.
Here’s your pattern:
Where is he, what could he possibly be doing, what if he’s out, what if he’s upset about me getting mad the other night and he just wants someone easier and prettier and someone that isn’t just a hassle, and we haven’t had sex much this week because of work so he probably feels neglected and I’m always busy with the kids so of course he wants someone there and so he’s probably already found her, but he knows I go ballistic so he needs to hide her, so I have to go through his phone next time he’s asleep and check for texts, and if he changed his password that’s probably because there are some secret messages and….. and and and. The more time we have the more complicated the whole story gets.
I’m sorry. We both now where it goes. I can’t write any more. I’m feeling good when I write this, and that spin just seems so crazy right now.
You know what you could do? Assume you have some taste. Assume you love him because he’s a nice guy. Assume that he’s just busy like people get all the time and that he’ll happily call if we make life with us feel attractive, comforting, loving and supportive.
It is not loving or supportive or attractive to constantly accuse a guy of cheating. Either leave, or leave him alone. All of this energy should be put into fun, not into these spins.
So no looking through his phone. No passive aggressive questions about where he was. No sideways questions to his kids to see what they know. Act like a person who is healthy and who trusts their partner. Then if he cheats, he cheats. You’re just like every other person that happened to. But the best way to avoid that, is for the relationship to be fun.
Do not meet this with suspicion and anger. Reprogram your brain to respond by being even more supportive. Remind yourself that being supportive will feel a lot better than being mad or scared. And you can tell him you’re scared, but working on having a healthier reaction. He has been good when he knows we’re struggling.
Calming down is better for both of you, better for the kids. Do it because it’s got way better odds of success. Because what good is any relationship if we’re always scared and he’s always walking on eggshells?
It’s this simple: do you love him or not? Because love includes trust, that’s not added in after. Love includes trust. No trust? That’s not real love then.
Go find something to occupy your mind. It doesn’t matter what it is, just make sure that whatever it is does not let you think about suspicions. Then we’ll let the day unfold. Because if they go like they usually do, we’re usually relieved when we don’t lose it, because basically every time the reason we couldn’t reach him was something entirely believable.
Relax. Breathe. Find another focus. You can do this.
And you really can, because we added this part because so far every time we’ve read this we haven’t done our crazy texting attack!! YES!!!! So just keep doing this. It gets easier every time. I love you. Don’t forget to do that. It’s hard to be attractive to anyone if we can’t even love ourselves.
You are worthy. He was attracted to you. Relax. You just gotta learn over time that we are really lovable. Please don’t forget that. We are not our worst days, we are our best days. Let’s make this a good one.
