I have done a lot of work on myself in the past twenty years, and especially in the last three. The more recent changes sought to rewire a lot of the foundational tenets of how I viewed relationships, and by extension how I viewed humanity.
Moving from a liberal version of monogamy into polyamory has been hard. Changing something that fundamental in how I interact with humans, changing learned behaviors that I’ve carried and reinforced through childhood, high school, church, adulthood, marriage… that takes a lot of rewiring.
I’ve made a lot of progress, I really know this. I held strong and started the rewiring process as my wife started to date others. I didn’t have much luck myself at that time because the pandemic shut the world down, but after the divorce, and after the world opened up again, I have dated a bit. That said, while I have had a relationship and also some other dates during that time, I have yet to have two or more simultaneous relationships. I also continue to find new things thay challenge me or that I need to work on as things get more serious with my primary partner. She is worth this work, but in truth I sincerely do all of this work for myself, in growth.
The challenges themselves are irrelevant to this writing, but usually I get to identify them by falling flat on my face about something, or running into a metaphorical wall. Both of those describe unpleasant situations and when I discover the parts of me that need work it’s usually because something has triggered a pain response.
So yes, I have made a lot of progress and that has been amazingly encouraging to me; I literally am rewiring myself as a human. But also, as a human I have moments of weakness or fall into old patterns, or find new ways to poke existing insecurities. The past couple weeks have had several of these instances.
When one has come so far, and risen their spirit in a peaceful self-awakening, a fall from that place feels like it’s a long way down. The impact at the bottom is really, really hard. There is self-judgment and disappointment that the fall happened at all, or that getting back up wasn’t sooner, faster, better. The longer I spend in my positive existence of self-evolution, the longer it can take for me to get out of ruts when I eventually find myself in them.
Today was not a good day for me and I got stuck in a rut pretty hard. My thinking mind wasn’t even processing new stuff but my brain chemistry threw me into a dark hole that felt near-impossible to escape. I spent most of the day on my bed, face down and curled up with a pillow, willing my brain chemistry to improve, fighting off cyclic spiral patterns of anxiety. After seeing so much progress in myself these past few years it was really hard to see myself struggling like this.
I believe we can change our minds. I also believe we are somewhat at the mercy of fickle brain chemistry. I watched someone dear to me, a very strong individual, fight that battle without eventual success. I wasn’t in her head, her mind, so I don’t know what words she used when she talked to herself. Today, as I struggled, my words to myself were not kind; they need to be kinder.
I have already proven to myself that I can become who I want to be. It takes time, it takes refinement. It requires getting up when I fall down, even when the fall really hurts. It requires showing myself grace as needs demand. It requires resolve in the face of doubt, after an unexpected fall forces me to examine my overall progress. Maybe I’m not where I want to be or where I thought I was, but still, the progress has been significant and ever-forward. Don’t give up, Dan, you’ve got this.