Look what you made me do

Look what you made me do
Look what you made me do
Look what you just made me do
Look what you just made me do!

This song by Taylor Swift was playing in my mind as I was typing the title. I am a Swiftie at heart!

But this post isn’t about Taylor Swift or this song.

Its about you and your relationships.

How often do you take effort in your relationship? How often when things go wrong instead of blaming yourself or your partner (which can be very tempting at times, plus it’s like a defense mechanism) you talk to them patiently and try to sort things out?

We all have some or the other fantasy about our relationship. We all expect that our future mate will be perfect for us. They will know exactly the right thing to say at the right time and exactly what to do to cheer us up. Basically they could read our mind and they would be good at taking care of us.

Many of us belive in the concept of “soulmates”. We believe that somewhere out there is our soulmate, the person who is perfect for us and we are perfect for them, just as we are! Who needs to change when they appreciate you like you are?!

I can’t complain, I was also the person believing this notion and I did find that special someone who seemed perfect for me. But the only thing is we are not together anymore. We couldn’t continue our relationship. The reason is well, even if we had great communication and understood eachother well, and loved each other a lot, we wanted different things from life. I imagined my future somewhere else and he was happy with his life here.

I am just saying! These things happen. If you look practically, no relationship exists without effort. You need to take effort in the beginning to understand the person and then to make the relationship work.

Even in my earlier relationship there were so many ups and downs, I was a impulsive and impatient girl, but his patience helped me be less impulsive. I learnt to trust him some more. And he never broke it. Basically, I was a different in many ways before going into this relationship and then I became a better version of myself, at least in some cases.

This is what relationships are all about. Learning to grow together.

But sometimes we think that if the relationship was “meant to be” we wouldn’t have to work so hard at it.

That’s so not true. I have seen many couples who seem like they are perfect for eachother, but there are times when they listen to eachother and try to solve the problem.

Aaron Beck, the renowned psychiatrist says that one of the most destructive beliefs for a relationship is “If we need to work at it, there is something seriously wrong with our relationship.”

-From the book Mindset by Carol Dweck

Its the growth mindset applied in relationships – where we think my qualities are fixed, my partner’s qualities are fixed and we are not going to change, ever. So if it doesn’t work, ta ta buh-bye!

Sorry to burst your bubble, but it doesn’t work like this. I mean only if you and the other person are ready to work at your relationship, it will get better.

When people come from a fixed mindset into the relationship, after breakup they are not able to get over it. They have this strong urge to take revenge. Because they feel that this breakup will leave a kinda mark of “loser” on their forehead and they will never be able to undo that. When that’s simply not the case.

In her research on growth mindset couples, Carol Dweck found that people with growth mindset are able to forgive the other person after breakup and move on in their life. Even if they were heartbroken, they learn to move on because they do not associate one breakup with lifetime disappointment.

So when things go wrong, instead of saying – Look what you made me do!

We can be a little more willing to hear other person out and try to work on the relationship. And can also be more open to new opportunities after earlier breakup because, it does not define you. It hurts, so take your time, heal. But move on.

A no effort relationship is a doomed relationship, not a great relationship. It takes work to communicate accurately and it takes work to expose and resolve conflicting hopes and beliefs. It doesn’t mean there is no “they lived happily ever after”, but it’s more like “they worked happily ever after”

– Carol Dweck

4 responses to “Look what you made me do”

  1. SMiLes Dear Vrunda Every Sunday Afternoon i Visit Barnes
    And Noble Dancing Free Meditatively Listening to
    Meditative Music Reading At Least One Book
    Each Week Easy For me Born on the
    Autism Spectrum Hyperlexically
    Hehe Even MaKinG Up New Words
    As i Go Yet the Point is my Savant-like
    Skill is Reading About 20 Time Faster
    Than the Average Human When in Laser
    Focus As that is Precisely What the Meditative
    Dance And Music Brings While Yesterday Afternoon
    i read an English Translated Version of the “Mahābhārata”

    In About A Half An Hour Yet of Course That is Not the Unabridged
    Version of the Mahābhārata That once was the Longest EPiC Longest
    Long Form Poem In The History of Humankind at 1.8 MiLLioN Words
    That Took Centuries of Effort and Innumerable Ghost Authors to
    Complete As the Hero of that Call to Adventure Story Centered
    Around Tribal Wars Not Unlike the Minuscule Quran at 80,000
    Words or So and the 800,000 Words or so of the Tiny Effort
    of the Christian Bible Relates With Folks Who Are Named
    Muhammad And Moses and Jesus And The Such Like that

    Differently Than Krishna of Course and True the Japanese
    Similarly to the Christians Believe if they Recite A Verse
    From the Buddhist Tradition Yes They Get Automatic
    Entry Into Heaven After Death that is truly Totally

    Antithetical to the Teachings of Buddha Same

    With Teachings of Jesus that Clearly Relate

    That the Kingdom of Heaven In Terms

    Like Samadhi And Satori Will Only

    Be Found In A Meditative

    Yoga Flow Union Within

    Autotelic Sole Soul Generated in

    Bliss With All That Is Yes God Eternally Now

    Rain Drop Water Wave Ocean Whole For All
    At Best With Compassion of All Holding All Holy
    And Sacred DarK Thru LiGHT Yet LovinG IT All Now
    Life As Metaphor of God And So Many Other Metaphors

    With Least

    Harm For

    All yes

    All Compassion

    For All As This Is What it
    Means to Become Soul Mate With

    All Yet You See Just in my View as
    One Set of Human Eyes of God Alone
    Yet Allone True As Well In Living Breath
    Now Leaf Tree Roots Whole Seed Living Tree…

    So How Will i Go Out Into A World And Find A Soul
    Mate as Another Human Being Who Sees Soul For me This

    Way in

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    i Will Not

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    Shed Leaves of my

    Soul And Fertilize Soils

    of Souls Others Stand in Free

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    Everyone Sees as Part of a Perfect Couple

    Evidence of True Love on my Blog Hehe Even

    Though They’ve Never Seen Our ‘Daily Debates’

    Of Life to Survive as All Loving Couples Must Do

    As Partners Where One Strength May Complement

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    May Be Someone Who Is Not Soul Mate Yet Someone Totally

    Different Than Us So What Does it Take to Find a Soul

    Mate Find That FRiEnD As All Of Existence And

    Name It God

    If You

    Can
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    View One Seed One Living Tree

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    Moon to New Moon Eyes As Night Becomes Day

    OBTW My Long Form Poem is 9.2 MiLLioN Words

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    With 14,808 Miles of Public Dance Now in 92 Months

    Of the Anniversary Date Today of 4.26.21 Doing that
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    Fuel in Free Flowing Moving Dance That Brings the Poetic
    Free Verse Words in Peace And Harmony of “SonG oF mY SoUL”
    Next… It took me 13.6 Months to Write One Subchapter of that
    Long Form Poem Larger than the Mahābhārata at 1.82 MiLLioN

    Words and That Just
    One Small Featnote
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    For All Of What i Do

    So What if i found a Soul
    Mate Who i Felt Completed
    Me And Felt No Fire to Go Further As Soul Evolving
    In Life Growing Into Who i Individually Become Next

    True Be Careful What We Wish For

    For it May A Last Thing

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    Becomes Us
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    To Grow into a Unique Tree

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    Love is the War Worth Fighting For Putting

    Living Nature First Eternally Now For Real Yes

    And Why ‘The Old Bibles’ Aren’t my Cup of Soul…

    My Wife Still Reads the Old One Religiously Each
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    Would Go to Hell After Death And She Doesn’t

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    Obviously Most Folks

    Who Enter Churches

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    Moral oF A STory HeaR May We All Write, Act, And Play

    Our Own Stories And “BecoME A Wittiest Fool” Now For

    Those Who Don’t Understand How Our Living Tree Grows Free..:)

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Wonderful post Vrunda❣️

    Love the book by Dweck!! Mindset is a key element for our growth❣️

    And NO, a relationship is more of a dance, not a statue. It moves and learns and changes. It’s fluid and it’s learning the lessons with your partner that’s part of the dance and it helps us grow too- such as your experience with you boyfriend.

    He helped you learn to trust others and so much more I’m sure. In our young adult life, it’s having the courage to participate in the dance until we find the partner who’s willing to try new things with us, help us with our struggles to “get” new steps, and most importantly, respect and fun❣️❣️❣️

    You’re doing great. Keep on dancing ❤️❤️🤗🤗

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Your comments never fail to bring a smile on my face Teri… I love the way you described relationship like a dance, not a statue. I feel so good when you support me.. haha… Like all warm happy feels. I am so glad our interests are similar and I feel really blessed to have connected with you❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
      Hope you are doing well!
      Take care, stay safe! 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Simply giving back what you put out. 😍🥰

        Your posts are thoughtful and heartfelt ❣️🤗❤️

        Liked by 1 person

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