"She Just Wants to Forget," by r.h. Sin is a helpful meditation on a surprising truth: sometimes, it's more comfortable to keep on suffering instead of choosing growth and thriving.
The book reads like a series of letters from a "soul-mate" mentor to a woman struggling to exit an abusive relationship. Letters vacillate from pep-talks to condemnations of the abuser.
One theme is the exploration of why the woman struggles to let the abuser go. Why does she keep going back; if not actually, then emotionally....why does she hold on?
A proffered answer is that her parents failed to model a healthy, loving relationship and build up her self-worth. She doesn't know she deserves better.
Another is that the woman has an unusually high capacity to give; when matched with a selfish partner, this strength becomes her undoing.
"Make sure your strength is invested in the right place: in yourself, and in what is positive" is a key takeaway.
An actual quote from the book that sums things up: "Let's create new ways of thinking."
Another that made me laugh out loud: "Life doesn't have to be so damn complicated."
But no, really: why do we settle for less?
One reason might be this: biologically, change is just hard. Our neurological hardwiring seeks out continuity and the scenes, faces, landscapes, lifestyle, etc. that are familiar to us. The old is literally the "stuff" of what we are. Take away the old, and we become a person without a history. That is painful. Take away everything we know and our brain is literally shocked.
Even though we may need to walk away from our old grooves, it's okay to be honest with ourselves that profound change is traumatic.
To be continued...
