To ask what your lightbulb 💡 epiphany moment was?

[DelusionalBrilliance]

In regards to anything, as long as it was big or life changing! A moment where something suddenly hit you and made a realisation, something that forced you to make changes or think about it differently?

Today I got talking with a few friends and they had all had at least one of these moments and it dawned on me I’d never actually had a life changing thunder clap of a moment where something clicked, either I’m boring or dead inside I think.

YANBU - I’ve never had one either
YABU - I’ve had them / several

It's called the Freedom Project. Dogs Trust

@Lamelie or even if you do something her friends disapprove of, even if you don't know them!

Yep. Similar situation with ex: I arrived home from work one day and he was sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea and smoking. A mountain of cigarette ends in a big ashtray on the table. A teetering pyramid of used teabags on a plate near the kettle and dirty mugs. I looked at him and I absolutely despised him.

Realising that I don't need to put up with other people's expectations. I worried so much about other's disappointment and disapproval but they couldn't care less about me. I'd fallen into thinking like a victim and it was a real discovery when I learned to enforce boundaries (ongoing challenge!).

That I would not fail as a single parent as ex told me repeatedly. To realise I didn’t have to live the restrictive lifestyle he wanted me to and that I could walk out penniless and I did.

That I could be successful and divorced. That I could be happy on my own. To not care a dot about people who believe in single, sad and lovely.

I appreciate my freedom from abusive ex every single day as a result 🙏

@Ihatesw well done. Freedom is to be cherished!

Realising that my younger brother has been gaslighting me for years. That whatever I say he (and now his partner) will twist it to suit their own narrative, make me look bad and turn themselves into the victims of the situation when in actual fact it is me! I have also realised that I do not need to engage with their shite, they can think what they like about me, but I have the power to choose whether to let it bother me or not. I have now cut all contact and feel much better for it.

Also, during lockdown I realised that I am far more capable than I ever believed I was. I have more strength than I thought.

Well done, you.🌺
I wouldn’t be surprised if other members of your family see through him as well. My own brother could be like this (but I suspect not as bad as yours) - taking credit for things I’d done, not paying anything to joint gifts for parents, always turning up empty-handed, showing off and making promises he never kept, never buying presents for my DC but I was generous with his..
It’s better now but only because I have pulled back and I don’t get involved anymore.

YABU in that girls grow up thinking their OH will be Mr Darcy whereas the reality is the vast majority end up with a version of Mr Collins

I've enjoyed this thread so much, it just kept on giving.

Mine was after years of struggling to get on with a relative, ruminating as usual what have I done, what have I done, and finally turned it to hang on - what has she done? I'm a pain in the arse in my own way, but I've never set out to hurt others. Finally free of that feeling.
That we will one day be the ancestors referred to, so we can also make the rules of living and behave how we want, including to make so-called traditions - another way to say individuation!

Two weight related ones - I'm significantly heavier in past 10 years (although I was v underweight then...another story) and my wider family is preoccupied with weight. I had pretended not to care, while thinking about it all the time. Recently, I read a novel where the child was half starved, and the language brought into focus the theory of eating your feelings to feel whole. I recognised that eating until I'm stuffed is to fill an emotional emptiness.

Also just popped into my head one day - 'she's fat let's kill her' and I laughed, because something inside finally brought the deep shame and fears to their ridiculous conclusion. I've felt so much better since - whenever I go to obsess I think that. Losing weight is a by-product. Being healthy is the goal. For context, I'm a size 16-18, so nothing dramatic (not that bigger is bad!), but I had been sucked into the narrative fat/bad, thin/good. Big release!

Two for me:

One in my twenties living with my first serious boyfriend. I thought we'd be together long term, get married etc. We met through work and he slept with another colleague at the work Christmas party (I wasn't there!) It was totally out of the blue and seemed very out of character. I couldn't get my head around it when we were so in love and he said he wanted to be with me.

He came home from work the next day and said everyone was really off with him, had told him he was bastard etc (looking for my sympathy). Later that night when I said I was humiliated everyone knew, he told me noone knew, they hadn't mentioned it, we could carry on as before and nothing would change... I realised that he was exactly the kind of guy that convinced himself of whatever was convenient in the moment. That was how he was able to tell me I meant the world to him when I was there, and forget about me and have sex with someone he fancied when I wasn't. Not as life-changing as some of these, but I remember my whole viewpoint changing in seconds and realising that's what people meant by 'lightbulb moment'

The second was leaving teaching, I was exhausted at the end of the day but I had something left to do for a high needs child in my class and I realised I had two choices staying in teaching: 1) run my mental and physical health into the ground to try and provide everything that was needed and asked for 2) be less committed, accept that the children wouldn't get everything they needed and protect myself from burn out. I couldn't make my peace with either option and two months later, I was unemployed and looking for another profession. It took a few years but I'm much happier now.

A corollary to this was when I was doing supply as part of my exit strategy, I no longer cared what people thought as I was only staying somewhere for a few days weeks so I just said "no" if I didn't want to do something. And it wasn't nearly the problem I'd always feared it would be. I've held onto that in workplaces ever since!

My light bulb moment came this year on the 3rd of May! I am 67 and have spent the last 36 years housebound and bed bound with chronic illness. I’ve had serious depression and two suicide attempts in those years. I am lucky beyond belief to have 3 daughter of 43, 39 and 37. The youngest two have never known me out of bed or able to walk outside the house. I lost my dad last March, and he left me some money. I decided to radically change my lifestyle. I gave up sugar totally changed my diet, started studying food its effects on the body. Anything I could find on chronic illness I read and took notes. I started to prepare my own food, sometimes crawling to the kitchen, and then it would take me 24 hrs to recover to go back the next day. I had also sated Wim hof breathing 2 years previously, and did that religiously 3 times a day. I began researching breathing more and eventually got my own breath coach. Slowly but slowly I began to experience tiny tiny pockets. of energy. I slam stopped all my medication….. that had a massive impact. I suffered at first but gradually my mind cleared and the brain fog I lived with began to lift.
i April I ended up in hospital after a severe fall. My worst nightmare in all the years of my illness was ending up in hospital. This was unavoidable and I was terrified. It turned out to be a very positive experience. I was in my wheel chair at that point. When I came home I spent two days trying to assimilate what had happened. Then on the 3rd of May I stepped outside on my own for the first time in 35 years and walked 100 steps. I came home feeling I has conquered Mount Everest. I secretly without my family knowing began walking every day..
fast forward to today, 8 months on and my is completely transformed. I walk roughly 6,000to 10,000 steps a day I have an amazing social life with lots of new friends. I left my husband of 44 years, as I realised I wanted to live and manage on my own. I have had carers for 13 years and do need some help now. My illness is still there and I have to be very strict with my daily regime still. I sometimes pinch myself,as it’s happened to me, but I can’t help but feel I’ve been guided to a bigger better more fulfilled life. Isolation kills!!! It truly does. So this Xmas is extra special for me. I’ve really really enjoyed reading everyone’s moments . Thanks for the thread. Merry Xmas everyone

God, so many! Realising I don’t have to jump when a friend wanted me and I don’t have to go out with her if I don’t want to. In fact, realising that I could just do my own thing and not have to do what others want.

Realising that my dad, love him tho I did, was an enabler to my alcoholic mother and he would rather have an easy life and ignore the issue than see me and my sibling more.

Accepting that either I did something drastic about my weight or I’d kill myself with food and make myself disabled/unable to walk. Big lightbulb.

@Greenly3 that was lovely to read! Merry Xmas to you xx

Thank you ❤️I was a bit nervous about putting it up but reading them all gave me the courage xx

Congratulations @Greenly3. A true story of courage and perseverance.

“@Greenly3 ” you sound amazing! Well done.

@Pluvia I had exactly the same with the Buddhism! I think I was much younger when I realised I was an atheist but as a young twenty-something I went to a Buddhist Centre for a meditation course. After a few weeks we started the chanting at the Buddha statue and - exactly the same as you I thought "Hang on! This is just the same mumbo jumbo as the Christian church" and I stopped going too. It was a shame as I loved the ethos but the chanting and idol worship were not for me.

This morning trying to contact accountant and solicitor about capital gains tax on a property sold 1 November, leaving us 60 days to settle capital gains tax. Everything was with the accountant on 10 November after trawling through every invoice that financial year.

When I phoned this morning reminded accountant that we'd overrun the 60 days they shrugged and said any fine was theirs.

When did mediocre service and late returns become so acceptable?

I read Martina Cole's Two Women and it all just fell into place. I realised that I was that dumpy, used, financially dependent, baby maker and just because he controlled me, that it didn't mean he loved me. He could and was living a double life while I sat around and waited for him to grace us with his presence.

I was pregnant with my second at the time and abroad (on my own again) when I had the epiphany.

He eventually did me a massive favour and left me when baby was 3 months old but tbh I was probably not far behind deciding for myself (which in itself was a miracle after years of emotional abuse).

@Greenly3 congratulations for all you have achieved that sounds amazing.

I'm really interested in the impact these changes had onyour life and chronice illness.
What do you think made the single biggest difference to you
diet
the breathing exercises or
giving up your medication?

@HarlequinsPants

to be honest I think it was a combination of all tree! Not one thing in isolation. Giving up the medication certainly cleared my brain fog after a tough couple of weeks of what I now believe was withdrawal. The breathing exercises I do still impact my life daily and I wouldn’t return to my old patterns of breathing , so to speak. The diet is now so ingrained it’s my new way of life. Read the glucose goddess by Jesse Inchauspe for the best help with monitoring your blood sugar. Hope that helps?

@Greenly3 , absolutely fantastic!

Was this an nkt buddhist centre? I had the same realisation as you both but sadly put myself of meditation for life!
Im now an atheist.