A Science Learned from Sex and The City

It was raining outside, and my baby had gone to sleep, I was alone, laying on my bed, with so many things going through my mind I could not sleep, so I decided to Binge-watching Sex and The City and Sex and The City The Movie an oldie but goodie.

After around 5 hours, I have surely learned some things from the movies. Big made mistake by canceling their first wedding, so did Carrie by kissing Aidan, Steve cheated on Miranda but Miranda hurt him too, Charlotte seems to be the perfect one but still, she also cried behind the door, Samantha said everything blatantly but she did feel how hurts it was to hear a bitter statement thrown by the boutique clerk when she decided to try the young-vintage dress. Everyone messes up but everyone amends.

From Big and Carrie

I learned that the best way to heal is by forgiving ourselves. Forgiving ourselves means we are willing to abandon the self-resentment in the face of one’s acknowledged objective wrong while fostering compassion, generosity, and love toward yourself (Enright and The Human Development Study Group 1996, p. 116), so it means you know, you acknowledge that you are wrong or let other person did something wrong to you but then you move on from it, you did not regret it hard instead you grew self-compassion to yourself. If you are the one who did something wrong then you ask forgiveness, if someone hurt you then forgive them, admit that it was hurt, and come to peace about it. Regardless you are hurt or you hurt someone doesn’t beat yourself as it only worsens your situation. When Carrie was hurt by the canceled wedding, she surely needed time to process everything, to cry everything out loud even to lock herself behind the door for weeks. Even when the 4 of them went to Mexico, Carrie just could not enjoy it, but then she got back to her life, she hired an assistant and she grew the compassion that she needs. Because in the end, everyone makes mistakes. We are human after all, but what is important is how to make them up, we can never change our past but we can always fix our present and future.

Steve and Miranda 

They taught me that a relationship is about deciding what’s a priority and what is not. It is about saying how you feel, taking into account how your significant other feels and the most important is to repair. It is about communication and never putting your ego in the center of the relationship, in another word, compromise. Miranda is a workaholic, as far as I’ve understood she was the breadwinner of the family, and Steve understands that, although he cheated on her once, he admitted it and asked for her forgiveness he tried so hard to repair, he also respected Miranda’s decision to move out from their home. According to Dr. Gottman in his book, The Science of Trust he stated that both partners in a relationship are emotionally available only 9% of the time, this makes 91% of the relationship consumed by miscommunication. But as we all know that fiasco is not the issue, the issue would be how we mend it, how we repair it. Steve and Miranda went to the relationship expert, sometimes it’s okay to admit that you both have a problem and go to the expert if you both could not solve the problem. When they decided to show up on the bridge they finally found their own way to defend their marriage with nothing but the desire to repair it. The willingness to put what’s behind, stay behind, and re-building trust is not easy if you work it on your own. When both sides decided to help one another I believe it all works just like Steve and Miranda.

Dear Charlotte, 

Having everything in your grasp did not always feel perfect if you did not have happiness inside your heart. That is just what happened with Charlotte, she was so stressed with her 2 daughters and so busy being a perfect mother that she forgot to enjoy the time. As Dale Carnegie in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People stated, “Everyone seems to seek happiness, and there is one way to find it, by controlling your thoughts. Happiness does not depend on outward conditions, it depends on your inner conditions, it is not about what you have, who you are or where you are not that makes you happy, it is what you think about it.” Just after she spills out how she really felt about her life to Miranda during the Arabian trip, then she felt better. Because in those split seconds before she grumbled to Miranda about her life, she might realize that she owns everything that made her life so perfect. Then I learned that sometimes, we need to look at our situation from the bigger picture and compare our problem to our blessing. On their heart-to-heart talk time both admit that they are blessed they have another person who can take care of their children and admired mothers who don’t have help and just like that she felt better, it is the big picture that sometimes could make us thankful for what we have. Research says that happiness means having satisfaction and meaning in your life. It can be manifested by feeling positive emotions, the ability to get back from negative emotions and uphold a purpose. Happiness is not all about having a lot of privilege of money or feeling constant pleasure, it’s broader, it’s also having the ability to connect with others, to have meaningful relationships. When Charlotte put her happiness in her Valentino skirt then her daughter, Lily, put her dirty hands in her skirt, absolutely she would be upset, but if she took a deep breath and remembered that it can be washed, maybe she could think a little bit straight and handle the situation. Regardless, that was my favorite scene, after all, I could relate just too much.

The Independent Samantha

This woman shows me that the best relationship is with yourself, if you have the right relationship with yourself if you will never be degraded, and no space for people hurting you, she really knows her self-worth. Her decision not to get married and focused on her career did not make her self-less even a bit. She shows the true form of self-love, taking care of one’s own needs not sacrificing one’s well-being of others, it is never settling for less than one’s deserve, that’s really how Samantha looks. When Samantha did not feel appreciated enough by Jason with respect she got away from him. From here, I also learned “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” She made a mess during her trip to Abu Dhabi by forbidding some laws and did not restrict her free will, as a human we have our freedom, but according to John Locke, we are born into perfect freedom, naturally free to do what we want, when we want and how we want, within the bounds of the “law of nature.” In short, our freedom is still limited to the freedom of another person.

In short, no matter how challenging our situation is, we shall always look at something from the other point of view, as it might give us a better perspective.