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I am finding that things are really a-ok for me except in one area of my life/recovery: I am still going WAY overboard on the self-shame and self-blame when it comes to making mistakes.
I made two mistakes yesterday. Not the end of the world: both had to do with mis-communications, one a work and one at a volunteer job I have. I feel pretty well resolved with one and am letting that one go but not so much with the other. But I really fretted over them all day long yesterday and still am struggling about them today. I feel like I messed up and I should have known better.
I am still beating myself up over these things. I apologized. I acknowledged my piece in both of them and proposed a more appropriate/better course of action in the future should similar circumstances come up with the people involved.
Why am I still beating myself up? Can any of you tell me what you do to detach from your mistakes? I really do feel as if I have done all I can to make amends- why am I still feeling all this shame like I should have known better?! HELP- thanks! hugs, J.
For me too. As a perfectionist, I am not allowed to make a mistake. When I do, I cannot let it go.
I have to suffer for this. Even though everyone is forgiving me, I will not forgive myself, because I should have known better, I could have done better, etc. etc.
When I think like this, I am playing Higher Power.
It's my ego, a form of pride.
Jean, as a member of the human race, you are allowed to make mistakes. And, WE STILL LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!
-- Edited by glad lee on Friday 15th of May 2009 07:50:15 AM
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The prayer isn't for Higher Power to change our lives, but rather to change us.
Making mistakes is going to happen...right? We are perfectly imperfect.
When I want to start that self shaming..that, I shoulda known better crapola...I just remind myself I am a beautiful, imperfect child of God. And that my mistakes are nothing more than opportunities for me to grow. Ways for me to realize what the correct action is by becoming aware of what the incorrect action is.
I don't always realize what the next right thing to do is....I go forward the best way I can. If what I did was the wrong thing, I will know it, acknowledge it, learn from it, be grateful for the realization that it was wrong, then let it go.
I have become adept at giving other people a break when they screw up. Gotta keep working on giving myself the same courtesy!
i think I've embrace the idea that mistakes are a way for me to work through lessons that I haven't completed yet. I was able to embrace the idea of not beating myself up when my sponsor was rather blunt about it that it wasn't doing me any good and when I realized that it felt good to be a martyr. It was getting me the attention I wanted from other people that I thought I wasn't getting, and self pity felt good. When I was able to own that I was able to move on and realize that this was the kind of attention I believed I was owed because my parents didn't give it to me. This is when I realized I wasn't owed anything in my life; I wasn't a child anymroe; I was an adult. I am responsible for my well being now. I was/am responsible for my needs now. It is my job to address my problems. If I don't do that, then that's on me. It's no one's job to take care of my feelings. I can ask for help dealing with them, but it's not your job to make them better. That's manipulative. It takes time, But willingness does change things
I tend to have a what's done is done attitude and move on from there. No point in beating yourself up, it's kind of like worrying - doesn't really change what's going to happen and 99% of the time it's not as bad as you imagined it would be. Practice saying oh well... and start thinking about what's next.
I try to practice the NEW behaviour, out loud if possible - in front of a mirror is even better though that's usually too hard for me. My analogy is, it's like cutting a record (this hearkens back to the days before CDs, all you youngsters out there) - I have a pretty deep groove cut for the old way. If I practice the new way over and over, BEFORE I NEED IT, I have a better chance of slipping into the new groove when the situation arises again. I think practicing the behaviour also gives me the chance to practice feeling better about myself - "hey, look what I did! (Sh, head voices, I'm practicing here, and feeling good about what I did is part of the practice..) I did a healthy behaviour without even thinking about it! Way cool!"
I still remember, not the specific incident, but the feeling of wonder and amazement that came over me one time when I had done this practice, and days or weeks later, the new words came out - I was like, where did that come from? Oh yeah! I PRACTICED it!! and it WORKED!!!
hmmm... detaching from mistakes, that's interesting. I can't say I ever did that really. I would beat myself up too and had perfectionist, unrealistic expectations of myself, I think mostly b/c I am an ACoA. What I did was face these acoa issues. I knew that that stuff was coming from that, that it was picked up in childhood & it isn't a healthy way to be. I was trying to identify all of these, so that if I deemed something "unhealthy" I could replace it with new ideas, concepts, ways to cope.
I knew I acted as a perfectionsit to win favor with others. It's ridiuculous, no one is perfect and that rigidity fed a lot of fear into my present life. I decided to absolutely lower my expectations of myself to the point of having almost none. I'd expect me to follow through on my word but I'd have to commit to that first. So that's one thing. I also stopped apologizing for myself & stopped beating msyelf up. That was more easy b/c ppl in program would say, "wow, ur hard on yourself" and I immediatley started to be gentle & stop beating myself up. It was NOT helping me and others saw it clearly & it wasn't attractive. I knew I was kicking me before anyone else had the chance to and it was old patterns that didnt serve anymore. So I outgrew it.
I fiercely looked for what was healthy and that is what I brought into my new life. I had to do a lot of forgiveness work with myself to be ablet to get to a place where I could let things like that go.
Also, I appreicate the mistakes I make, it shows me a way in which something does not work very well, I get the opportunity to do better. You made apologies, now forgive yourself & try again. No one will have a perfect anything & thinking along thoise lines is an illusion born in fear, that's how I see it.
Your only as sick as your secrets. What are you ashamed of, are you scared we will see that you're just a human being? We're all in this together, mistakes just help us determine what we dont want to do ~ absolutely nothing to be ashamed about. Forgive yourself, for being human! I've had to do that many times & it feels better everytime I do it. hugs.
thinks too much, like the practising in the mirror idea, thanks.
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Light, Love, Peace, Blessings & Healing to Us All. God's Will Be Done. Amen.
When I went to Insite (a self-awareness week long program), one of the exercises went something like this....
The facilitator asked the group - "on a scale of 1 to 100, where would we rate our children, in terms of achieving their potential, where would you rank your child?" As a group, the score averaged out to 90+... We were then asked the same question, but to apply it to ourselves. The average score was between 40-50.... The moral is - we are tough critics on ourselves..... we need to learn to love ourselves, as we would love those precious to us..... cut ourselves some slack, and stop expecting perfection....
All easier said than done, of course, but good food for thought
Tom
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"He is either gonna drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?"
"What you think of me is none of my business"
"If you knew the answer to what you are worrying about, would it REALLY change anything?"
Helloooooo!! We are all human and we all make mistakes. I think what makes a mistake ok, is the way we deal with them. We own up to our mistakes, we learn from our mistakes and we try not to make them twice. Sometimes we repeat our mistakes but that is just because we didn't learn from them the 1st time or the 10th time. But eventually, we will learn.
wow, awesome ESH you guys- thanks for your stories and perspectives and tips- its a gold mine all for me (and whomever reads this)! I read some good stuff under the "mistakes" heading in my courage to change book, too, and I called my sponsor. We laughed. Its kind of ridiculous but geez in the moment its kind of still very scary to me (and I am beginning to figure out why and I AM GETTING GOOD PRACTICE, RIGHT?). Lots of food for thought and processing here. I know I have been dealing with a co-worker who has been making ALOT of mistakes lately and I have really had to cut her some slack and I have. Time for me to show myself the same courtesy, afterall, everything turned out OK despite all the mistakes...for all of us.
I just feel like I am in the dog house chronically with my boss, for example. Reminds me of my ex AH. I think I need to have a talk with her about it perhaps- I will take it to HP. I wish she and I could just loosen up a bit but she is very high strung and uptight and full of anxiety about much. I do like and respect her very very much, however. She is very wise and smart but I do think she over-reacts sometimes but she is the boss and she gets to and I can roll with that (I might do the same if I was in her position). I accept her for the way she is, though, honestly. That is all I have control over. Me and my feelings.
aha Jean , you are human , and humans make mistakes . let it go . You have apologiized and I would bet it won't happen again . Perfectionism is such a terrible thing and seems to be a problem for alot of us in this program . i found a definition of a perfectionist awhile back and put it on the fridge for my husband Perfectionist = A proffessional FAULT FINDER . ewwwww not nice . Well I don't know if he ever saw it but I sure did - and reminded me again to get out of m y own road and cut me a little slack .
I am finding that things are really a-ok for me except in one area of my life/recovery: I am still going WAY overboard on the self-shame and self-blame when it comes to making mistakes.
Oh you and I are together on this one...Self shame/abuse/criticism/self blame, even name calling when I make mistakes....The dumber the mistake?? The worse I would react....I am keeping my abusive family alive by carrying on their put downs....it is TRAINED behaviour....They (parents) are not alive to put me down, so I took over....I was trained very well...
Hear something enough (as a child, especially) and you become unable to filter out the "bs" and you end up "buying into it"....
I made two mistakes yesterday. Not the end of the world: both had to do with mis-communications, one a work and one at a volunteer job I have. I feel pretty well resolved with one and am letting that one go but not so much with the other. But I really fretted over them all day long yesterday and still am struggling about them today. I feel like I messed up and I should have known better.
Right!!! Not the end of the world, but to "perfection" oriented people, like me it *can* be and with me, I was put down soo bad by my bio abusive male parent AND my mother to a lesser albeit harming degree...
It was like every time I screwed up, I was proving them right...Like "yea, I am a born screw up"....Ohhh I hve to work on this constantly....I work as an accountant, and I did a dumb mistake not putting right postage on 2 bills I sent..(did't know the postage rates went up)....I verbally beat me up about that ....Yea, I wold go over the and over them, 1 "oh crap" would cancel out a bunch of "atta girls".......Oh I can so relate to you
It stems from our needing to be "perfect" to cancel out our core beliefs that we are "less then"...I was to my entire bio family "less then" in THEIR eyes....So I bought it...I believed it...Accepted it as my truth...I never got praise until I got outta there and by then the mind set was so deep seated w/o recovery, there would be no hope to reverse this damage....
I am still beating myself up over these things. I apologized. I acknowledged my piece in both of them and proposed a more appropriate/better course of action in the future should similar circumstances come up with the people involved.
Yep!!! I have had to apologize to my inner child and what I do is say OUTloud, I "take my critic to court" and tell her to *prove* I am a screw up...I challenge her like I am the defense attorney and I throw evidence on evidence on her to show her she is WRONG....That is what I do...I say "STOP IT......you are WRONG!!! THIS is the truth about me......................." and then I list the good and positive attributes that I have to *counter* the critic......
Why am I still beating myself up? Can any of you tell me what you do to detach from your mistakes? I really do feel as if I have done all I can to make amends- why am I still feeling all this shame like I should have known better?! HELP- thanks! hugs, J.
For me it was HABIT...And the need to keep working on CHANGING MY MIND about me......4 steps to bad behaviour (in our case self critic).....
1......event (in our case-- the mistake)
2......belief about that event (in our case "oh yea, you #$%$ed up again".....
3......emotions based on the belief ( anger, sadness, resentment to self)
4......behaviour based upon the emotions which arose out of our skewed beliefs about ourselves.....thus the "beating me up".....
Try taking the critic to court.....Turn the LIGHT on her and say "OK, you want to say this about me?? WEll HEAR THIS!!!" and then go into your list of all the wonderful attributes about yourslf.....the minute my critic rears her ugly head I tell her to "SHUT UP..LIAR....I am good..I am imperfect but very smart...I am .xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
whatever YOU need to counter your critic....Take her to court enough times and she will think twice about prosecuting you....
You probably heard it from someone else. Maybe you think you should be perfect. I have learned that everything is a gift even mistakes. Make more mistakes, do it on purpose. Imperfection rules. You are a precious child of your HP's.
