The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
I am so thankful for this board and each of you posting and sharing your thoughts, experience, strength and hope! I haven't been posting much or replying, but I have been reading quite a bit and finding so much insight and inspiration. Thank you!!
And thank you so much for providing such a safe place to share. I want to share some confessions that I've kept hidden and now I want them out in the light of day. I guess I have to keep chipping away at my amends to myself.
I have come through a lot and am now in a situation that I think I have blown it out of proportion in my mind. I seem to be experiencing it as something more big and painful than is really healthy or necessary. It doesn't feel right. I know it's triggered some of those old shame tapes that keep on playing and dragging me down. Luckily, I am practicing awareness and trying to keep that honesty with myself that is so crucial. I'm trying to learn from this and get back on that solid ground of serenity.
I have abandoned myself and worse, and I have done this over and over again, day after day. When I most need to be confident and loving towards myself, I am my own worst critic and attacker.
I'm feeling sad and rejected, so what do I do? Ask myself over and over again, "Why did you screw that up?!" - Even when I KNOW I did what was right for me, and did the best I could with what I had at the time, and presented my needs and feelings with love for the other person. It's not all my fault, but I'm all too ready to take all the blame and then some.
I have so much self doubt. I deserve to have faith in myself and trust in my own judgement. I don't have to be perfect and I don't want to be paralyzed or beat up in that impossible search for perfection. I want to get to a place where I know I'm doing my best and that is good enough for me.
I want to get to a place where I value my own needs and feelings, where I decide what's right for me and set healthy boundaries, where I don't base my worth and happiness on what someone else thinks of what I do.
I want to accept and love myself for who I am, and I want to accept and love those around me, and accept the world as it is even when it's disappointing and hurtful. It just is and I don't need to make it my fault! I don't need to fight it - it's just self destructive. I want to make mistakes and just keep going, say I'm sorry and make amends and just leave it at that. I don't need to keep whipping myself with made up mistakes, theories and fears, over and over!
I want to have higher standards of what I will accept and tolerate in terms of how other people treat me. If someone else lets me down, I want to stop taking it so personally and I want to stop making excuses for them at my own expense! Say someone lies to me - that's their choice to lie, it's not my fault they lied, it's fair for me to expect honesty, and then I can decide how to handle it with them - whether to talk about it and forgive, forget about it, or distance myself from a person who lies to me.
I don't want to keep doing this dance of blaming myself for someone else's mistreatment of me. I deserve better. I'm doing this to myself and with God's help and healthy wonderful people around me, I'm going to change this.
So, I'm flailing all over with it now, but at least I'm aware and I'm not letting it destroy my confidence and set off a panic. I don't have to tolerate being mistreated and I don't have to take the blame. I don't have to beat myself up with self doubts and fear. I don't have to do this perfect. I can screw up and make amends. I can do the best I can and be happy. I can take responsibility for my part. God can forgive me. I can forgive me. Real love and friendship can forgive me too. I can be more selective about who is close to me and stop letting others bring me down. It's one day at a time. I can start over tomorrow. It will get better. It already is getting better and I'm on the right track.
What a beautiful honest insightful post. The deep awareness, of how you are hurting yourself, and the gentleness you are exhibiting towards this knowledge is a true gift of this program. You are certainly on your way
I found that if I made a gratitude and my asset list each day and added one new item to each list-I was finally able to understand, deep within, that I was a beautiful child of God and I had many gifts to share with the world. I deserved to be treated with courtesy and respect and I deserved to treat others the same.
Alanon also gave we the ability to place principles above personalities (even my own) and from this my self esteem and understanding grew. What a gift this program is
I truly appreciate your honesty It is powerful to see your growth
-- Edited by hotrod on Thursday 1st of September 2011 07:05:36 AM
Doozy .. I'm in a rough spot tonight myself. I can't get to meetings as I'd normally do because I'm out of town and at the mercy of others. I need an honest share myself tonight and it's on a similar path .. But even though I'm sharing & feeling some of the same, it's Never to the same degree it was before alanon. It's just a much deeper peeling on the layers of the onion .. For the first time, I'm getting to a point where I can be dead honest, which means .. I'm beginning to get out of the feely part of the things and beginning to get healthier .. I'm also beginning to recognise on a deeper level, the hardest person for me to get honest with is myself.. It's not so much the fear of facing others .. It's the fear of facing myself .. but then fear stands for Face Everything and Recover ..
as i was reading your post, some things jumped out .. take what you like and leave the rest .. Sharing my ESH only and never giving advice ..
I am my own worst critic and attacker. ( I used to say I'm my own worst enemy, but now i'm beginning to recognise i'm also been my own best friend .. who else would worry about me enough to spend so much time trying to find the solutions to my problems and those that will eventually lead toward serenity, etc..)
I KNOW I did the best I could with what I had at the time, (I used to think that meant just what I had inside me in the moment .. today I'm realising it also means what i'm surrounded by, who i'm surrounded by, how intense is the disease/irrational thinking surrounding me in the moment .. what types of situations took place, etc..
I deserve to have faith in myself and trust in my own judgement. (for me i'm learning if i trust my own thinking, it's like trusting the disease .. I've been affected and my own thinking gets sick .. how can i tell it's sick ?? it's again Not rational .. if i'm trusting others who have Also been affected (to the point i'm placing full dependence in people alone without higher power .. I'm setting myself up for failure .. again it's like trusting the disease and we know this disease is powerful, cunning, baffling, deceptve, confusing .. where's the trust in those traits ?? what i'm learning is that i can find situations, people, etc.. which are more trusting than others .. but at the end of the day .. if they are healthy people in program it is Still higher power working through us alone that i am able to trust ..
I want to get to a place where I know I'm doing my best and that is good enough for me. (When you get to a meeting .. you'll be in one of the best places to be in) Sounds like you're on the right track .. I just thought I'd share .. who knows maybe something read will help make the thinking even clearer or at least bring about a little more balance ...
Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.- Maya Angelo
I recently heard something that I really identify with..... "I am a victim of domestic violence..... and I live alone!!!"
In early recovery, I would cry to my sponsor, "omg, I am so flawed!!" (prior to recovery, I had no idea)
To which she would reply, "if your HP forgives you and you CAN'T or WON'T forgive you, you are putting yourself in the god seat, you are playing god."
Pride is certainly one of my character defects, thinking that I am soooo special that someone like ME should've known better. (ego) My sponsor and I would laugh when I'd tell her that I really have a hard time not thinking that I'm special. To which she would say, "you are special sweetie. You're special like the rest of us. " lol
As you say, we did our best with what we knew....
Today I have a program of recovery that helps me to know myself, the good and the bad. Until I determine that my character defects are completely objectionable in my life, I am not going to let them go. And for some of mine, I'm hitting rock bottom with them. For our part, all we have to do is be WILLING to let them go, Higher power is going to remove them for us... in God's perfect timing. That's practicing steps 6 and 7.
With your sponsor's help and the twelve steps, you WILL come to love yourself... it is all one big miracle. And all we have to do is participate, hahaha
Thanks for the beautiful post.
__________________
The prayer isn't for Higher Power to change our lives, but rather to change us.
Thank you for sharing today. I just loved the depth of honesty, letting your person truth rise to the surface. I too had so many of the feelings you had when I was beginning my journey of recovery. I echo what another person posted, you do the best you can with what you have in any given moment. The slogans Easy Does It and Progress not Perfection comes to mind.
Glad Lee, I was sent into the stratosphere laughing with the quote I am a victim of domestic violence ....and I live alone. I myself could completely relate. It is almost seeing two sides of a coin, a reflection of how I lived before the program, and how I am choosing how to live, one day at a time. Thanks for sharing that. It really is a keeper for me.
Doozy - great afirmations and awareness. I hope to be able to make the same claims and believe them. I know they are right, but still punish myself beyond what is reasonable. I too know that God sees me as I truly am and that I am not junk! Thanks for sharing. May have to post this one on the mirror to remember to make these same claims to my own self-help.
