Am I behaving a certain way toward others and living amends or am I living in Guilt Shame and Regret?

One of my Al anon friends mentioned that doing certain things with others was living amends for her past behavior.

I liked this a lot and it made me want to do certain things for my daughters who are now an adults, like making sure I pay attention to what is going on in their lives and remember to ask about them and make sure my girls know I'm very interested yet not meddling, or remember their birthdays in special ways/ but not over do or try to buy their love with presents,  or remember special events they are involved in and very importantly try not to show more interest in current boyfriend and his family than in their lives. I also have to accept that they may be jealous or sensitive to this and just allow that to be rather than argue with them over how it is not so, I just try extra hard to not give them reason to be jealous now.  I also am thinking about how my "dating" behavior" is not what I wish an older adult Mom was modeling for her daughter yet I won't give up my romantic relationship NOR rush into marriage due to gilt over my past bad decisions (this is still a work in progress) and I am praying about it. These amends are the types of things I missed when they were in high school/college because I was all wrapped up in my relationship with the alcoholic in my life and his family and all the negatives I focused on so much. It helps me so much when I feel myself getting all drama drama like now to remember things like my side of the street, what is really important and stay focused on the present, and to look at my motives and most importantly do focus on what I actually have control over.

What I also notice is that making amends and living in guilt shame and regret are two opposite things!

Guilt shame and regret are letting my feelings about past behavior cause me to behave in ways that are not productive for my current life. Over compensating or over indulging others or allowing others feelings to control my choices about what is best for my life now has no productive purpose for anyone. NOT for me or the others.

Example: I had to set some boundries with my bf's adult children recently and noticed they may be using the fact that he has not always been attentive to them to attempt to control his life. (my BF went into hospital for test which resulted in stints being put in his heart) Because we didn't call his many children to report that he was going in for test before we knew what was happening we avoided the drama of too many people in the waiting room and too many people trying to tell the doctors what was best for dad.( he had access to a phone the entire time and when I asked if he wanted me to call them he said no not until we knew what we were dealing with- and we did call as soon as he woke up from the test and resulting procedure.  I was thankful I did not react to their outrage over not being called sooner.  I can set an example of how I'm going to react and let BF choose how he interacts with his children and try not control the outcome, and this will eventually "teach" whatever it will teach= maybe it will be that they can act however they want but I'm just not going to participate OR maybe my BF will choose not to get involved in the drama BUT my preaching or "teaching " him how to behave will only cause more negative drama= staying out of it gave me much more peace!

This is something I had to live to understand I don't think anyone could have explained this to me, but my Alanon fiends talking about their "living amends" to their families did give me reason to stop and think before reacting.

Thanks for letting me share.

-- Edited by glad on Sunday 4th of January 2015 08:44:14 AM