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.
It is kind of an exciting experience to re-start the inner journey!!! I started to slow down and just observe, listen...slowly starting to get back what I like and what I don't like and my bottom line. Feels freeing!!! So I figured out my addiction....HIM!!! Now I get the codependency!!! I am so thankful I can start to recover and live in the present....I have physically moved on ...now I am hoping my emotions will catch up and I can emotionally move on and re-connect with me!!!!
I was listening to a friend's story the other day, it was so interesting...I felt like I was observing the story (not in the story) and my mind could just see the roles and who was playing what role and I felt so grateful that I had no interest in getting involved (it felt like a gift from something bigger than me). I wasn't judging her or her situation just observing and listening. I felt this deep compassion for her. It wasn't pity and there it was ....it wasn't pity and then my role became clear!!!! I felt guilty for a moment and then I thought....no talk nice to yourself....you did not know at the time!!!! Thanks for letting me share!
Respecting yourself bubbled over into respecting your friend? Pity to me comes from a sense of superiority. Compassion is so much more human and kind. Love that you allowed her the space she needed to just tell her story and allowed yourself to simply be there and to be fully present to her in acceptance and peace.
Well she was telling me the story... I could see the actions...the victim role, the rescuer role, the perpetrator....I kept thinking where did I get hooked in? It was the feeling of pity I would come into the triangle. So yes I guess respecting myself (knowing that it wasn't mine) turned into respecting her and a learning lesson all at once. Now I understand what I need to make an amends for. I guess I never knew how to cope with the feeling of pity (the I would react).
I am thinking this is a FOO issue. I think I was taught acceptable and unacceptable behavior, however I am still a little cloudy on how I reacted to emotions!!!!
I'm uncertain of your meaning here, Truth? I'm not sure what you see that needs an amends? Are you meaning you've felt sorry for people and when you did, you'd act as a rescuer in a particular situation?
So did I. Rescuer is my go to default. It always will be. Fortunately, knowing that is good news. Al-Anon helps me stay in my own hula hoop and trust the other to solve their own problems. That has been the best amends I could make - changing what I could once I had the information available to me. When I feel a pressurized urge to act I know not to act. When my HP wants to act in me there might be a gentle urging or niggling sense but not the pressurized "I've got to DOOOOOOOOOOOOO something." I think it is really good that you've seen this in yourself and that you are also in Al-Anon. I found it excrutiatingly painful not to act at first and then with practice it got easier and easier to wait for my "marching orders" and to notice how often they didn't come from my HP in the waiting time. My prayer: "What do you want me to do?" often received no answer. That was my answer. Nothing.
It is kind of an exciting experience to re-start the inner journey!!! I like that, the sound of it and the picture of it and it led me to the process of waking up in the morning...new day, another opportunity and the agreement to stay within HP's will for me. Observing the story...re-acknowledging the history of "I know this, I've been here before and I know I have changed the ending for me". It was that point where I could say honestly that "Now I know and I know that I know". You felt compassion for her...does that not mean that your emotions have caught up with you and did some practice? Another Yay!!
I am also hard wired to be a rescuer. Good for you that you recognized this pattern and could be with your friend so she could process. It is a skill that is invaluable to have, Truth.
I have been reading ...apparently you have your doing "role" and your "being" role. I think my doing role is the "hero" and my being role is the "lost child"
Good that you will be divesting yourself of those roles? Once we discover them - game's up. We're finally conscious of what has driven us. Then, we get to learn who we are beneath those roles and live our lives more authentically with the help of this program.
-- Edited by grateful2be on Saturday 29th of November 2014 07:05:59 PM
I have picked up three things...
1) Trust Yourself
2) Value Yourself
3) Keep the Focus on Yourself
I have also figured out that 2) and 3) come a bit more naturally for me. When I waiver on 1), the rest go with it.
I love this thread. So much of me has come out in it. I too am, by default, a rescuer. I have laid awake at night trying to figure out how to fix problems in my family and extended family. I felt it was my responsibility. I don't know where this mindset came from. It's just always been me. I have to be very careful when talking with friends about their problems. I have to remind myself that it's ok to hear a friend's problem, but I need to stay in my "hula hoop." Grateful, I love that terminology. What a burden has been lifted. I don't have to fix everyone's problems. It's not my responsibility to do any fixing except in my own hula hoop with my own problems.
Grateful, I never could get one of those dang things (hula hoops) to do right.
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Look for the rainbow after the storm, and I'm sending you a double dose of HOPE. H-hold O-on P-pain E-ends
Truth wrote: I felt this deep compassion for her. It wasn't pity and there it was ....it wasn't pity and then my role became clear!!!! I felt guilty for a moment and then I thought....no talk nice to yourself....you did not know at the time!!!! Thanks for letting me share!
VERY nice share....compassion, yes, pity does't work..pity to me implies a "superiority" issue...where as compassion makes us equals and real.....good job...i can listen to others and feel deep compassion w/out absorbing their pain onto me.....its very freeing and makes me feel like I can do the step 12 w/out getting all coda over other's pain........
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Live and let live and do it with peace and goodwill to all!!!!
I could at age 10. Not sure if I could now, CS. I'll just adapt the idea to me lying the hula hoop on the ground and standing in the center of it. 