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 a compromiser .... my brother often laughs with me because he will choose a side of a debate he knows I believe in just to watch me stand up for someting I do not believe in to make the outcome that we meet in the middle. Although this is a good quality to have, I feel it is limiting me in some ways.
Choices have always been hard for me to make without being pushed to an extreme, it seems I feel that making a choice usually hurts someone. Why would i feel this way?
I don't want to be a person who makes choices with no thought given to how it will effect others. I do want to make choices based on what is best for me, without guilt over how it effects others. I do want to make choices that have positive effects on the people in my life that are supportive and respect me. I want to be able to release the power that guilt has over me in regards to making choices that effect the people who are not supportive and do not respect me. Where do I begin?
I'm asking right now for my HP to give me clear and strong signals on where I should be going in my life, because I am obviously not understanding the soft subtle ones.
I too share that "affliction". I have made choices for years... I guess most of my life, based soley on how others will react instead of what is right for me.
It supprises me even today that when I need to decide to do (or not do) something that it is still a struggle for me to use the effect on me as a factor. That just really tells me how sick I still am.
What has helped me lately is to give myself time to think over decissions. I have pretty much banned myself from snap decissions, and it has helped me make better ones.
That is why I end every post I make with "Take care of you". It is a reminder to us both to do that! LOL
Take care of you!
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"Good judgement comes from experience... experience comes from bad judgement" - unknown
I have to also put a ban on snap decisions. I 've made plenty of them. Some of them involved rescuing the A. Some of those I paid for for years. I tend these days to try to work on major decisions. I am also constructing a plan b that will involve the next 5 years or so of my life (not all of it hopefully with the A in tow). I have never really made long term plans before. I have in the past of course, like going to college but I have never made a comprehensive one so I am excited about that.
Jennifer, we are all guilty of sometimes making the wrong choice, and there are times when deciding how our choice will affect others before we make it is the proper thing to do. As concerns our recovery, we must make choices that are right for US, and we must make them without guilt. It's hard. It is for me anyway, but I have learned that if I make a choice without myself in mind, it's often wrong. Hope I am not sounding as confusing as I think after reading what I just wrote! LOL!! Shakespeare said it best; "To thine own self be true."
With caring, Diva
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"Speak your truth quietly and clearly..." Desiderata
If you do feel guilty, that is positive in a way,because you do care about other people, and that's why you feel guilty. If you didn't have those feelings, then it would mean you didn't care at all! So feel the guilt, get rid of it, and do what's best for you.
