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.
Just read a story in the education section of the NY Times, about young ladies today graduating high school and the pressures they face to get into college. I didn't realize how hard the story hit me till I finished it. All of the sudden, waves of feeling "less than," "not enough," "too small for my shoes," filled me. Today, I know that this is a big part of my shame that I'm still working on. This is a part of me that I was instilled with growing up with. The feeling that, "Why couldn't I have been THAT GIRL, who gets all the good grades?" The feeling of "Why am I MY PARENTS daughter, instead of THOSE PARENTS daughter? I mean, my daddy always asks about HER..." The feeling that "If I just try THAT MUCH HARDER!!!!!...." So I turned on the internet radio and guess what came on? "Let It Be", complements of The Beatles. What a divine insight! Those of you that have known me awhile know that I still wrestle with the God that controls stoplights and songs on the radio, but this time I'll give My Divine Spirit the benefit of the doubt. The truth was that I've always hated myself in this area: Just never matching up to my parents expectations has been something I beat myself up over incessantly. Yet it's also a point of growth, too: in my FOURUM 50th Anniversary Journal, a quote for writing said "the man who expects so much in himself expects so much in others and is never satisfied with the results." This is where I'm at today. I can't please my parents because they are so unhappy with themselves, and beating myself up over "What might've been" adds salt to old, starting to heal wounds. What about you? How do you work through some of the old insecurities? As you can tell, for me, it's a process not an event. Some days, I strike oil, others, the pump's dry as a desert.
I guess I'm working through all mine on a day to day basis. My programme is letting me lose these kind of feelings...without me knowing it sometimes.
A funny think happened this week to me. I have been brilliant as you know for a few weeks. And my self esteem was improving. I had been at a few AA meetings, for ME, as I felt it was helping my understanding of the alcoholic....
Someone questioned me on why I was going to them. I tried to explain to them, then I thought Why do I need to explain my actions to this person. I'm doing whats right for me. I spoke to my sponsor who is a double winner, she said if your enjoying it and its right for you just now, keep going.
Someone else asked me the same question a second time. I had to justify my actions to them too.This was al-anon members.. Anyway, I never went to one this week, because i felt not good enough to sit in a room with a whole lot of recovering alcoholics. I felt I was not wanted, like people were talking about me behind my back.....And I know thats all crap, because all the AA members have been brilliant with me....
That was me going BACK, to how I used to react to people doubting me. how I was always so insecure all the time....
Now I am growing and what I do for what reason is my business....
I guess I'm working through all mine on a day to day basis. My programme is letting me lose these kind of feelings...without me knowing it sometimes.
A funny think happened this week to me. I have been brilliant as you know for a few weeks. And my self esteem was improving. I had been at a few AA meetings, for ME, as I felt it was helping my understanding of the alcoholic....
Someone questioned me on why I was going to them. I tried to explain to them, then I thought Why do I need to explain my actions to this person. I'm doing whats right for me. I spoke to my sponsor who is a double winner, she said if your enjoying it and its right for you just now, keep going.
Someone else asked me the same question a second time. I had to justify my actions to them too.This was al-anon members.. Anyway, I never went to one this week, because i felt not good enough to sit in a room with a whole lot of recovering alcoholics. I felt I was not wanted, like people were talking about me behind my back.....And I know thats all crap, because all the AA members have been brilliant with me....
That was me going BACK, to how I used to react to people doubting me. how I was always so insecure all the time....
Now I am growing and what I do for what reason is my business....
I suppose you could say I come from the opposite side of the coin. Maybe because I was born to wealth and privilege, my parents never had ANY aspirations for me or instilled any goals in me whatever except that it might be good if I got married and out of the house, and provided them with grandchildren. My fortune would come whether I became a success or not, so why bother? I fought them tooth and nail, insisting on an education and demanding more of myself than they thought was necessary. I sent myself through college working all manner of jobs, then married at age 23. My marriage was a truly happy one; my husband and I were passionately in love. I would not have married him otherwise. He died of brain cancer only seven years into our marriage. I never stopped learning and doing. I believe that if I had lived the life my parents expected me to, I would have suffered from self-esteem problems, but, fortunately I don't.
Please...don't tell me I am in denial. (Not talking about you Tige!!) Some people do think every positive thought is shrouded in denial. I am fully in control of myself, my surroundings, and my life. I like me and I like where I am.
Diva
-- Edited by Diva at 18:13, 2007-04-01
-- Edited by Diva at 22:18, 2007-04-01
__________________
"Speak your truth quietly and clearly..." Desiderata
One of the ways I fight insecurities is to find some things I am actually good at, and do them. The more actual, positive achievements that you have, that you can point yourself at when the self doubt comes knocking, the better off you are. They dont have to be big.
In general, I don't find it too useful to compare myself to others, but every now and then it can be illuminating. I tend to think I am not doing too well, struggling, etc, and then when I look around, TRULY look, with the poor self esteem blinkers turned off, what I see is that most everybody is struggling - if not at that particular thing, then at some other. In other words, big deal, you're human, get over it.
I also think, forgive me for saying this, that some of this is just youth. When you are in your forties, with 20 years worth of challenges faced and overcome behind you, you will find that you have gained some sense of comofrt with yourself, some security in your own abilities, without really realizing it. Occasionally I come across some artifact from my twenties, and I am always struck by hard I found it to do things that I now toss off without thinking (cooking, doing my taxes, dealing with nasty people...). There really is something to be said for experience, and you will get it the way the rest of us do - with time.
Yes, yes, me, me, I'm suffering those insecurities too, and beating myself up on a daily basis, now this morning for instance this is what happened to me, my husband is the a and he's isolating from me at the moment, won't come near me, I long for him to just wrap his arms around me and just cuddle, but no our flesh hasn't touched for weeks now, this morning I woke and looked at the back of him, I thought how can a person not feel not touch not want, I thought but he is ill, and his illness makes him act this way, I thought how many times in my life have I woke up and his mood has set my day, if he's grumpy then I have been too, if he's happy then I can be too, I thought crikey, I only have to be happy just for today regardless of how I think he feels, and I thought about all the years when the pattern of my life was just like that, my happiness was determined by someone elses mood. I never ever looked at it like that before, and then I thought about my mum, when she had alzimers, she was quite different from the mother that was well, and yet I accepted her and loved her just the way she was, I guess I am learning I have choices now, it's my choice how I want to live each day,I think behaviour is learnt and in some situations I can use my bad behaviour to feel self pity and I can justify my unhappiness sometimes because poor me I married an a,but what a cop out that is, but then just now I thought to myself, hold on a minute, if I can live happily through the hard day's if I can do that no matter what, I'm going to be free, and then I thought maybe I would never have found this insight this hope if I hadn't married my A so I'm struggling too, but I think thats ok, I'm learning from it.
I think there are thousands of women and men that feel the same way. I can remember as a child my father would say, if you don't make good grades you'll be behind the 8 ball your whole life. My Dad didn't have much faith that I would suceed at much. So when I made the choice to go to college I had to really work hard to make decent grades. I think a huge part of my problem was no matter how much I studied I could never really make the grades that my parents were proud of. It wasn't acceptable to just be average. When I got to college I felt a huge amount of anxiety. I felt like a fraud some days that I wasn't smart enough to be there. I kept going though and even though I wasn't at the top of my class in the end I got that piece of paper that said I completed my course work and got that diploma. I had a right to that diploma and it was something no one could take away from me. I don't feel behind the 8 ball in life. I don't make a lot of money but my mission in life outweighs the money. Living with A'ism has taken its toll on me in other ways.
I kept telling myself that my parents might have given me life but it would be up to me to determine if I want my life to be good with success in whatever way I think success is. 31K a year, a condo, two great kids,a job I love, a vehicle, the ability to move, the ability to love and have fun, that's a successful life to me.
Enjoy the day and keep moving forward
Peace, Twinmom~
__________________
"The people who don't mind matter and the people who mind, don't matter". (Dr. Seuss)
Tiger2006 wrote: Just read a story in the education section of the NY Times, about young ladies today graduating high school and the pressures they face to get into college. I didn't realize how hard the story hit me till I finished it. All of the sudden, waves of feeling [snip] [snip] What about you? How do you work through some of the old insecurities? As you can tell, for me, it's a process not an event. Some days, I strike oil, others, the pump's dry as a desert. Tiger, you described a process familiar to me. I really like your image: "Some days, I strike oil, others, the pump's dry as a desert." Thank you for giving me a title to pull together the many chapters of my ongoing recovery.
How I work through some of the old insecurities, terror, programming from childhood: 1. I've worked with different therapists for a third of my lifetime, not because I'm a slow learner 8-) but because I have multiple disorders and was so thoroughly brainwashed by my parents from the time I was a toddler. 2. I've worked my Al-Anon program daily since 1995. 3. Sometimes, the emotions are more overwhelming than at other times. Sometimes, I'm stressed-out from external realities such as hurricanes. Sometimes, I'm experiencing a flare-up of symptoms from chronic illness. In those times, I've learned that no matter how great it may be for *others* to use that as a time to work on deep-down stuff, my best strategy is to "float" rather than trying to swim upstream. 4. I take notice when problems with sleeping arrive yet again ... or loss of appetite ... or nightmares. Those are "biggies" for me; strong indicators that I have to get even more help and be even more gentle in caring for me first so that I don't end up in the hospital. 5. I take the medicines that help but have side-effects. 6. I ask for help. (Hard for me to do, but I'm getting very good at actually doing it despite how I feel; that's what 20 years of practice can do! lol)
Hope this helps you or someone else reading; it helped me to write it.
Sunny <<<<----- often gives TMI [Too Much Information] 8-)
>>Someone else asked me the same question a second time. I had to justify my actions to them too.This was al-anon members..<<
I can relate to what you've described. I do many things for my recovery that seem so "odd" or even "doesn't sound sane" to others that I'm often called up to the front of the classroom or courtroom so to speak to explain myself.
For many, many years I believed that I would be able to explain/teach/share what my aims and intentions were and why I did certain things that helped me. So I usually spent precious time and energy on fruitless enterprises that not only got me nowhere but set me back.
Then, while reading a detective novel 8-) I encountered for the first time the saying, "Never ask permission; never explain."
Because I believe you will get what I mean, dear Ally, I don't feel I need to explain what that meant to me and for me.
Sunny, who feels so fortunate that other Al-Anon members encouraged her from the beginning to go to open AA meetings
