Hi! My friend Susan described my current hometown of DC as the epicenter of hope. Because of the new presidential administration. It is rather exciting to be here at this moment. Regardless of what you think of Mr. Obama’s worldview, you have to agree, he is one heck of a man. So poised. So even tempered. So calm and measured. He seems to exude presidential poise and integrity. I totally get the sense that he does what he thinks is the right thing all the time. There will be no ethical slip-ups from him.
Personally, I could have made a good case for either McCain or Obama—they both had good things to offer us…I digress.
I am having my own hopeful renaissance.
The storm clouds have cleared. The fight with myself is over.
Let’s see if I can explain this to you…and to myself!
I have forgiven myself for having my difficult feelings. I realized, I would be unhealthy and abnormal if I DIDN’T have those feelings. And that any normal person would feel as I do.
I abstracted myself and the specifics from the situation and just asked myself, “If someone is mean to you, do you expect yourself to like them?” No, of course not.
Then,
“If someone is emotionally unpredictable, and you have the experience of having been attacked by this person, do you expect yourself to feel open and easygoing and comfortable around them?” No, of course not.
Then,
“If someone has betrayed you, and expected you to do things they themselves will not do, do you expect yourself to feel loyalty?” No, of course not.
The fact that these expectations exist in the first place IS THE BLEEPED UP THING to begin with. They BECAME my expectations of myself, because my family members expect them of me and of eachother. The fact that there are no corresponding commitments on their parts to be loyal, kind, safe, and emotionally available in exchange IS THE DYSFUNCTION.
The situation IS A LOSING PROPOSITION, and I didn’t set up the dynamic in the first place. And all of my decisions to step away and make healthier choices—despite being seen as BETRAYAL by my family—IS actually HEALTH and GROWTH.
And, unfortunately, in this case, there can only be one or the other. I cannot do things the way my family has done them and get any kind of outcomes that interest me.
So—I do not have to flog myself with thoughts of being terrible. THE DYSFUNCTION is terrible, I have chosen not to be dysfunctional, I am not terrible. I am not perfect, but I am not terrible.
And besides, ANY PERSON, any person would feel like this situation sucks. It just does.
I do see how dysfunction replicates itself though. The MOMENT you respond in kind—which—is your default way of responding from years of conditioning—is the moment YOU feel bad, and you feel like you’re a bad person. You think you’re “defending yourself,” and you feel compelled to “defend yourself,” but the truth is you are entering into the drama. Stooping to their level. Being unconscious and unconsciously perpetuating unhealthy patterns.
In CHOOSING different responses, you CHOOSE health, you BECOME a good person with your healthier responses.
I can forgive myself for the past, and for my past bad behavior. Safe in the knowledge now that I rarely ever fall for ‘the bait.’ And, I don’t have to be perfect.
I think PERFECTIONISM is massively overcompensating for this abuse dynamic. It works two ways:
1. you want to be perfect so no one can criticize you in the first place. This is a mind BLEEP, because it’s not possible, and because critical people don’t need reasons to criticize, they go out of their way to find things. And, that’s about THEM, not about you. Trying to be perfect MAKES it about you, when, really, you should just step away.
2. You feel BAD that you ever responded in these BLEEPED up ways. So, you think, if you’re perfect, perfectly nice, perfectly orderly, perfectly clean, whatever, you can somehow make up for the fact that you ever responded in a dysfunctional way. This too does not work. You cannot use external things to cover up an internal feeling. The only way through this is to look yourself square in the eye, acknowledge your past transgressions and forgive yourself for those being your best efforts up to now.
Needless to say, these realizations have been monumental for me. As a life-long perfectionist and self-flagellator, I’m not sure what I’m going to do with all my newfound spare time. ☺
Tags: hope forgiven
