This blog has been a lesson on how to take control over your mind. As my life sped out of control down its slippery slope, I came to a point on that road when I realized the slope was being paved by my very own thoughts. The very process by which my mind functioned; its thought process, was accelerating the speed of my emotional crash. Once I realized my thoughts were the reason I was in the negative emotionally overwhelming hell in the first place, somewhere out from the ever most edges of my mind, was the idea that if my thoughts got me in, then my thoughts could get me out; out of wherever this abstract, subjective, negative place might be.
I have learned that I am an expanding thought human being, meaning that I was meant to come here and to expand my thoughts, and that when I am put in a position where growth and expansion are thwarted, I am filled with daunting negative emotion in the form of frustration. When I feel I am not heard, or when I feel that others are exploiting or drawing attention to what they or society might consider a flaw, or when I am being lied about, or when my relationships are ones that are not permitted to grow in love and warmth, I am easily frustrated.
For years I swallowed that frustration and tried only harder to "fit in" or "be what others might have wanted me to be" all in the tattered hopes of feeling loved and validated.
I have since learned that the only love I needed was the delicious love of self. The only opinion that mattered, was the opinion I had of me, and until I fully swallowed how "incredibly good" a human being I was, my thoughts would always be "other directed" and peace would never be mine.
I have learned to treat my personal thoughts, especially the frightening ones like conversations with good friends. When I hear my mind playing with a fearful thought, I hush it away with the whispers of a nurturing mom. I have learned to go easy with my fears rather than to allow the fear to grow or to feel guilt or shame for having them gallop through my mind.
I have trained my mind NOT to value others as good or bad or situations as good or bad. Things are the way they are because of the choices I have made about them somewhere along my journey. My perceptions are the result of my childhood programming as well as an unobserved mind. If ever I have been depressed, it has been on the heels of lining the people, and situations up in my life in columns labeled "good and bad". My depression has always been attached to thoughts that have been eaten by my obsession to judge and compartmentalize my life into good and bad columns. Freeing myself of the need to judge anything or anyone has opened my heart to more love than I ever imagined possible.
It also helped me stop judging me.
And when not so pleasant circumstances find their way to me, or when things don't always go as I planned, I use the contrast of what I wanted to happen as a backdrop for what I do want to happen in the future.
When I find myself feeling a negative emotion, rather than attach to it or deem the situation as good or bad, I say to myself, "Hmm, I really don't like the way that negative emotion feels. I would much rather feel appreciation, contentment or joy. I better let that negative feeling go, and find something to love and appreciate right now, even if that's just the skin on my body, or my ability to see, to walk or to taste or touch. I would much rather attach to the joy of some part of me than to attach myself to that which feels so dead, depressing and empty."
When things do happen I would have preferred not to happen, I do my best not to label or judge it, knowing that labeling anything or anyone as bad only flames the fires of depression, and negative thinking.
Friday, August 26, 2011
6 comments:
Thank you for visiting my site which was created to help heal adult children of alcoholics, codependents, those suffering from codependency issues, as well as all beings suffering from low self esteem, and who seek validation from outside rather from within.
Know--you are enough!
Lisa A. Romano
healingselfesteem@gmail.com
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Hello, I just read your blog and I appreciate your insight.
ReplyDeleteWhat I have been struggling with most of my life (I'm 53) is the fact that I feel worthless most of the time. I have beautiful smart sons, whom i have raised most of their lives by myself. I make barely over minimum wage but I feel my job I have now and the one I work at for 25 years are a useful part of society. I was a cake decorator for the 25 years at a grocery store. They said I was on of the best, but no matter what I cranked out, it was never enough for management. Cake sales soared at every store I was transferred to and that was why I was transferred, but the cake cases were usually empty because more cakes sold than I could do by myself. I developed Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy and could no longer decorate cakes. Now I am on disability and keep the elderly company, drive them to appointments and out to eat with their families and shop for them as needed. My oldest son, 34, lives in Japan. He owns a company there called Syntec and is married w/ 3 children. I took in my grandchildren for 3 years while he was going through a divorce and then setting up his company. Now he doesn't talk to me because he remarried and I told him his children wanted to live with him and his wife didn't want them. His new and old wife hate me, they say its because my son and his children love me too much and the wife wants all of his attention. I know it sounds weird and I could go into more detail but I'll save you. Anyway, bottom line is everything that should be good in my life turns out horrible. My 3 marriages..my 1st husband I married at 17 because my mother didn't want me to bother her anymore and my father was dead. She always told me I was the ugliest and stupidest person in the world. I worked 2 jobs since 10th grade to support myself. My 1st husband beat my son and I on a daily basis. my second husband stopped working the week after or marriage (I had known him 2 years) and refused to work at all until the end of our marriage, then he got a temporary job w/ the IRS, now, 20 yrs later..he is a E6 there. My 3rd husband went nuts after 10 yrs of marriage. He became paranoid and told our young son that 3 of his co-workers and I were plotting to kill him. He left a suicide note on our son's pillow w/ money in it on Christmas day. The men I had met since then have been crack heads, and men who tell me I good enough to sleep with but not engage in a relationship w/. I had a car that I paid cash for 2 years ago, not worth much but it was a great $4,000 car. 2 weeks ago some guy hit me in a parking lot as I sat waiting for a parking space, his big steel bumper totaled my car, I took the $4,500 the ins co gave me and put it towards a new car I can barely afford but need a decent car to drive the elderly. 2 days after I bought that car, a '06 civic, a girl driving a new huge Tahoe wasn't looking for stopped cars on the road and skitted into my car at 40 MPH. Now my back and neck hurt and I can't do my job, plus I won't know until 3 more days if my new car is totaled. I'm tired of people affecting my life and well being so much and I don't know what to do about it. Nothing goes well for a month straight. I believe in God, Jesus, I pray, go to church, give testimonials, teach my boys at home, 15 and 20, to be positive and be good people and be good to others. My 20 yr old wants to be an RN and starts school next
week. I try to hide my sorrow around them. I have taken in 2 other teenagers who had no place to go.
No matter what I do, I'm always two steps behind
Do you have any suggestions?
Dear Lezlea,
ReplyDeleteYou already know what your problem is. You do not feel nor believe you are worthy although unworthiness is not your truth. In all your explaining what I hear is that you seek validation from others rather than pulling from within you, and as long as you continually seek out others to tell you you are good enough, you will never be happy.
You must stop seeking outside of yourself for strength, worthiness or validation.
You do this by doing whatever you can to love yourself NOW...so if that means getting your nails done, or taking an extra long bath, or saying NO...then that's what it means.
Your life is no longer about you. It sounds as if you have made it about everyone else...so start NOW making it about you...
Good Luck..
Lisa
Thanks Lisa! You are so right! I have NEVER had my nails done, actually. I recently thought about taking a dance class, even though I don't have a partner, so it will be all about me. I've spent my whole life looking for a love I have yet to find. The people in my life are who I care about most and have striven to keep them happy and you are right, I am not happy. I'll keep you posted
ReplyDeleteIt is a perplexing notion, that beings expect to love those, who have yet to discover how to love themselves.
ReplyDeleteWe beings, those of us who so rarely honor our own selves, act mystified when those WE welcome into our lives do not honor us...
It is bizarre, that a being who has yet to learn to respect the entity they are, sadly expects those in his/her world to respect them...
When I finally learned to love, honor and respect me...is when a love I could honor, and respect showed up....
Namaste my dear spiritual sister...Namaste...,
Hi, thank you for your support and advice. I am currently in the process of getting a hearing (I requested it over a month ago) with the Dept of Education. In my second marriage I had applied and received student loans for my then husband to attend college. I had received Pell Grants but because of his past college record, he didn't qualify. The court ordered me to pay them back. 3 were forgiven when I became disabled but 3 weren't. They equaled (at that time) about $3,800. But, since having given the responsibility of these, and me making very little money and raising children alone, my pay eventually was garnished as well as my income tax. So the total repayment to date is well over %30,000 and they still say I owe $27,000 in interest. Anyway, I've requested this hearing to get this settled so I can receive another Pell Grant I have been approved for. I will go back to school and finish my degree. It was an art degree but I have 41 hours of core classes with a 3.3 grade average. I am switching to a Criminal Justice degree so I can work in a court house or police station and maybe even eventually become a counselor to troubled teens or vets. I have joined a gym and go there at least 3 times a week. I do still feel very stressed but I am hopeful for the future. I am starting a free computer class in early Sept. also. I quit answering the phone when a friend who constantly asked me for favors calls :) and I have completely stopped dating. I do need to feel worth. I'm bad about looking at myself in the mirror and saying "you ARE ugly, stupid and useless" but now I try to say "you are smart and there is a lot more in life that you can do for yourself and who cares if someone thinks you are ugly, I like the way you look" Namaste to you too!! Thank you from the depths of my soul
ReplyDeleteI am glad you are beginning to take control over how you feel and what you decide to focus on. What we think about we eventually bring about...so think more pleasant thoughts than non pleasant thoughts and your life will eventually turn...letting things go--especially daunting misconceptions is key...
ReplyDeleteYes--NO dating...for a long while...over a year...maybe a year and a half just you...
In that time you will slowly learn to hear your own thoughts rather than worry over what someone else thinks of you, or what they might want from you...
Namaste...