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What have we learned to help us cope, to make us stronger?
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<blockquote data-quote="recoveringenabler" data-source="post: 601447" data-attributes="member: 13542"><p>Barbara, talking with you like this makes me feel as if I am looking into a mirror, I can see a reflection of myself in your thoughts and feelings. Your innocent honesty about your feelings makes my own journey much clearer to me, I see how hard I've been on myself, how much I expected of myself, how much I blamed myself.................don't do it, your depression will last if you do. You didn't do anything wrong. You did the best you could. In my opinion, you are indeed punishing yourself for imagined wrong doings because you didn't live up to your own expectations of what a perfect mother is. Good Lord, I'll bet that bar was set so high Mother Teresa couldn't touch it!</p><p></p><p>I think we have those absurd expectations of ourselves to fill our own sense of not feeling good enough. If we excel 'out there' at something, it will mask the shame, the inadequacy, the lack of value, the imperfect nature of ourselves that we feel inside..............yikes. It's not real, it's an inside job. That was what I meant earlier in having to find my own darkness, discover my own wounds, for if we do that we then throw this attachment to being perfect parents overboard and just be <em>people, </em>flawed, imperfect, wounded, everyday normal people.</p><p></p><p> If we have a flawed kid, a kid who doesn't live up to societies determination of success, we don't go before the tribunal and get cast out of paradise permanently............we don't get shot at dawn.......we just get to <strong>be</strong>, to recognize that life is imperfect, that we all make messes, that mistakes are part of the human experience and we are human too.........there doesn't have to be someone to blame, we get to 'self correct' and address options for change, we don't have to beat ourselves up about it....... no one gets out alive anyway so we may as well lighten up. </p><p></p><p>If you give up the internal need to fill up all your wounds with perfection, you can then go buy yourself whatever you want, you can laugh uproariously even when things aren't all that okay............the need to punish yourself will diminish if not disappear and you can just breathe easily without a list of stuff to do before you can relax and enjoy yourself. Life is not meant to be about paying a huge price for our (perceived) mistakes, it's meant to be lived and enjoyed. Addiction to perfection. It's a killer.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="recoveringenabler, post: 601447, member: 13542"] Barbara, talking with you like this makes me feel as if I am looking into a mirror, I can see a reflection of myself in your thoughts and feelings. Your innocent honesty about your feelings makes my own journey much clearer to me, I see how hard I've been on myself, how much I expected of myself, how much I blamed myself.................don't do it, your depression will last if you do. You didn't do anything wrong. You did the best you could. In my opinion, you are indeed punishing yourself for imagined wrong doings because you didn't live up to your own expectations of what a perfect mother is. Good Lord, I'll bet that bar was set so high Mother Teresa couldn't touch it! I think we have those absurd expectations of ourselves to fill our own sense of not feeling good enough. If we excel 'out there' at something, it will mask the shame, the inadequacy, the lack of value, the imperfect nature of ourselves that we feel inside..............yikes. It's not real, it's an inside job. That was what I meant earlier in having to find my own darkness, discover my own wounds, for if we do that we then throw this attachment to being perfect parents overboard and just be [I]people, [/I]flawed, imperfect, wounded, everyday normal people. If we have a flawed kid, a kid who doesn't live up to societies determination of success, we don't go before the tribunal and get cast out of paradise permanently............we don't get shot at dawn.......we just get to [B]be[/B], to recognize that life is imperfect, that we all make messes, that mistakes are part of the human experience and we are human too.........there doesn't have to be someone to blame, we get to 'self correct' and address options for change, we don't have to beat ourselves up about it....... no one gets out alive anyway so we may as well lighten up. If you give up the internal need to fill up all your wounds with perfection, you can then go buy yourself whatever you want, you can laugh uproariously even when things aren't all that okay............the need to punish yourself will diminish if not disappear and you can just breathe easily without a list of stuff to do before you can relax and enjoy yourself. Life is not meant to be about paying a huge price for our (perceived) mistakes, it's meant to be lived and enjoyed. Addiction to perfection. It's a killer. [/QUOTE]
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