This seems to be the question of the day.
What do others see in me that I am not seeing in myself? Why does my mind gravitate to all the things I could a, shoulda, would a done, and dismiss or minimize the good, dare I say, great things I have accomplished? When I begin to question that belief, it does not hold up.
Yet here I am sensationalizing my mistakes and minimizing my successes.
What a sad way to think about myself. There is so much evidence that I am a good person, that I am helping others, that I am making a difference in peoples lives.
But here I stand before you are making excuses as to why I am not even better. I am saying, gosh and golly-gee, you should be picking someone else to appreciate, I’m not that great.
Afterall, I have all these flaws. I AM NOT PERFECT. So why would you want me for anything?
Thinking about my life, I can see where I really am a perfectionist. But I never called myself that. In fact, I generally view perfectionists with a cautious glance, not sure why they should be investing so much energy in perfection, when damn good would work.
Now, I realize that there have been many times where I am the perfectionist.
I use this as a tool to justify not doing something or continuing to do something after it is clear there is no ROI (return on investment) to be had by continuing. But here I go anyway, trying to live up to some ideal of what I should be doing.
This casts me straight away into the future, or the past. Suddenly, I am time traveling again.
READ: I didn’t time travel this weekend.
Perfection becomes a tool to help me justify whatever outcome I achieve. If its good, then I can say “well anyone would have done that.” Yet most people would not even think to do that, let alone actually do it.
And if it turns out to be less than what I expected, then I pick it apart and hang onto whatever shred of positive outcome that there was. Maybe that’s something else, not perfection.
The bottom line is I am having trouble seeing my value as a human being.
The more positive things happen, the more I push back. Asking better questions, I might discover that my disease, my depression messes up my brain and keeps me from making certain connections. Connections that would show a correlation between my work and all the positive compliments I receive about it.
And even though I am saying many times a day “depression is not my boss,” I find I am not always believing that.
Looks like I’ve got some work to do. As I take the SMART Recovery facilitators training, I am being introduced to many science -based tools that can and are helping me discover more about my relationship with myself. These tools give me new ways to think about things like, “why don’t I appreciate myself more?”
READ: I’m not the Smartest person in the room
In the end, if I cannot love me for who I am, with flaws and genius combined, then I am alone.
Those who want to be closer to me, I push away. I have thousands of people I call friends yet my circle of people that I let see the real me is almost ZERO. Sharing feelings scares me. I have very little practice in it. I am very, very good at tamping down my emotion and not letting them be seen. I only let people see the positive, get-it-done-now person, not the guilt-ridden, I could have done better side of me.
Asking better questions, I know that I am not just all of the things I f$^#” ed up.
But truly believing I have merit and value is my biggest challenge. I need to get this part sorted out, so all the other parts can come together. Living with and acknowledging I have depression is a lot of work.
So, I’d better keep going.
What are you wanting these days?
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