The voices in our heads - not ours - not good enough

Watching Chopped has become my new happy hour at night to wind down from the stress of the day. Last night there was an episode where one of the chefs playing talked about how his father thought he was never good enough. He never measured up and he left home at 17 and never went back.

He might not have went back but he brought his dad's voice along with him and it was controlling his life. Every round he confessed to the mistakes he had made to the judges and how he should be chopped.  He said he wanted to win so he could prove to his staff that he deserved to lead them. 

It was heart breaking because he was the only one that couldn't see that he was carrying the words of his father and hearing it from a child's perspective. When we are children our minds are like a big sponge and everything stays with us forever. We believe the opinions of the adults around us because they are the Gods in our lives.

In my own life I felt like I wasn't good enough no matter what kind of success I had in business or personally. I never really allowed myself to enjoyed the moment I had to keep working on to be better everyday. I rarely felt any joy in just living and being who I am.

In the program I did learn that what people said about me were just their opinions made through the lenses of their own messed up lives. Luckily I am the most stubborn person especially when someone tells me I can't do something. I pushed through every obstacle imaginable but never felt like I was enough. Some part of myself believed what was said about me when I was young. 

I have chosen people over the course of my life that mirrored my own feelings about myself. I wanted to be appreciated without appreciating myself.  I can see that now how I was striving to become good enough and have other people to fill that void in myself. Today I am free from that wanting and avoid the people that don't support me.  

The guy from the show won of course.  Ironically he was up against a woman who had great parents that supported everything she did.  She wanted to win to show her parents that the sacrifices they made for her were worth it. She remarked that it was sad to think his parents couldn't see his potential.  She was happy for him and hoped he could start believing in himself.

We are the ones that keep these voice alive sometimes even after the person who said them are dead. People are messed up and want to hurt other people with their words.  We can choose to believe those words or we can see they are only words. 

 

Spray paint - and success

I took my two whole days off this week with only a couple of work calls to address yesterday. Sunday I  took apart a fan the looked like a rust bucket and sanded it down with a wire brush attached to drill.

I decided to do this in my studio and pretty soon everything was covered with brown dust including me.  Luckily the room needed cleaning anyway because the window have been open in there for months.

I did where a mask and glasses so subliminally I must have know there would be dust.  I am afraid I just jump in head first when I am excited about a project. If I make it too complicated or think the prep will take too long I end  up feeling overwhelmed and not doing anything.

While I was masked and with safety glasses I thought about my friends son. When he was in high school he was  kind of a quirky boy genius who wore bowling shirts and other outlandish outfits he bought from the Goodwill. He was always creating doing things without much thought or preparation. Once he painted his bike with spray paint inside the garage with his mother's car. He and we never heard the end of it.

He is all grown up now living in D.C. and working for an advertising agency. He has a new baby and a wife that is a lawyer and they seem to be happy. His is a success story owed partly to Al-Anon and his mother's dedication to the program and letting him live his own life while she lived hers.

My friends from the program watched him and his sister grow up and they have done well. Still some scars from the alcoholism in their life but who doesn't have some scars for something.

I didn't paint my project in the garage with the door closed but lets just say luckily my house is already gray on the outside.

Finding nothing - uncomfortably still

I have been off the last two days and feeling pretty restless. I did have a tile emergency to resolve yesterday when one of my customers thought we had installed the wrong tile. I went by the office and picked up the sample and all is well.

I spent a few hours reading the Steve Jobs biography yesterday. I had reserved it from the library and had forgotten about it. I was number 247 so I thought maybe next year I would get the notification.

It mostly covers his career and towards the end the dynamics of his family. He authorized the book and didn't ask to review it before it was published. I didn't really show him as a thoughtful kind person. It showed him as a brilliant driven perfectionist with only one goal in mind the ultimate product being constantly improved.

I don't think that you can have it all. When you have great success in one area in your life then something gets left behind. If everything gets equal attention then you end up with everything falling in the middle. So how do you choose between your passion and the rest of your life. Is if fair to those in your life to get short changed.

I have been that person many times. I can become obsessed and so totally focused on one thing that the rest of my life gets ignored. Looking back I can see that I have live my life mostly out of balance. With my husband I was obsessed with him and my career suffered. Later I was obsessed with my career and my relationship suffered.

I have also been on the receiving end of that scenario too. Being ignored for alcohol, work, sports whatever the latest shiny thing was. I realize now I was living with myself all that time. You spot it you got it as they say.

I am more balanced now but miss the intensity of the one thing the current obsession. I no longer have extremes in my life and it makes me feel strange. Like I should be on the hunt for something new. Instead I am living in the moment and trying to accept that it is enough for today.

I have lost the drive to sacrifice everything for one thing anymore. Even my quest for spirituality became an obsession. I didn't want to see that the answer was to just stop looking for answers. To be still and be comfortable with being uncomfortably still.

picture 2012scenario.com

First on emotions - then a family disease

It is the time of year for me that brings up a lot of emotions. Being dumped twice at Thanksgiving gives me cause to be just a little cautious this week. Deciding what are emotions from the past and what it is I am actually feeling today.

What I have learned is you don't have to be a slave to your emotions but ignoring emotions will only delay them. I dreamed this morning that my ex not only had an affair but was sleeping with everyone in our high rise apartment building. Everyone knew but me and they were all consoling me. We lived in a house not an apartment so I interpret this as me thinking I should have known. It is pointless to go there but it tells me my subconscious is still acknowledging the date.

I am feeling sadness just below the surface today. I can accept that this too shall past and know that leaning into it is the fastest way to move on. I have learned the hard way that resistance is where the pain lies.

I went to lunch with my co-worker and ran into my original sponsor and she said I was thinking about you last night. I was thinking about her last night too. So this afternoon I called her and we discussed the above issues. I have known her 20 years and she knows me probably better than anyone emotionally, all my fears and how my mind works and I trust her to be honest with me. I felt relieved after the call and went on with my day.

Just as I was getting back to the office my nephew called. I had to look twice because he has never called me before. Unfortunately he got his brain from our side of the family the analyzing side. Thinking too much, being keeper of all things the beacon in the storm. Most reliable in a crisis.

His dad is an angry adult child of two parents addicted to prescription drugs. His volatile unpredictable behavior over the years have brought out different traits in their three kids. My brother in law recently started taking medication himself to cope with his sister's addiction to drugs and they haven't seen much of him since.

My nephew is in his early 20's and is trying to decide a career path and his mother wants him to go to law school and take over her practice. She told him to call me because she thought since we have similar personalities I could maybe give him some insight. He started by giving me the run down on the Thanksgiving plan and how he's forcing the rest of the family to go the his aunts house because this is what his dad wants and if they buck then there will be a scene.

I feel for those kids and I know their road with be tough. My sister has done a good job raising them to be confident and not follow the crowd. But the things they have endured with their dad and my sister's denial will shape their lives forever.

This is why it is a family disease. The grandparents didn't need help because they were taking drugs prescribed by a doctor. They are both gone now leaving a legacy of addiction behind.

On the bright side they have me and they can have a program if they need and want some help. My sister has been to Al-Anon but didn't feel that she could relate since she isn't married to an alcoholic. She went because her husband sister's son needed someone to go with him. She did have some advice for the group. We have all the answers and I lives are still unmanageable.

What was my advice to him about his career? Well I said if he is like me he is probably ADD and will need a variety of different kinds of tasks to keep him busy. He is a people person and can be disciplined when he in interested in a subject so law might actually work.

Do what you love and you will be a success, at least in your own mind.