Stubborness - Control - desire

I am making an effort to take care of myself this week.  First by going to the dentist and then visiting my counselor for a little check up after last months surge of emotions. In Al-Anon's Blueprint for progress this is some of the questions it ask you. When the last time you have been to the dentist? When is the last time you had physical?  Reading these questions I thought they were ridiculous.

At the time I hadn't really done either I was losing everything and just surviving.  This wasn't unusual for me I thought life was like that.  I thought survival was all you could hope for and the best you could do was brace yourself for the next trauma. Control every minute of every day to prevent something from ruining your life and making sure everything you loved was safe.

This was an exhausting way to live.  When things were going well I attributed it to all my great planning and maintenance but when it wasn't I blamed myself for dropping the ball.  I have spent a lot of my life retracing my steps to see what errors I might of made.  Even last month these kind of thoughts were the cause of my hurting.

Blaming myself for things not going the way I wanted them to somehow feeling like there is something about me that isn't enough. What doesn't work about this thought is it doesn't factor in that I haven't been alone in my relationships.  I can't control the ones I have loved by being so perfect that they would never leave me. People are working with there own inner dialogue and are the center of their own universe and decision are made that hurt other people.

I have made some of those decisions myself.  Unfortunately for me it was only when I was forced when the pain was so great I had to jump ship. I stayed too long every time because I couldn't choose what was best for myself and I didn't want to hurt anyone. I sat by the sidelines hoping things would magically work themselves out.

The other part of this is that I have always been a fighter.  My stubbornness got me through the worst times in my life.  I would dig in and wait out the storm and it worked. Back then I didn't have a choice to leave I wasn't an adult. Stubbornness a trait that served me as a child left me lingering in bad situations as an adult. It never occurred to me that I could make a decision for my own happiness.

It is still hard even today to not somehow blame myself for not trying hard enough or being good enough to be loved by the people of my past.  The difference is today I am no longer lost in these kinds of thoughts too long and I know that it isn't true and thinking this way hurts me.

I can see that my thinking and my desire to control the uncontrollable keeps me stuck. I am trying to solve the past in hopes of having things turn out differently.

I don't know why people do what they do and maybe some of it has to do with me but not all of it. Relationships and situations are always about timing and where everyone is at any given time. Everything can flow smoothly for a long time until someone or something changes and then a shift occurs,

My counselor said that my true desires are surfacing.  They have been put on the back burner simmering waiting for me to acknowledge that I have them. That because nothing else is demanding my attention and I am feeling settled that they are calling for my attention.  I am at a place of action instead of reaction.

This is totally true I am on the hunt for something or someone that inspires me.  I am ready to let go of the thoughts that have held me back and find something more inspiring to do with my life.

Can I really break this pattern of blame and regret? The rehashing of the past has been a constant companion a source of distraction from the boredom of ordinary life.  Maybe I need that wasted energy to focus on making life a little less ordinary and find some inspiration.

I think I am ready to move on once again.