Insecure - Getting over myself

I found myself alone tonight. I thought I was going to church with a friend but he said he would prefer that we just have dinner at my house. He then left me a message saying he was at the church.

This stuff happens with us a lot but it felt particularly hurtful on Christmas eve. My mind went right to this is where you are in your life. You are depending on someone that isn't capable of considering your feelings. It isn't his fault we who have been hurt a lot don't really understand how what we do or don't do can hurt other people.

I believe today that you should do what you want no matter what it keeps you from having resentments later. I do think you should consider how your decisions affect other people but in the end if you say yes to get along that ultimately there will be resentments.

What is a good balance? I have been at both extremes thinking so much about what someone else needs that I have lost track of my own needs. I did this because I wanted to see myself as a good person. I also thought that if one day I need the same support I would get it. That didn't happen. Today I realize that when I say yes it has to be without strings.

When I say no I try to communicate my decision in a thoughtful way. What I wish my friend had done is say "hey I changed my mind and decided I needed to get out tonight and decided to go by myself". It would have been honest and I wouldn't have felt rejected.

I am not without fault I have hurt a lot of people in my life. It wasn't intentional it was while I was consumed with my own pain. I only felt my own pain and didn't understand that other people have pain too or that I was inflicting the same kind of pain I was struggling to get over myself.

I can't say that I am all emotionally open now. I don't think I will ever be an emotional spicket it is too late for that now but because I am no longer consumed by my own pain I can be kinder to others.

I got over feeling left out tonight because I know I was feeling vulnerable because I am alone and it is a holiday where normal people have something to do or someone to be with. This of course is a story I tell myself it supports my old life story that I am not lovable.

I got over it because it is just one night and I don't have to do what I have always done and mentally feed this idea of not being lovable.

Tomorrow I will be with my friends having Christmas dinner and tonights insecurities with be long forgotten unless I want to revisit those thoughts tomorrow. It is my choice.

Merry Christmas.

Happy Birthday - A new me

I have written several posts that didn't make the cut. I feel like I have been winding down my life. It started in July and bled over into August and now here were are in September.

I attribute this slump to the ending of something.  I think it is a crash of sorts from the ending of my training period on the job. I am no longer in crisis everything feels too normal and dull.  Living in crisis makes the days, weeks and months fly by with little time to live life deliberately. No time to ask yourself  "Is this what I want to be doing?"

I realize this has been my problem all my life. The tragedy early in my life started me living in a crisis mode and this felt normal to me. Braving every storm and when there was no storm I created one.  I would poke around at any ember until a fire broke out. I surrounded myself with people that carried matches in their back pockets. This has been my life and now that I have found peace I it feels unsettling.

Now my mind is unhappy with this and is bored and trying to create something anything to bring back the thrill that living in crisis gave me all those years. I have been getting over something as long as I can remember and now that I am finally over my past I feel unsure how to do it. Can I live my life without crisis?

Today is my birthday and naturally a time of reflection. I have felt the past few weeks like I don't matter to many people and that my life hasn't really made much of a difference.  I blame only myself. I have been so lost in my own mind that I have made a lot of mistakes that can't be undone. My pain has made me selfish and I have been trapped in my mind for a lifetime.

Today I was surprised by the number of birthday wishes I received mostly from my co-workers and friends outside the program.  I had the birthday song sang to me three times over the phone. This did lift my spirits.

My friends from the program are more like me and not too generous with there well wishing. I know it is a mirror for me. I was always this way I use to be more giving to the people in my life that were suppose to love me.  I know now I was hoping they would show any evidence that they loved me in return but it never happened.

I had a void that needed filling and this was one way I tried to fill it.  I wanted to be important to the people that were important to me. Their indifference just reinforced the truth I had in my heart that I wasn't important to them or anyone. I have continued this practice by indifferent to the people and family in my own life whom I claim to love.  I can change this.

Every day I have a chance to decide again who I want to be. I can begin again today and decide to give in a loving and mature way without looking for something in return. I don't have to be the hurt child waiting to feel loved by another. I can love first without hesitation.

Today I can start again and be be generous with my love without the fear of being rejected.  Happy birthday to me.

I don't know you - Heroes and illusions

I watched the end of Face the Nation and they mentioned the scandal at Penn State. I don't keep up with the real world much but the idea of someone held in high esteem doing something so low made think about how we really don't know anyone.

We only know our version of that person who we want to believe they are because that is all we have to work with. When we have heroes we somehow expect them to be better than average instead of worse than average. They are setting the example they are keeping our dream of perfection alive for us and we want to believe everything is exactly as it appears in our own mind.

We are all the same no matter whether our picture appears on the screen or not. We wake up and face the day. We feed ourselves and fill our days trying to get our needs met. Some of those needs are not so healthy and hurt the people we know.

I think about the people who know that something awful is happening and can't bring themselves to tell. I imagine the first thought is, what about me? How will this affect my life my family? They might tell someone or just let it eat away at them. Justifying they need more time to decide what to do.

You might say it is about the money but I think it is more about not rocking the boat and wanting to stay in denial. The bigger you are the bigger the ego and the more you have to lose.

You think you know someone because you work with them or even live with them every day and then you find out they are doing something really bad. You don't want to believe it because in your mind it is out of character. Obviously not since it happened. So you do nothing and hope by magic it stops. Meanwhile more children get hurt.

Lets face it no one likes a whistle blower. History has shown that it is usually the end for them as well as those they have turned in. We don't like our heroes tarnished because we need them to prove there is perfection out there.

In this case there are victims as we all know abuse has been around forever. Is it worse because in our mind we thought he was a hero? Are we mad because we were fooled. There are no heroes just people just like us with wants needs and desires.

We get up each day and listen to the voice. If it is a healthy voice we can do great things and if it isn't we can damage people for life.