Invisible motivator
I caught myself – it was only a split second – but I caught myself thinking- or was it a feeling?- yes almost a feeling. It was such an internalized thought that it was almost a feeling…I caught myself feel-thinking, somewhere in the back of my head, almost unnoticeable but I did notice it because I have a trained muscle for that.
So I caught myself having a sort of pondering that “Maybe, after all, one day, I will be OK and able to live up the requirements.”
Whose requirements?
It didn’t clarify that question.
It said: “One day, through all my hard work and self improvement, I might be able to actually sleep through the night and function like a normal person and be no burden to anybody.”
I can see it now. Here the circle closes: I do not sleep because I have to be OK, better than I am, much better.
How to be that much better and therefore OK?
By sleeping through the night. Be done with the insomnia; be done with other unwanted behavior and be perfect.
But I don’t sleep because I am scared I can’t live up to that requirement.
Whose requirement again? Oh, not my own. It is ingrained in me, it is an issue from the past.
Who again made me think I had to be so much better as a person?
What do I actually think of it myself? If I use my own grey-cells what then is my own personal conclusion?
I am working hard – I am trying to take others into account – I try to not let everything be about me but we all have a lot on our plates these days – I am doing my utmost best, so I actually am very much OK right now.
I do not have to aim at the future for being OK. I am good enough!!!
Let this sink in slowly into your tortured self-esteem.
Stop working your butt off until you feel-good-about-yourself. Stop “feeling-ABOUT-yourself.”
Sense your self, be your body, be and think with your own mind and embrace your own emotions and know that
“You are OK at this very moment.”
Antoinetta,
Yes.
Good enough and sensing what is actually happening in the body, in the moment, and allowing all emotions a forum for expression–strikes me as a loving and honoring way to live a life.
And as a mother to a young and evolving woman, I so want her to be true to herself first and just today we had to have another “check in” on school and she felt like she was “screwing up” and I caught myself and said, no that is not what I meant to cause in you. So then how do we balance it all?
Guiding them forward and staying involved enough to love them well–like they (our children) deserve