Humble Request

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2010
Humble Request
46
Sat, 12-25-2010 - 3:04am

I slept all day & am up late doing my Self-Healing Homework and ran across a STICKLER for me. Im trying to change my faulty beliefs but I happened upon one...that I (sadly) am having a REALLY TOUGH TIME...refuting.

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart... Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. I started looking inside and went NC October 15, 2010
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-28-2010
Sat, 12-25-2010 - 11:39pm

Such a great thread with some INCREDIBLE feedback ... the words of many brought tears to my eyes!

I indeed think it is soooo important to remember that feelings about ourselves are established in relation to those in our lives - in a sense they mirror back messages about who we are & what we are. Our identities are co-constructed through our relationships.

Rewind to childhood: When we are children we experience ourselves through the messages the adults in our lives provided us with - directly & indirectly. What they emphasized as important and special about you. Lack of stability, addiction, mental health, abuse, disruption & loss of parental figures (due to deployment) etc ... all impacted on who we understood ourselves to be. Indeed, we learned WHAT made us lovable or not.

Do you know for the longest time I thought it was my long blond hair that made me attractive? Yup, my mom made one comment about this when I was a child and I never forgot it ... then comes good old xAP saying something similar. Well, you got yourself a re-inforcement.

Anyway, as children you don't have much say about who "mirrors" you so to speak, so you're left vulnerable to the adults in your world. And for a child it is MUCH SCARIER to think that the adults that are in charge of looking after them are somehow faulty, that the child comes to believe that it is THEIR FAULT that they are not being loved. This way the child retains a sense of power within the context. This means that the child can THINK that they can actually do something (be skinnier, smarter, more talented etc .) to earn the love. If only I was a better person, x would/would not ...

Now fast forward: All those adaptive messages that helped that child emotionally survive no longer work as an adult ... and yet we go running around thinking the same thing - if only I was blah blah and blah, I WOULD BE LOVEABLE. And if you move through life believing that you're to blame for any lack of love in your life, then you aren't likely to do a good job NOW CHOOSING those mirrors that will reflect healthy messages about yourself. So, the wrong type of people end up surrounding you and giving you those same darn messages that you had in other relationships, and you go on again believing that it is something very wrong deep inside you that makes you UN-lovable, rather than seeing that it is JUST THE WRONG PEOPLE that we are choosing because we haven't learned how to balance who WE feel we are & were meant to be, with the messages we get from others. An affair is the PERFECT disaster for one health. It erodes any sense of sefl as we go chasing round and round our tail which we will never catch. We tried to contort ourself into any position - literally and figuratively to become what the xAP required. So much so, that we don't recognize who we are in the end. That's because we were trying to BE what the AP needed us to be ... We had to earn that love all over again, except we were never going to get the love we were so hungry for. Because it really wasn't about that at all. It was about unresolved issues, and deep inability to make decisions in our best interests. People often think having an affair is a totally selfish choice, and I can see how that is so (just like any addict who steals from the family to purchase their drug of choice), but someone who is healthy wouldn't choose to have an affair - wouldn't choose to actually do the self-harm that having an affair actually is. Call it selfish sure, but anyone who has had an affair knows, that NO ONEs NEEDS are really being met. It is the hurt & wounded & damaged parts of us that got all the oxygen while any WELL parts of us gasped for air.

We were in a feedback loop going no where until we recognized that no matter what our shortcomings were, no matter the hurts we has caused, we are LOVEABLE.

I don't know if any of this made sense ... it usually takes me a whole long while to unpack, and involves diagrams and lots of big gestures!

TU.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-01-2010
Sat, 12-25-2010 - 11:58pm

Michelle -- I like and agree with the others on their notes to you. I always want to add that YOU ARE LOVEABLE. Reading it is one thing, believing it is another right? When you find yourself in that mode of "why would they love me?" just think of the positive relationships you have had -- I am sure there have been some throughout your life and then also look at your daughter.

I know that deep down feeling of feeling unloveable. You are doing the right things by being aware of this issue inside, mothering yourself and taking baby steps each day to rid of those old false beliefs. But just remember that you are most certainly loved -- you have your daughter's love and now the love of a granddaughter. I know, I have often struggled also with the notion of how the romantic kind of love from a man can elude and how children's love isn't quite the same. I took it forgranted. I really did. Well it's taken me prob a total of 20 years to finally get it (I'm starting to anyway) -- that this love is the real kind, the never ending kind, the unconditional kind. Also, the love from my friends has been more fulfilling than I have felt in years.

As we are ALL in a work in progress and continue to do the work on ourselves and mother ourselves the way we have others and bask in the love from our kids, we will shine from the inside out.

Love, Sunshine Dedicated to living my new life with integrity, truth and positive thoughts! I am worthy of true love and definitely worth the wait!
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2010
Sun, 12-26-2010 - 8:21am

Awesome, awesome post, TU!! This is exactly what I've been learning in T. It all makes perfect sense, doesn't it? We try to mold ourselves at very young ages to meet the expectations of our parents (or other respected authority/caretaker figures),

Oct. 12, 2010 -- began my personal search and rescue mission.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-18-2010
Sun, 12-26-2010 - 9:28am

l could make it.....I am nearby in GA....keep me posted on this one.

Luvin
Yo Soy EL Capitan de Mi Vida
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-20-2009
Sun, 12-26-2010 - 10:16am

Michelle,

I think when we engage in an affair, it magnifies everything we already don't like or appreciate about ourselves.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-20-2009
Sun, 12-26-2010 - 10:21am

small hijack:

You ladies are killin' it on this thread!

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-18-2010
Sun, 12-26-2010 - 11:07am

We would have the best time!! I am trying to get so excited. But I would just love to all hang out and sit by the fire and have a couple of nights to hang out.

Luvin
Yo Soy EL Capitan de Mi Vida
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2010
Mon, 12-27-2010 - 1:29pm

Dee,

I KNEW! You'd have insight about this: The affair MAGNIFYING our

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart... Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. I started looking inside and went NC October 15, 2010
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2010
Mon, 12-27-2010 - 1:35pm

Sunshine - Thank you!!!! I know Im late in responding back - I was w/o computer for 2 days :(

Mothering Myself and taking baby steps! Sure am!!

Yesterday - I actually stepped in front of the mirror unexpectedly (while I was cleaning) and I saw a fresh, spry, happy looking person! I said outloud..."Awww You look CUTE"...

hahahhaha. It felt so weird - but at the same time....It felt NICEEEEEE to be saying to myself.

If I can just MASTER that the self approval and love comes FROM ME..(and God) and ONLY us....I think I'll be sitting pretty in terms of being able to look at a relationship as an OPTION not a necessity.

Thank you for reminding me to recall and reflect on the relationships that HAVE GONE RIGHT...which frankly...despite them not being perfect...I have some really NICE exes who I still keep in contact with and have great peace with them in our aftermath. As well, Many friends, coworkers ,bosses, daughters, neighbors, etc. who all dont whince when they see me coming. :)

Much Love to you, Sunshine!!!!

Michelle

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart... Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. I started looking inside and went NC October 15, 2010
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2010
Mon, 12-27-2010 - 1:47pm

OMGGGGGGG TU!!!

NAIL ON THE HEAD!!!!!!!!!!

So so so so so so very true!!!!

I used the analogy of mirrors so many times in the a. (difference between talking it and walking it)

But I DID notice that EVERYONE but xap - REFLECTED to me that I was lively, lovely, honest, good, decent, a good friend, loyal, caring, (every X I had NEVER accused me of cheating- Guess who did?!?!?)

YOU ARE SO RIGHT. MY IDENTITY FOR 3 YEARS WAS PROVING HOW I COULD DANCE TO HIS EVERY WHIM TO GET STABLE LOVE. Chasing the tail, round and round - the bar kept moving, changing...

to put it simply...NO WONDER I FEEL LIKE $HIT.

And as you stated so eloquently.....THE ISSUES ARE STILL THERE...else I wouldnt have stepped FOOT in an affair.

This aftermath for me, has really been about separating the wheat from the chaffe - KNowing WHATS MINE and WHATS HIS...leaving HIS alone....and DIGGING INTO ME.

Your post helped so much in clarifying WHATS ME - and what was a me

One of the things that I've always compared the affair to - is like EMOTIONAL/VERBAL

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart... Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. I started looking inside and went NC October 15, 2010