I can't be happy because you aren't committed to change yet.
I can't be happy because you haven't quit yet.
I can't be happy because you didn't call when I wanted.
I can't be happy because you called me a name and disrespected me and I made you breakfast the next morning.
I can't concentrate at work because you make me worry about you so much.
I can't concentrate because you are sending me mixed messages.
I can't cencentrate on myself because I want you to acknowledge your behavior hurt me.
I can't concentrate on being happy because you haven't agreed to stop hurting me.
Covington, I have said the EXACT same things over and over, to person after person after person, over the course of decades. Even after realizing "it must be me" (because I've said the same things to so many different people), I was still feeling them!
After so much self-reflection, reading, crying, working on myself, and PRACTICING new skills, it has all boiled down to three simple things:
(1)
Blame
(2) Assigning
responsibility for my own
feelings to someone else and
(3) Assigning my
self-worth to how I
perceive how others treat me and why.
The older I get, the more I realize that yes, as human beings we all need other people in our lives, but we are each of us "self-contained units."