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Old 09-21-2015, 10:50 AM
  # 18 (permalink)  
FireSprite
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Florida
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Originally Posted by firebolt View Post
I spent a great weekend alone this weekend. I am dog-stitting. I took the dogs fishing, to the park and rode my bike all over the place. I had a lot of time to think - it was great!

But I found myself judging ME the whole time - more harshly that I even judge others. Maybe that's why we are so critical of others. We have unreachable expectations of ourselves, and it continues onto those we love. I beat myself up for poor choices in men, with finances, with my health, with my family, and at work. SO CRITICAL OF MYSELF. I can't even live up to what I think is "the right way to live," and somehow get upset with those close to me for not being able to either.

Just an observation that had me circling back to this thread this AM. Why do us codies have such a hard time balancing healthy expectations - because we have to have SOME, RIGHT?! Of a partner, of ourselves, of a friend and of family and work. VS. unhealthy and unrealistic expectations. I need a line - what's ok and what's not. I feel like I'm in this huge gray area on the subject, and i should have learned the right and wrongs of this before now.

Damn - typed the last sentenced then realized and decided to leave it to remind myself that it is on the WRONG side of that line.
I've been thinking about this thread a lot in my offline hours too, lol.

I have determined that for me the internal judgment leaking out onto others is a result of the need to put a Label on It. So I know what box it belongs in, I guess. Is it better/worse? Good/bad? Right/wrong? It's become clear to me that when I set up these mental boxes I didn't always allow for non-paired, odd boxes. There is no "Miscellaneous" box.

What I don't quite get is why, internally, I need things like this to be definable in that way? Like you, I think it's leftover from childhood & something that knee-jerks automatically until I run the situation through my recovery filter. It's how I learned to measure myself - in relation to others. It's how I learned to define myself - in relation to others. When I'm judging You, I'm simultaneously assessing where I stand in comparison.

I'm hoping it just takes correcting it over & over & over for that filter to move in place to catch this crap without the effort on my part to re-think it through...... to finally become my New Normal. Hopefully some day I'll look back & wonder about when I used to judge everything around me so harshly.

Using this example (because I totally relate to it), I know part of it will come in breaking down stuff like this:

Originally Posted by firebolt
I can't even live up to what I think is "the right way to live," and somehow get upset with those close to me for not being able to either.
to redefine "right way to live". Right? Says who? What's "wrong"? etc. Is it really immoral, which would fit my personal definition of "wrong"? Or is it simply "different" by society's standards or "wrong" according to the definition set up for me by dysfunctional FOO crap?
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