Hi Class,
I hope everyone has a positive end to the week. I had a call with my dissertation supervisor to discuss the latest body of work I sent across for review, and unfortunately it felt like I was being torn to shreds. My supervisor is actually very helpful and good about how she presents feedback, and all of her suggestions and comments were entirely valid, it just made me feel that familiar sense that no matter how hard I work, I'm never really good enough. This is something I've felt my whole life and a large part of why I used drinking to bolster a confident / IDGAF attitude, when the reality is I just always seem to feel less than in every aspect of my life, as though I always fall just short of what I want to be or achieve. The positive news is that in getting sober, I had to face up to a lot of these issues and try to work to accept myself for who I am and reframe 'failure' as constructive opportunity to improve and develop myself. It was kind of cool that during the call when I started to feel angry, upset and frustrated, rather than go down that rabbit hole I had the awareness to take a breath (internally) and ask myself to reflect on what was going on for me and how I was feeling. I quickly identified that these feelings were not directed at my supervisor, but in fact the constructive feedback was a trigger for my feelings of negative self-worth. Once I had recognised it for what it was, I made the conscious effort to adopt an open mindset to the feedback being shared, rather than a defensive one which would have been the case in the past. I made the decision to gain from my supervisor's vast experience in academic research by using the comments as a learning opportunity. In doing so, I now have a wealth of pointers as to how I can improve my write up and everything that she said made complete sense / I can see how my work needs to be strengthened by amending it to include the information and structure she suggested. Though I've come away from the call feeling bruised and still trying to manage my disappointment and the baggage of my underlying insecurities, I am so happy that sobriety has given me the gift of being able to appraise situations in a beneficial way and to leverage these experiences for the betterment of my person. In the past, I would have withdrawn and discarded the feedback defensively, and lost all motivation to try harder. Instead, I would have gone out and gotten wasted to try and make myself feel better, and in turn I wouldn't have put the extra work in to improve my work. Instead, I'm now planning to use the weekend to review the comments and improve my work. Even if the final product isn't 'good enough', at least I'll know I tried my absolute best and can be proud of my attitude and approach, if not my ultimate grade.
I know this probably sounds like a lot of waffle or a self-indulgent soliloquy, I just kind of wanted to make a note and acknowledge it because I think all of us here have inclinations toward perfectionism and harsh self-criticism, and maybe my little breakthrough might also be relevant to your journeys. In any case, I hope everyone is doing well and thank you for always being here for my silly venting.
Take care all
