Language of Letting Go - March 5 - Be Who You Are
Nature Girl
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Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
Language of Letting Go - March 5 - Be Who You Are
You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go
Be Who You Are
When I meet people or get in a new relationship, I start putting all these repressive restrictions on myself. I can't have my feelings. Can't have my wants and needs. Can't have my history. Can't do the things I want, feel the feelings I'm feeling, or say what I need to say. I turn into this repressed, perfectionistic robot, instead of being who I am: Me.
--Anonymous
Sometimes, our instinctive reaction to being in a new situation is: Don't be yourself.
Who else can we be? Who else would you want to be? We don't need to be anyone else.
The greatest gift we can bring to any relationship wherever we go is being who we are.
We may think others won't like us. We may be afraid that if we just relax and be ourselves, the other person will go away or shame us. We may worry about what the other person will think.
But, when we relax and accept ourselves, people often feel much better being around us than when we are rigid and repressed. We're fun to be around.
If others don't appreciate us, do we really want to be around them? Do we need to let the opinions of others control our behavior and us?
Giving ourselves permission to be who we are can have a healing influence on our relationships. The tone relaxes. We relax. The other person relaxes. Then everybody feels a little less shame, because they have learned the truth. Who we are is all we can be, all were meant to be, and it's enough. It's fine.
Our opinion of ourselves is truly all that matters. And we can give ourselves all the approval we want and need.
Today, I will relax and be who I am in my relationships. I will do this not in a demeaning or inappropriate way, but in a way that shows I accept myself and value who I am. Help me, God, let go of my fears about being myself.
From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.
Be Who You Are
When I meet people or get in a new relationship, I start putting all these repressive restrictions on myself. I can't have my feelings. Can't have my wants and needs. Can't have my history. Can't do the things I want, feel the feelings I'm feeling, or say what I need to say. I turn into this repressed, perfectionistic robot, instead of being who I am: Me.
--Anonymous
Sometimes, our instinctive reaction to being in a new situation is: Don't be yourself.
Who else can we be? Who else would you want to be? We don't need to be anyone else.
The greatest gift we can bring to any relationship wherever we go is being who we are.
We may think others won't like us. We may be afraid that if we just relax and be ourselves, the other person will go away or shame us. We may worry about what the other person will think.
But, when we relax and accept ourselves, people often feel much better being around us than when we are rigid and repressed. We're fun to be around.
If others don't appreciate us, do we really want to be around them? Do we need to let the opinions of others control our behavior and us?
Giving ourselves permission to be who we are can have a healing influence on our relationships. The tone relaxes. We relax. The other person relaxes. Then everybody feels a little less shame, because they have learned the truth. Who we are is all we can be, all were meant to be, and it's enough. It's fine.
Our opinion of ourselves is truly all that matters. And we can give ourselves all the approval we want and need.
Today, I will relax and be who I am in my relationships. I will do this not in a demeaning or inappropriate way, but in a way that shows I accept myself and value who I am. Help me, God, let go of my fears about being myself.
From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.
Nature Girl
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
Giving ourselves permission to be who we are can have a healing influence on our relationships. The tone relaxes. We relax. The other person relaxes. Then everybody feels a little less shame, because they have learned the truth. Who we are is all we can be, all were meant to be, and it's enough. It's fine.
I know I surprised myself sometimes, when I gave thought to what MY dreams were and what I wanted in my life.
My life may not have been perfect, I may have made mistakes along the way and had bigger obstacles than most people have...but it's MY life and I have no reason to feel ashamed just because it's not the "perfect" little family life that we all dreamed of once upon a time.
It's not what life hands us that defines who we are...it's what we do with what we are dealt and how we use these obstacles to grow and become better people.
Hugs
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Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: In my little piece of heaven
Posts: 2,870
Ann,
I think this reading may have been one of the ones I studied for awhile, early in my recovery, when I realized I didn't know WHO I was! I was such a people pleaser that I waited for someone else to tell me what I liked and didn't like etc. I was raised to be that way, from parents whose biggest fear in life was "what would the neighbors think??"
I've learned and grown a lot in my recovery. For me, one of the greatest gifts was to learn and understand ~ truly understand ~ that what other people think of me is really none of my business.
Hugs
Cats
I think this reading may have been one of the ones I studied for awhile, early in my recovery, when I realized I didn't know WHO I was! I was such a people pleaser that I waited for someone else to tell me what I liked and didn't like etc. I was raised to be that way, from parents whose biggest fear in life was "what would the neighbors think??"
I've learned and grown a lot in my recovery. For me, one of the greatest gifts was to learn and understand ~ truly understand ~ that what other people think of me is really none of my business.
Hugs
Cats
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