Blog entry for:

...of someone else to feel okay about myself. i do whatever i think it will take to make them tell me i am okay. so the reading was about people pleasing in general, and what came to my mind was that until recently, i have been living in fear about expressing my opinion on variety of topics. that fear was that if i expressed fears or doubts, that somehow it could back to bite me, i would be less liked and i would be shunned and disrespected by those people in my life whose opinions i respect the most. what has changed? well for one, i have been actively working a step and asking for my shortcomings to be removed. no matter how i slice it, using the approval of others to bolster my self-esteem, is still part and parcel of my repertoire. i somehow have been living under the delusion that my ideas, such as they are, should not carry the same weight as the ideas of others. that delusion i now see is part of the denial system i still have in place, and that denial system keeps me from accepting the vision i have for myself, and keeps me in that part of me i call my disease.
the counter that denial is the chain of evidence that i am getting better and that i do have value, and that my ideas have merit enough for others to consider. so i am choosing to move forward in my day, confident in myself as a person, that i can be genuine, whole and self-aware, and survive to see another day in recovery. it is after all the easier softer way for me.

∞ DT ∞