Power and Forgiveness
Sep. 29th, 2003 08:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormThis seems to be a recurring theme in my livejournal: I have control over a huge amount of my stuff, if I choose to exercise it. Even if I don't choose to exercise that power I'm the only one with the control, so that if I don't want to work hard and get over something it just won't be got over: no one else can do it for me.
Although usually this is a very powerful idea, sometimes the weight of it can be crushing. I get caught up in a bind when I look at myself: I lose sympathy for myself when I'm having trouble, or am being slow working through issues, and begin to think that I don't have a right to feel bad since it's my imperfection in ability to work through the issues which is giving me problems. In a sense I'm causing them, therefore I don't deserve to be cut any slack.
This isn't a very useful way of looking at things. It comes from my perfectionism, mainly, as well as the isolation I learnt growing up. I haven't yet got it instinctively ingrained into me to seek support as a way of coping with things, and I don't see needing support or being unable to cope as acceptable.
So along with the power of the one idea, control of my actions where they impact my environment both external and internal, I need another very powerful idea. I need forgiveness. I've been practicing this a little bit, comforting myself and accepting myself and forgiving myself when I'm upset with the same strength of feeling that I extend to others. It works. IT's not yet a habit, though.
Sometimes there's another layer, and that's what I felt tonight before I thought my way out of it. I was jealous of something, and angry at myself for being jealous because the only reason I wasn't included in the thing was through my own failing ability to accept it. That wasn't a useful way to be: now that I've thought it through and determined that the people I'm jealous of care for me and aren't being malicious, and that both they and I can support myself in the self-induced exclusion without it being a terrible fault of mine, I'm okay.
Just an interesting thought. Now back to my first cluster of RPs in... a month?
Although usually this is a very powerful idea, sometimes the weight of it can be crushing. I get caught up in a bind when I look at myself: I lose sympathy for myself when I'm having trouble, or am being slow working through issues, and begin to think that I don't have a right to feel bad since it's my imperfection in ability to work through the issues which is giving me problems. In a sense I'm causing them, therefore I don't deserve to be cut any slack.
This isn't a very useful way of looking at things. It comes from my perfectionism, mainly, as well as the isolation I learnt growing up. I haven't yet got it instinctively ingrained into me to seek support as a way of coping with things, and I don't see needing support or being unable to cope as acceptable.
So along with the power of the one idea, control of my actions where they impact my environment both external and internal, I need another very powerful idea. I need forgiveness. I've been practicing this a little bit, comforting myself and accepting myself and forgiving myself when I'm upset with the same strength of feeling that I extend to others. It works. IT's not yet a habit, though.
Sometimes there's another layer, and that's what I felt tonight before I thought my way out of it. I was jealous of something, and angry at myself for being jealous because the only reason I wasn't included in the thing was through my own failing ability to accept it. That wasn't a useful way to be: now that I've thought it through and determined that the people I'm jealous of care for me and aren't being malicious, and that both they and I can support myself in the self-induced exclusion without it being a terrible fault of mine, I'm okay.
Just an interesting thought. Now back to my first cluster of RPs in... a month?
