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I can get very uncomfortable and have difficulty receiving praise and even gratitude. I had shared at my meeting yesterday how grateful I was for AA for giving me back my life, my family and a faith I didn't know I had. I had just walked in late and sat down in the back (where you usually get out of sharing) with my coffee and had to unexpectedly speak second after a guy who had just shared something similar, he had just celebrated his 3rd anniversay and will be 30 this week and was expressing his gratitude too for his groups and fellowship. So there was no thought involved. It was pure feeling. Later a woman, during her share said that she wanted to be just like me and went on to describe how she saw me. I looked around at those sitting near me and we jokingly laughed to ourselves and said to each other "what is she thinking?", yuk, yuk, yuk. Afterwards I approached the woman and said hey, why'd you call me out? I actually gave her a hard time about it. Not in a mean way...but I let her know I didn't appreciate it. Shortly after the meeting she left me a message apologizing if she had offended me and that that had not been her intent. I'm such a shit. I called her back and assured her that I had not been offended but embarrassed and I just didn't know how to receive this, I don't want to call it adulation and it definatly isn't but it was kind of like that. I mean it was kind of gushing. You know what I mean? Cause I can't say it right. I let her know that what she is looking for is inside of herself and she is merely projecting it onto me. Maybe I'm just getting close to that friend among friends, worker among workers, paragraph described in the 12 x 12. I can't remember it but I know what it means and its something I want.But I was disturbed by my reaction and I think its because I don't completely trust this newfound faith of mine and sober life. I think that though I feel peaceful and serene, I don't desire a drink, I have a relative happiness bordering on joy in my life now, I am still full of self doubt and perhaps loathing. Am I being authentic? Am I just faking it so I can make it? I know the answers but it is such an unfamiliar feeling its hard to wrap my brain around it. And because I'm not perfect, examples of imperfection, like irritation at my husband or feeling silent scorn for my boss, or a lack of compassion for a fellow drunk, validate that I'm just full of crap. This sounds like a security issue that I need to work on. I'm insecure in my faith, insecure in my happiness, insecure in who I am becoming. I keep waiting for someone to take it away from me and that would be impossible because it is only inside of me. In my Inner Room and I am the only one with the key. Its just so new.
I also have to be very, very careful with my ego here. This same woman told me, I suppose to build up my ego, that 75% of the people from that meeting had the same type of things to say about me that she did. That's nice to hear but I can also have a tendency to be proud that people are looking up to me and start getting full of myself and start acting with authority. So I have to combat that. Pride is not a charachter defect I want to deal with anymore. And of course the other side of me is wondering what the other 25% is saying. I usually just assume people don't like me. I think it comes from hiding my drinking for so long. Like, they can see right through me. What others think is none of my business!!!! Positive or negative. And this is all heresay too and I must consider the source. What are her motives for dumping all this praise and glory on me? Or is it even bad to ask that? I do want to share what I am learning and what is working for me but always with that preface, its working for ME and I cannot presume that it will work for you but you are free to try it.
Geez, I'm one screwed up but sober woman!
8 comments:
http://www.abhayagiri.org/index.php/main/media#talks
The last 15mins of the talk "The Abs of Jello by Ajahn Amaro Thanksgiving Retreat 2006 talks about letting go of various 'views' as being an 'absolute truth'. Which they are not! They are just 'view'. They have no substance. Once you accept that then it is hard to delude oneself that these perceptions or roles have any real concrete substance. They are nothing more than a 'mental formation'. That's all. That's why we don't need to identify with them. We are not the personality. We are the thing that is aware of the personality as it alters moment to moment.
Whatever. Well I like Mr Amaros talks at the moment.
With Sponsees, I tell em that I have great respect and appreciation for all the gifts and abilities that the AA programme has endowed me with. But I can appreciate it without aggrandizing myself in the process.
If I think others are putting me on a pillar I tell them so and assure them I am very much human!! And that they will do themselves a great harm later if they cling to the notion than I am special and different.
Its difficult to communicate, but like most things if you practice it gets easier!
You are not a screwed up sober woman but a woman who is finally in touch with her own emotions. In the past, you hid between a bottle. Today, you are experiencing all those feelings you never allowed yourself to feel. Your reaction to that person was a defense mechanism. Give yourself a break. Progress not perfection is all you can ask. And remember, you deserve good things and perhaps others see in you something you do not see in yourself. Maybe it is time to take a closer look.
praise also makes me uncomfortable. this is what i do and have done for very long already and it works. when someone pays you a compliment, i smile and say thank you, and forget about it. if it's hugely meaningful i go sit and think about it on my own later, most of the time it's just another's perception of you, and if it's good, cool. and then it's over and done with...
Feelings blimey, when they start surfacing after years of been hidden they can knock you sideways cant they.
Sometimes I think wasnt life simple when I hid in the woods and didnt talk to anyone, its only fleeting because the true intent of the aftereffects of misery and shame come back.
Sometimes when your life starts getting good and you feel good you start wanting some bad again to make it real dont you, forgive me if im rambling Im just trying to say something I cant put into words
"I can get very uncomfortable and have difficulty receiving praise and even gratitude."
Same here. Same here.
She might have been looking for approval, she might actually want to emulate you, she might have put you on a pedestal--only she knows the reason. The reason isn't really important though because it's what we think about ourselves that matters. We know the ultimate trust and so does our HP.
http://www.abhayagiri.org/index.php/main/media#talks
I listened to the talk 'Ah So; by Amaro today at work and it has some (!) great stuff in the second half about dealing with both praise and criticism.
You spoke from your heart and someone heard you. Like Shadow said, just say thanks,(I know it's hard to do!) I would always have to put myself down after a compliment. But, like my sponsor continually tells me, "I am just a sick drunk just like you living one day at a time"
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