Being Gentle Towards Ourselves, Free from Negative Mental Chatter 7/8/19

      I am grateful for being gentle towards myself  when making mistakes.  I had a one yesterday. I sent an intense text mes-sage to the wrong person.  Oops!

      Patience towards
our errors demonstrates personal growth.  Viewing our missteps with humor reveals even more.

  Perfectionism is a sickness, a form of codepen-dency.  We are trying to manage the image others have of us.  No need for that.

        We are fine, just as we are.

       Also, any-thing worth doing, we learn in recovery, is worth doing badly.  We want to do the regular practice that pro-duces progress, the mark of a thriving life.  

       Trying to look better than we are means, we think who we are---right now---is not good enough.  Personal strength grows as we appre-ciate who we are, by loving ourselves---strengths, faults and all.

       Recovery is realizing"the okayness of me."  This perspec-tive frees us from unnecessary self-imposed guilt. It gives us hope and greater confidence.  It is having kinder eyes as we view ourselves.

       

       If others condemn or judge us, we want to bless them and send them on their way.  They are not God's or Allah's gift for us.  Those He has for us, He gives to us for free.  Not only that, they will have our back, at all times.

      This is a huge paradigm shift.  For most of us growing up, making a mistake, was the worst thing in the world.  We were frequently shamed.

     When doing something wrong, guilt was plied upon us.  We were told we were bad.  Now, we see that thinking for what it is.

      A false belief.

      Our mistakes do not define us.  Our value is not based on how well we perform, either.  We are valuable simply because we breathe the breath of humanity.

    This perspective makes life more balanced.  Rarely are we called to give a command per-formance.  When we are gentler towards ourselves, our well-being improves.

     As we develop greater pa-tience, our minds operate more clearly.  Our executive function-ing improves, too.  We stay in the solution.  Fear and self-judg-ment no longer rule over us.

     Not distracted by negative self-talk, we assess our circumstances calmly.  We distinctly see the steps needed for any challenge we face.
   
     We are no longer rattled.

 "Seeing what is happening in the          moment allows us to no longer be        lost in it."                      Tara Brach  

     This is being present.  When we catastrophize, past pain is rattling us.  Where is the growth in that?

     Seeing life from a positive, grateful perspective---even when encoun-tering problems, the fruit of recovery---frees us from negative mental chatter.

     With recovery, we are comfortably at home within our-selves when interacting with others.  We are no longer reacting, distracted by fear.  We respond, instead.

     Mental static----interpreting the worse, is replaced with healthier responses, born from greater confidence.  Our thinking clears.  We are no longer consumed by fear, apprehension or guilt.
 

      We enjoy a new dawn, day, a life that addresses our feel-ings.  We meet the needs of our emo-tions.  Life feels good, it is no longer a roller coaster of drama.

      Gentleness towards ourselves lets us hear others without distrac-tion.  We don't formulate answers while others speak.  Pausing gives us serenity.

      We calmly take in what life dishes out, the good and bad.  Recovery helps us  determine the steps we want to take to have the life we want and deserve.

 "What man should fear is not                 death.  What man should fear               is never beginning to live."                                               Marcus Aurelius

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    My Gratitudes for Today:
1.  I'm recovering from an emotional hurricane that hit me a month ago with a wallop.  The pace of healing is slow.  Pro-gress, not perfection is better than none.
2.  For meeting with three men on Satur-day morning for two hours. The conversation was in depth.  The sincerity was off the chart. Time spent in a loving, genuine community nourishes me more than anything.

       I'd love hearing what has you grateful.