Loving, Listening, and Letting Go..

[aeolianchaos]

Providing value to others just might be your motivator...

This has been something I've been exploring. I don't know the answer but I know that when I have been able to help people I usually feel pretty good about myself. I have no idea about if it would get me out of bed in the morning, though. I probably would need to explore it more to find that out.

That means being perfect... Is that possible and realistic?

Nope. It's a good example of a belief/idea that I still grapple with. I think its founded in a couple things - childhood experiences.. my own issues w/ reflected sense of self. Things I'm actively working on but its good to recognize them when they pop into my consciousness.

"To be true to self and not directed by my desire to be what I THINK others expect of me"

I ask myself this a lot. To be honest, I don't have a very good answer. What would that look like? What does it mean to do that? To be true to my self? To act in accordance with who I really want to be? To recognize and accept who I am and work with that?

The fear -- it can be the fear of not having the autonomy that I imagine I have. It can also be the fear that in being true to myself the people who I care for may not care much for that version of me. I don't really fear that as much as the fear that that person will be rejected by some imaginary 'important' person whose opinion means so much to me.

I don't really know what others expect of me. It's more a question of predicting what they might think of me, if anything. Mind reading, fortune telling, and a lot of other cognitive distortions at their finest.