Maybell XI

[labug]

So Maybell, the thing that keeps coming up for me in your writing is, Maybell hasn't found Maybell yet.

Maybell is busy filling out all the roles she's been groomed to play. Whoever you are right now, I'd hazard a guess you're not real crazy about you. It's almost impossible to take care of ourselves when we think we don't deserve it.

Figure you out, truly take control or your life, the rest will come easy.

It's a process but once you begin to see and feel how worthy and intelligent and engaging and OK and OMG! witty, you are, things like your dad's P/A remark might stop you for a moment but then you'll say to yourself "Dad being dad. I'm sorry he can't communicate his feelings to me honestly but I can't fix him. I can love him but I can't fix him." Or about your mother's unhappiness, "Sorry Mom that you lived a life that wasn't happy for you but you made choices, I can't go back and change those for you. I can love you but I can't make you better." You can validate her feelings, but it's her life.

That's about setting internal boundaries. Love doesn't mean being enmeshed.

You made a statement earlier to the effect that your son hurt you because he didn't want to talk to your H, is that what you meant?

Your H is in a romance with a lover that you can't compete with so don't try. That lover doesn't ask for anything, requires no conversation, accountability or emotion. And it makes him feel oh, so good...for now. Leave him to it. You don't have to D him, or stop standing or stay standing. Just gently and lovingly, back off. You don't have to say anything but the thought process may be something like, I love you (and you do, at some level) but you have things going on that I choose not have in my life right now. I have plenty to work on myself. May you be safe, may you be healthy, may you live with ease.

I subscribe to some interesting stuff and this came today.

When things don't go as we had hoped, we either look outside ourselves for someone or something to blame (instead of reflecting on what we could have done differently), or we go too far in the other extreme and blame ourselves too much.

There is a happy middle-ground wherein we consider possible outcomes if we had done things differently, but we don't call ourselves failures or losers just because we didn't have all the facts right off the bat.

It's very easy for us to spot these extremes when we see other people go off on a tangent about everything that went wrong except for what they could have done differently, but the trick is to catch ourselves when WE do it.

We reason with ourselves so we can feel better about what happened, but even if we walk away from that experience feeling justified, we don't necessarily walk away from it any wiser if we don't hold ourselves accountable.

And when other people beat themselves up about doing EVERYTHING wrong, we naturally steer them in the other direction, reminding them about other factors that were at play... so why can't we do it with ourselves when we feel like complete losers?

I guess that's why having honest friends is so important. They tell it to us like it is (whether we want to hear it or not), and, if we're wise enough, we take all the comments into consideration, learn, grow, mature, and try again.

Leave him to his journey and put your energy where it will do some good, your journey.

You're on the cusp. The first step is the hardest.