Celebrating your accomplishments
Ok, is it ok to say that I am about over all this accomplishment stuff? Well, I guess that is a part of it all, getting me to "talk" about what I am thinking/feeling, eh? I don't know, it is making it all sound all so rainbow and puppy dogs..... list your accomplishments....ok, now let's be happy about them, let's cheer them on, whoo hoo, great job, you did wonderful, do the wave, fireworks!!! And then the next time you have and accomplishment, to which the book notes is any small thing, you should be just as excited. Look! I woke up! Whoo hoo! The world excites and angels come down from heaven! (ok, I know in the past there have been times where that really could have been a realistic moment).
I guess my point is, at least for me, and at least for the things that I do, how come I have to make a big deal of things? I mean, yah, I am making progress and I am learning new things, and I am healing, and on and on, yet I am doing what I have to do in order to get better. This is, well, kind of how life has to be if I want to be healthy. I do not to draw attention to myself, I do not like to be put in a spotlight - it makes me uncomfortable.
The assignment in the book is to come up with different ways you might celebrate your accomplishments. By the way it lists some examples, seems like it is an "anything goes" kind of list as they include skywriting and I don't see that as an ordinary thing someone might do. Yet even with that - use your imagination and just make stuff up - I still am weary to start making such a list. I have my moments where I celebrate accomplishments, I celebrated riding Flash, didn't I?
I am not being a willful person here. There is reason behind my hesitance to celebrate an accomplishment. Some of it I talked about in my previous piece. Enjoyment of an accomplishment has never been something too familiar for me. Sometimes it was that the accomplishment was invalidated, other times it was that something happened parallel to the accomplishment to overshadow it. Choosing to celebrate only caused a lot of guilt, so it was easier to just not celebrate or just do the smile and fake it thing. I accomplish because that is what I am supposed to do. If I do celebrate an accomplishment, it is shared with a very select few, a very safe select few. Other times, it is kept just to me, it is not shared. No one can ruin it if they never know about it.
Then I struggle with the pride thing. If I am continually celebrating things I do, at what point does that become prideful? At what point am I just bragging about myself? And yes, this totally falls under the double standard rule here. Why is it that I have to "be my 7 year old" to feel safe enough to go to that "look what I did" place?
Ok, take a breath. I need to back off a little here. Am getting frustrated and pissed off. Do not think that is the intention of the book. Matter of fact, maybe I need to just get off my little selfish soapbox and kick it to the side here and let the book make its point and move on.
Book notes that survivors have a tendency to see their accomplishments as less than they are. True. I do this. I do not recognize my small achievements and forward movements as accomplishments. I see them simply as what I am supposed to do, not something to be celebrated. I understand why the book says we should celebrate all the little steps, because this is a hard process - heck, life is a hard process - and every little moment and step we take to try to heal is a victory and we should celebrate that. I agree with that and would wholeheartedly encourage someone to do so. I, though, not so much. I get it, and I think I will just stand at the fence and watch the kids play.
Ideas for and celebrating. Again, will be an evangelist for this for anyone else. Doesn't feel right for me to do it. I keep going back to "why celebrate? this is what I am supposed to do." I am not going to judge anyone for celebrating, hey, have at it, throw one hell of a party, yet I am going to just keep trekking forward in the desert. You know, I can get up in front of a group and speak, teach, present, or whatever. Not a problem. I am in control of the room, I am in control of the environment, I am in control of how things go. Call me up in front of a room unexpectedly to give me accolades for something, I am petrified. Would rather dig a hole right there and crawl into it. Would give you my life's savings (which is not that much) to just not do it. I might be able to put on a good front and get through it, yet it will be a very, very unpleasant experience for me.
That brings us to the end of this big section and the "what did I learn" and "what was hard" questions. Did I "learn" anything??? I don't know if I learned anything new, yet I did allow myself to talk out some stuff a little more. I didn't stop at just "don't want to do that" or "don't like that". I tried to give some explanation. It would seem that I still struggle a lot with taking that step forward and trying things. Even with something as simple as celebrating. Seriously, it is not going to kill me to try and celebrate something each day and the thought causes me enough distress that I just shut it down. I still let thoughts shut me down.
I don't know. Would be interesting to as Chris what she thinks I have learned up to this point.
I guess my point is, at least for me, and at least for the things that I do, how come I have to make a big deal of things? I mean, yah, I am making progress and I am learning new things, and I am healing, and on and on, yet I am doing what I have to do in order to get better. This is, well, kind of how life has to be if I want to be healthy. I do not to draw attention to myself, I do not like to be put in a spotlight - it makes me uncomfortable.
The assignment in the book is to come up with different ways you might celebrate your accomplishments. By the way it lists some examples, seems like it is an "anything goes" kind of list as they include skywriting and I don't see that as an ordinary thing someone might do. Yet even with that - use your imagination and just make stuff up - I still am weary to start making such a list. I have my moments where I celebrate accomplishments, I celebrated riding Flash, didn't I?
I am not being a willful person here. There is reason behind my hesitance to celebrate an accomplishment. Some of it I talked about in my previous piece. Enjoyment of an accomplishment has never been something too familiar for me. Sometimes it was that the accomplishment was invalidated, other times it was that something happened parallel to the accomplishment to overshadow it. Choosing to celebrate only caused a lot of guilt, so it was easier to just not celebrate or just do the smile and fake it thing. I accomplish because that is what I am supposed to do. If I do celebrate an accomplishment, it is shared with a very select few, a very safe select few. Other times, it is kept just to me, it is not shared. No one can ruin it if they never know about it.
Then I struggle with the pride thing. If I am continually celebrating things I do, at what point does that become prideful? At what point am I just bragging about myself? And yes, this totally falls under the double standard rule here. Why is it that I have to "be my 7 year old" to feel safe enough to go to that "look what I did" place?
Ok, take a breath. I need to back off a little here. Am getting frustrated and pissed off. Do not think that is the intention of the book. Matter of fact, maybe I need to just get off my little selfish soapbox and kick it to the side here and let the book make its point and move on.
Book notes that survivors have a tendency to see their accomplishments as less than they are. True. I do this. I do not recognize my small achievements and forward movements as accomplishments. I see them simply as what I am supposed to do, not something to be celebrated. I understand why the book says we should celebrate all the little steps, because this is a hard process - heck, life is a hard process - and every little moment and step we take to try to heal is a victory and we should celebrate that. I agree with that and would wholeheartedly encourage someone to do so. I, though, not so much. I get it, and I think I will just stand at the fence and watch the kids play.
Ideas for and celebrating. Again, will be an evangelist for this for anyone else. Doesn't feel right for me to do it. I keep going back to "why celebrate? this is what I am supposed to do." I am not going to judge anyone for celebrating, hey, have at it, throw one hell of a party, yet I am going to just keep trekking forward in the desert. You know, I can get up in front of a group and speak, teach, present, or whatever. Not a problem. I am in control of the room, I am in control of the environment, I am in control of how things go. Call me up in front of a room unexpectedly to give me accolades for something, I am petrified. Would rather dig a hole right there and crawl into it. Would give you my life's savings (which is not that much) to just not do it. I might be able to put on a good front and get through it, yet it will be a very, very unpleasant experience for me.
That brings us to the end of this big section and the "what did I learn" and "what was hard" questions. Did I "learn" anything??? I don't know if I learned anything new, yet I did allow myself to talk out some stuff a little more. I didn't stop at just "don't want to do that" or "don't like that". I tried to give some explanation. It would seem that I still struggle a lot with taking that step forward and trying things. Even with something as simple as celebrating. Seriously, it is not going to kill me to try and celebrate something each day and the thought causes me enough distress that I just shut it down. I still let thoughts shut me down.
I don't know. Would be interesting to as Chris what she thinks I have learned up to this point.