TAKE IT EASY ON ME
Last night I was at an Al Anon meeting. This is much like Al Anon, you know. This is a support group, just as Al Anon is a support group. Actually I work my 12 step recovery program with this now. I don't live in active alcoholism anymore. The topic last night was brought by a lady who said she could overlook any inadequacy you can think of in another, but let her make a mistake and she'd beat herself up for days. Now that sounds familiar. Pefectionism. Trying to make up for some imaginary inadequacy in myself by making sure everything looks perfect on the outside. Hmmmmm.
When I read others' blogs it reminds me how easy it is to see in another what they need to do in order to have some serenity and peace. Sort of like seing the splinter in another's eye but missing the log in my own. When I go to an Al Anon meeting I'm reminded that while we are all there because of a particular disease, we are all individuals with individual personalities and individual needs. It's sort of like that here. We are all here because of stroke. However, we are all individuals and we will all respond to the stroke in different ways. As time goes on our needs will change, just as those of our survivor. Whatever the needs are, we can't expect them to go away just because we deny they exist.
I noticed someone was feeling uneasy because their blog could be googled and they (I think) were concerned about some information they had blogged about that may be misinterpreted or misunderstood by someone. I guess we forget sometimes that the internet is the internet. Anything we put here could be seen by anybody interested in searching the web. I hope they will gain some peace and will understand that while they may feel uncomfortable with (presumably) family viewing their thoughts, those same thoughts may help many, many people.
And so, as usual my heart is full of gratitude for this place of refuge and help.
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