DSF45 Topics: “Detachment with love, Emotional Abuse, Safety/Personal Care”

DSF45 Topics:  ”Detachment with love, Emotional Abuse, Safety/Personal Care” 5-20-2010

hi everyone, im very grateful to be here

some minor background on me – I am acoa and came back to al-anon as an adult at 36 years old.

I was extremely co-dependent on my mom – I thought she made the sun and moon rise

but in watching her codie behavior and emulating it – I abandoned myself constantly.

I didn’t have a clue what it meant – to love the self.

I was obsessed with the past (as I had unresolved issues) and the future

I constantly projected into it, suspecting and dreading the worst

you know, a typical worry wort 24/7

I also suffered with suicidal ideations for 25 years

I knew hopelessness and it was my companion

all that being said

when I got back here 5 yrs ago

I was told to – focus on me.  It was confusing and

infuriating to hear that when you are caring and martyring so much “for others.”

I could see that members here were healthy, they were happy and calm and made sense to me.

I began to focus on me and for the first year – I had terrible guilt over it-

false guilt, bc it was coming in advance and I knew logically that I wasn’t doing anything wrong by focusing on me.

I knew it was a lesson in – self-preservation

and I used tons of logic with my mind to re-program it.  I encouraged me by saying, “if I don’t love me – who will?  If not now then when?”

I surely deserve my own best love.

Yes I was scared but I knew that things are scary when they are new

and that is normal/natural and okay.

I told myself it was ok to embark on new territory and I gave myself permission to make mistakes again.

As an acoa, that perfectionism thing is so strong

it is fear.

I was at the point I wasnt doing anything at all – it was paralyzing

so I logically said, I stumble and fall, I will learn

if I don’t make a mistake, I can’t learn anything new or grow

and I wanted more than anything to feel better.

I took a % of the love I gave so easily to my mom and applied it to me

that is how I began discovering self-love and it didn’t make me selfish as I had worried about.

Obsessing about everything, still never prepares you for the actual reality as

god has a sense of humor and will throw monkey wrenches in it just to shake it up and change it from your expectation, proving that you really don’t know it all.

I wanted love in my life.

I strived to be the person that I wanted to attract in a partner

this made the most sense to me

like attracts like.

And I knew if I just went from one relationship to another and I didn’t face my inner workings

I would attract the same but a worse scenario as the experiences become exponential.

See, I take it that god tries to talk to us all of the time

it us who are tuned-out.

God flicks a piece of sand at us, we brush it away.

Then a pebble, then a rock

then a brick, a larger rock, a boulder,

a brick wall, a building, a city block, then a neighborhood, a city, a country…

it keeps happening and getting worse exponentially.  Our situations get more painful and more extreme at these different plateaus until we take stock of our lives and

until HP/god/nature gets our awareness and attention

or we get HP’s awareness

and see that we are being spoken to.  :|

I didn’t think I had any choices or that I was love-able and

that is a lie.

It is a lie from the abuse/past because we own the bad feelings of others

and take them into us.

Naturally we are that spark of the divine creative source

all that source wants us to do ~ is be loving.

I encourage you all to practice love and self-care and

forgive YOU

and work the program.

As I surrender and be (present) in this moment, in today and right now

I am open and tapped-in to the unlimited possibilities HP/God/nature has in store for me.

When I fixate on any one outcome – or project into the future – I am immediately taken away

from all those possibilities of God’s.

I was so terrified of everything

and really, what’s going to happen?

We will have food and shelter.

I also cannot emphasise enough that it wasnt until I set and followed through on boundaries

that I felt emotional detachment from my mom as a 36 y/o adult-

I felt like a whole, single person, autonomous person

and I dived deep into the program’s process.

I wanted a whole lot more of that experience of healthy emotional detachment.

Changing is hard and no – others can’t always appreciate that in us initially – because our changes can get them thinking about their own lives and responsibility

which is both enlightening and terrifying- just as we felt when we first came to al-anon and were told we were the ones who had to change.

YOU are worth it and whatever you put into program and you – it pays you back exponentially

thanks for being here, working it with me

done