Relationships, Conflict and Peace Part 1
Posted by secondchancetolive on July 13, 2009
Hello and welcome back to Second Chance to Live. I am happy to see that you decided to stop by to visit with me. I am honored by your presence. Yesterday evening, while meeting with a group of friends the discussion of relationships,conflict and peace was introduced. When the time came for me to share from my experience, strength and hope, these are some of the thoughts that I shared with the group.
Through my recovery process I became aware of the patterns in my relationships. As I examined the patterns in my relationships I discovered that there was a common theme. If there was conflict or unrest in the relationship I experienced feelings of shame, anxiety and the fear of abandonment. Consequently — in my attempts to quiet my feelings of shame, anxiety and the fear of abandonment — I desperately tried to “fix” the conflict and the unrest in my relationships.
Not only did I believe that I was cause for the conflict and unrest, but I believed that I needed to “fix” the unrest and conflict in order to “make” the person in the relationship “OK”. I was driven to “fix” or make the person “OK” in order to know that we were “OK” in the relationship, before I could hope to be “OK” with myself and secure.
You see I bought into the notion at an early age — that if conflict or unrest existed for any reason in any of my relationships — I was to blame. Several factors also contributed to and complicated matters. One, that I was driven to be perfect in order to avoid or relieve my ongoing feelings of not being “OK” and insecurity and two that I was living life with an invisible disability — for which neither I nor other people were aware. For more information please read my About page. Thank you.
Consequently, I found myself guessing at what was normal in all of my relationships.
Because I rarely felt secure or OK with myself I found myself constantly striving — all the more — in an attempt to do enough to measure up to be enough so that I could feel “OK” and secure. Consequently, a performance based acceptance drove me to despair. My efforts to be enough only seemed to reinforce that I was unlovable and unworthy of being loved — by God, my fellows or myself.
Please stay tuned for Part 2. Thank you.
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This entry was posted on July 13, 2009 at 7:48 pm and is filed under 12 Step Recovery, Acquired Brain Injury, Adult Children of Alcoholics, Awareness Acceptance Action, Being Healed, Bob Woodruff, Brain Injury, Brain Injury Associations, Caregivers, Children of Trauma, Closed Head Injury, Codependency, Department of Defence, Department of Veteran Affairs, Desert Storm Veterans, Destiny, Empowerment Speaker, Empowerment and Inspirational Speaker, Finding Freedom From Perfectionism, Friends, Fulfilling your Destiny, Gulf War Veterans, Healthy Self-Care, Identified Patient, Invisible Disability, Iraq War Veterans, Iraq veterans, Learning, Life, Limitations, Living with a Disability, Living with an Invisible Disability, Major Media Outlooks, Major News Networks, Meaning and Purpose, Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, Motivaional Speaker, Motivational / Inspirational Speaker, Natasha Richardson, No Longer a Victim, Ophra Winfrey, PTSD, Parents of children with Acquired brain injuries, Personal, Personal empowerment, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Practical Faith, Prayer, Progress, Revealing your Destiny, Romance and Relationships, Self-Respect, Serving humanity, Spiritual Principles, Subdural Hematoma, The Grieving Process, Traumatic / Acquired Brain Injury and Anger, Traumatic Brain Injury Support Groups / Meetings, Traumatic Brain Injury Thrivor, Traumatic Brain Injury and You, Traumatic Brain Injury in children, Traumatic Brain and Comfort, Veterans of the Iraq War, Vietnam Veterans, Virginia Tech Shootings, abuse and neglect, abuse and trauma, acceptance, and Action, awareness, brain injured soldiers, celebrities with brain injuries, cerebral vascular accident, characteristics of traumatic brain injury, empowerment, family, fear of failure, finding your bliss, flash explosion leading to brain Injury, goal setting, head injury, learning disabilities, life challenging experiences, living life on life's terms, living my destiny, living with a traumatic / acquired brain injury, living with meaning and purpose, messages of hope, messages of hope and inspiration, motivation, relationships, self-esteem, self-improvement, shame, spinal cord injury, stroke, toxic shame, traumatic / acquired brain injury, traumatic brain injury Iraq, traumatic brain injury and frustration, traumatic brain injury in schools, traumatic brain injury treatment, visual impairment. Tagged: worthy of love and being loved, I'm Ok Your not OK, conflict and unrest, driven by shame anxiety and the fear of abandonment, need to "fix" people, guessing at what is normal in relationships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
