Are you living your life for you? Or are you living it for someone else, or in the shadow of someone else? Gosh, this is such a deep question. For so much of my life I lived to make my Dad proud. I wanted to be a friend that people actually liked and validated, accepted. I felt like the first portion of my life was lived for everyone else but me. And the irony is that it created the most stress, the most pain, the most depression and anxiety. I’m going to have you consider that your recovery was never meant to be pursued for anybody else.
We get asked all the time when they come in, “well my wife said she’ll leave or my husband said we’re gonna get divorced if i can’t get help.” Or some younger people come in, and say, “my parents told me if i don’t get sober then they’re not going to help me anymore.” It's really a tough place to be. I get it. I was actually enabled for a long time, and finally my mom kicked me out and then I enabled on my dad for a while and he kicked me out. And it’s so funny because my stories back then were that it’s all their fault. I’m so glad I'm able to laugh about it right now because looking back I think it’s so comical but I actually believed that. That was my story. That was my truth. How dare they turn their back on their kid? When their kid needed them the most. It was mean. So much of my life I lived for other people, I blamed other people, and I didn't get the results that I wanted. I don’t know where you are in this journey of life. Maybe you’re right in that place where you’re living so much of your life for your spouse or significant other, or for your family and friends, and denying that part of you that just echoes inside. Maybe you did it for such a long time that you don’t even hear that voice. You just thought that was life.
When you start to slow things down and learn, that voice starts to actually gain a little bit of confidence, gets a little bit louder saying, this is what i want, this is what i need. If that is you, I want to encourage you. Look at your areas of life and ask yourself. And again, this is for you. You ask yourself - where in my life am I living for other people? And again, it’s not a negative thing, we don’t want to attach good or bad to this. We just want you to begin to ask questions that will help you to think a little bit differently. Where am I on my journey if I lived my life? Am I living it according to someone else’s rules? Or am I starting to hear that voice from within that says this is what I'm wanting. I’m wanting to be in treatment and go get recovery because I want a different life. The cool thing is that they’re gonna benefit from it. You’re gonna have such deeper connections and look back on it someday and actually grow so much stronger. But right now, I need to do this for me. It's’ a tough question. Because most of us live our lives with what I call unhealthy selfish. There’s actually a very healthy selfish that says, “I’m gonna take care of me for you. And I would love it if you took care of you for me.” it’s a radical way of thinking, there’s a different change in dynamics. But I want to encourage you. If you are pursuing your life for anybody else, give yourself permission to stop, to get what you need from a healthy selfish standpoint, and to make that decision.
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