Archive for People Pleasing

And I Dream of Who I could Have Been….

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , on August 14, 2011 by Her Broken Wing

 

I don’t make a move unless my friends approve. I have developed a sense of codepency leaving me battling my sense of meaning to my place in the universe. Time taps her hands on my shoulder letting me know she is moving on with or without me. And I start to dream of who I could have been.

In a sense—I am a people pleasing addict too. I want you to like me. Sure– everyone does to some degree but what extent will I go to for you to like me MORE. I have perfectionist genes that rear their ugly little heads making me want to be the best! Better than you.

Where is the humble in that?

Truth is I am trying to please someone who is just as insecure as I am. I manipulate, fold and told the other person until they too meet my needs. I only assume the person feels a certain way about me when it is only my perception anyway. Actuality is I don’t know how they feel. And so The Dance Waltz’s into the night.

Big men and little God–that has become my mentality. I have let the world mold me into a façade of impressions based on what you wanted me to be. Now, I don’t know who I am.

Oh it isn’t your fault. It is mine.

In our AA meetings, life is real. No one tries to impress the other. I realize that we lost just about everything… we have nothing left but the real. We were stripped of the walls that were built to impress you long ago. Now, I don’t have to impress anyone, the group wouldn’t care anyway. They would just call my bluff. It is little men and big God.

Slowly this mentality is trickling over into my life.

I was not given life to become something of the world, but to find out who I am and become that person.

Beautifully Awkward

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Master-Slave –A Heart of One

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on June 8, 2011 by Her Broken Wing

To be a Master or the Slave — each has their own attributes. The Master has great responsibility, yet the slave too can live an enriched life given the right circumstance, in the right moment to the certain person.

The Master assumes ultimate responsibility for the well-being of one’s self or another. They are the final decision maker unless they choose to delegate to the Slave.

The Slave makes a choice to live in voluntary servitude. This is a choice.

What if I choose to live in one area over another too long? Is there not a balance? Sometimes Master – sometimes Slave?

Am I in denial or defensive and stuck in a dysfunction emotional rut?

Am I the Master of my situation until it becomes uncomfortable and then retreat into Slave mode? A nagging fear triggers a consensual relationship between the two causing me to live in a fantasy world, lacking reality. Thus, as the Master I don’t feel in control of the situation, yet as the Slave I don’t feel empowered. The outcome is—frustration and ambiguity.

There must be a guided trust between the two. Mastering control and surrendering ego at a given time. It is vital to maintaining a relationship apart from addictions, co-dependencies and other self-bondage weaknesses… For I can become a Slave to those things that have mastered me. (2 Peter 2:19)

Regardless, the role of the Master and the Slave carry the heart of each other. Without internal motivation and self-examination, I can never understand the needs or desires of myself or others… That my work be done according to the Master’s plan. (Matthew 25:21)

A heart of One….

Beautifully Awkward

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Measuring Cup of Life

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , on May 20, 2010 by Her Broken Wing

(Ephesians 3:16-19) “I pray that out of his glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Have you ever rummaged through the pantry looking for something to eat, you fix a sandwich –eat it and find that it did not satisfy your hunger. So you look around some more, nuke a pizza, eat a slice—nah, that isn’t it either. Tubs of Rocky Road (and a hand full of mini marshmallows) ice cream later, loads of Tums for the displeased belly and still you are no more satisfied than when in the beginning.

We tend to live life-like that. We aren’t satisfied with our life. Thus, we begin our search.

Those of us “holics” and I believe that would include us all…Just plug in our own addiction or if we would prefer–something we do in excess or where we are lacking moderation.

  1. Do you shop too much (how many pairs of red shoes can one person need?),
  2. Serve the church for adoration rather than out of love,
  3. Are you constantly blaming others,
  4. Worship money or spending it on things and
  5. Leaving bills unpaid, anger problems,
  6. Can’t eat enough and don’t take care of your body (are you overweight), do you have an eating disorder,
  7. Are you someone with a drinking problem or a problem with drugs –as in my case.
  8. And yes, even with all this technology of Blackberries and Iphones they have caused a new breed of greed of its’ own evil generation.

Work—this hits home to most all of us, we are so wrapped up in our work—it defines us—it gives us our acceptances…it is our life and self-worth. People are at times driven to a career because of whom they will become not the life they will serve. The consequences of this can and usually will be very grave.

Our world has become a world of excess– Nothing we do is done in moderation any longer. *All excess is rooted in emptiness. We were born with a need and desire to fill our physical body, soul and spirit with something and that something is Jesus Christ.

*Imagine starting each day with a 16 oz. measuring cup. We fill it up in the morning about 2 oz. full of wonderful succulent fresh squeezed orange juice. But the rest of the day, we spend seeking someone to fill the remainder of our cup.

Had we started out the day with the full cup, we would not have the need to “suck the life or juice” from others to fill the remnants of our cup. And I can say with great confidence that whatever I gather into my cup will not be as wonderful as what I started my day with for it will most likely be someone else’s left over’s and not God’s best.

Lessons I have learned:

So, I now must renew my mind and let go of all the junk and the stinking thinking (Romans 12:2)! There will always be people, situations and circumstances that just happen. We can’t change that. And maybe that is a good thing! Deep down I knew I couldn’t anyway. I’ve tried that and well, it doesn’t work.

But I can change me.

I can let the SON shine in on me each morning so that I can hold out my cup up and say, fill it to the brim with Him.

When I am empty, I want to fill that gnawing hunger pain. Depending on my emptiness, determines what I fill in place of that hunger.  And depending on what I fill that emptiness with will determine what controls my life. It is then according to the controls installed as a byproduct of these situations of circumstances of my life that will now become the produce of my life.

Good …

Bad…

It doesn’t matter because I am no longer in control…the paradox of it all.

Today, I am letting go (again) …

*Some examples taken from Beth Moore’s Measureless Love DVD guide

Beautifully Awkward

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Signed By God

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , on May 2, 2010 by Her Broken Wing

I have made some really dumb decisions over the past years. However, most of the decisions I have made in my life have been based on my security scale rating for that day. I can tell you it has never been very high.  If I was feeling rather low (which was most days), my choice in any matter, would tend to run on the self-destructive side. The result was either me trying to sweep the left over crumbs of my behavior under the rug or just pretend the situation never occurred.  Out of sight, out of mind!!

It really took most my life to figure out that my poor decisions equaled the level of my insecurity, thus, causing total misery. Early on in my drug use, I made every attempt to stop.  Every morning when I woke up it was the same conversation with God. I promise to do better. And I did mean it– But as the years rolled by, I eventually quit trying. Why bother, it was the same story every morning. Shame had overtaken me. I fell deeper and deeper into depression.

Once I quit trying, I realized this only compounded my wretchedness. I could no longer see God’s face. I was too ashamed of myself and what He thought of me.(I did not know He could still see my face. I was like the small child closing their eyes so their parents could not see them. I was no different.)

I have heard it said ( I believe Beth Moore), “Pain is easier than purposelessness.” I understand this now. I had lost my purpose in life…

I was no longer a wife to truly speak of…I was no longer managing our home. I slept too much.

I was a terrible parent. I was missing my children s functions at school while they are so young.

My identity as a nurse was gone.

Everything I knew… was gone.

I was no longer fearful of any type of pain… In a sick sense, I felt I deserved it. When I got sick or hurt, I welcomed it and I challenged it because I felt like it was warranted as my punishment.

So now that I am on a journey of healing, I am better but I still have days that I struggle with the security scales… I have days that I base my acceptance of how others receive and perceive me.  I am still learning to turn this over to God and leave it in His lap… for good.

I have to understand that those around me are on their own journeys and however I may have hurt them in the past or that it may have nothing to do with me,it may just take time. I have a tendency to want things back to normal….a sap. But then do I really? For to go back to where I was, would mean death.

So today, I come as a blank slate before God…. I let Him write my life with His words…

In the Hands of God

Beautifully Awkward

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Drowning in the Sea of People Pleasing

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on April 22, 2010 by Her Broken Wing

I remember when I was younger and I went out for a swim. The waters were a little rough that day but very inviting. So I decided to take a swim and soon I lost track of how far I had swam out. The winds had picked up and so did the waves. The undercurrent was also getting rough so I decided to swim back to the beach. As I began to swim back in, I began to kick harder against the waves. I realized I was having trouble because of the worsening weather conditions, so I starting to assess how I could get in to the beach without drowning. Within seconds, out of nowhere, a man came up from behind me hysterically flailing around in the water and grabbed a hold of me. He was in a panic. At this point, we were both going to drown.  I had seen in the movies where the person hits the flailing person in the head and knocks them out so he/or she could drag the other person in. Well, I don’t think I was going to be able to carry that off. I didn’t have the strength to even hold my head above water. Thank God, someone saw what was happening and saved us both.

My life has been a lot like the time in the water, except I believe I have become the flailing person. I have held onto people in my life to the point of drowning, all for that last bit of approval. I was living in the sea of people pleasing, drowning in my own fears. Over and over again these past years, I have been faced with almost an identical situation. It has taken me F.O.R.E.V.E.R. and a million drugs to realize that there is something more important out there for me. I have also learned thus far— that I have to let God show me what those things are in which I have spent my life running from. I can be very stubborn and it has cost me almost everything, including my life.

Little did I know I would have to lose my life in a sense to gain it (Matthew 16:24). There is was a particular person in my life that wreaked havoc.  From the very first day I met her till the day we parted ways, it was pretty much a nightmare.   She is a negative, conniving, and undermining of what people do or tried to do. She is a major gossiper; and well, she is just downright evil.  Everyone talks about her and how bad it is (even her boss) but they buddy up with her so they can stay on her good side– Myself included. Basically, she is an adult bully. And I would get so angry at times, I wanted to tell God just to beat her up.

For some reason, I felt it necessary to grab a hold of her struggles and sink with her. I grabbed a hold of her own sinking vessel, as I had the lame idea that she could somehow rescue my identity– Pull me to shore.  What a bizarre and warped idea– I know– but I kept searching for my self-worth in all the wrong places. It reminds me of the country and western song, “Looking for love in all the wrong places.” I would say that was fitting.

Why do I do this? Well, that is something I am working on now (for my journey is young—as all of us) but I do know it has nothing to do with this person.  She is only a symptom of a much bigger disease. And now that I have removed her from my life, I am much happier.  One of my many lessons God has revealed is that although I do need to learn to love everyone, I don’t have to like them. The biggest change in my life came when I started praying for this person. She obviously needs love.

I heard a friend say today…

It’s not in the finding of God but in the daily seeking…

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