Trust

"I grew up trusting no one, but I know if I keep doing what I've always done, I'll get what I've always gotten.  I want to change."  Hope for Today.

Since I knew as a kid that I was supposed to look perfect even if I wasn't perfect, I didn't learn from my mistakes.  How could I?  I tried very hard to not make any mistakes, of course.  But when I did, I denied and lied so no one could help me do better in the future.  I was used to being judged and criticized when I made mistakes so I just wanted to keep that from happening.   I carried that way of being into my adulthood.  I've never met anybody that tried as hard as I did to make no mistakes.  I was wound up tight trying to do everything right all the time.  By the time I was thirty I needed a lot of sleep.  I was exhausted.

After all that I decided trying to be perfect didn't benefit me at all and just gave up.  That didn't work either. I made a lot more mistakes and blew off any negative feedback I got.  When I got into recovery and found out how much like everyone else I was because they told their secrets and laughed at their mistakes, I began to learn new ways of dealing with life.  I got off my own case and stopped expecting myself not to make mistakes.  I learned from my mistakes instead of denying and hiding.  I'm still not perfect, but that's okay now. Sometimes I can't believe how much I've learned!

I chose trustworthy people to tell about myself.  There were a couple of professional counselors that I trusted.  And most of all, people in recovery because they weren't going to give me a hard time - they'd made the same mistakes themselves.  Since they had learned from their mistakes, they could show me how to learn from mine.  Judgmental, critical people aren't the ones I choose to talk to about my deepest self.  They usually make themselves feel better about themselves by criticizing me.  I'm not evolved enough to be able to handle a lot of criticism although I'm better than I used to be.