I’d really like everyone to love me all of the time. Is that too much to ask?<\/p>\n
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It’s not working out that way. Last week I had a whole bunch of criticism–even repeated gossip–thrust at me. It threw me into a storm of upset.<\/p>\n
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I called all my friends to find someone to tell me I was still okay. One friend said, “You are really identifying with this.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Bingo. My identity was at stake. I had taken this criticism–It wasn’t even fair, by the way! –and internalized it as the truth.<\/p>\n
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I know that mistakes get made. I even know I make them sometimes.<\/p>\n
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Mistakes are learning opportunities. I know that. I know that. Maybe if I say it a third time I can believe it.<\/p>\n
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Why do I have to go through this hurricane of emotions when I find out someone disapproves of something I did?<\/p>\n
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Mistakes, made in the company of friends, are no big deal.<\/p>\n
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Not everyone is my friend. Some people are kind of mean.<\/p>\n
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I’m not good with mean. I turn into an armadillo, curling up into a protective ball of armor. I shrink and fester around the injury. My instinct is to run away from the person who hurt me and only be around friends.<\/p>\n
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You ever hear of fight or flight? I do not like to fight. Fly, armadillo, fly!<\/p>\n
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There’s another kind of instinct, one felt by females. Tend and befriend. We’ve developed a way of coping that helps with our biological childbearing. We go around and make sure everyone is okay and everyone is our friend so that we will have a group of people to help. The little ones as well as us are going to need a posse.<\/p>\n
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It is instinct; it is biology to want everyone to like me. It is natural.<\/p>\n
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And it is not going to happen all of the time. Especially not in the kind of life I want to lead.<\/p>\n
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I want to lead a life of creativity and discovery. I want to change the status quo. More than that, it is part of who I am to change the status quo.<\/p>\n
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And here we have it. I want to change what many people work hard to protect. Those people are not going to like what I am doing, or who I am for that matter.<\/p>\n
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This badly conflicts with my desire to have everyone love me all the time.<\/p>\n
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What on earth can I do about that?<\/p>\n
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I wish I could not let it bother me. I wish I could find a way to approve of myself and let that be enough.<\/p>\n
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Somehow, someway, I will find out how to lower the value of other people’s opinions and inflate my own assessment of myself. I know what I do, and I know when I’ve done it wrong and been shameful. I also know when I have done it right.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I really need my approval, and my approval of myself has been dependent on others. I’ll have to stop that.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’d really like everyone to love me all of the time. Is that too much to ask? It’s not working out that way. Last week I had a whole bunch of criticism–even repeated gossip–thrust at me. It threw me … Continue reading