Hello and welcome back to Second Chance to Live my friend. In April of 2009 I wrote a series in which I share some important awareness’s. These awareness’s helped me to understand my identity and in the process grow in peace with myself. These awareness’s gave me the ability to love and accept myself when other people could not accept me. These awareness’s gave me the motivation to get into action and look for solutions. These awareness’s empower me to go and have a good day.
My encouragement to you would be to take your time and read through each Part of the entire series.
Today, I will present the first part of this series, Traumatic Brain Injury — What Empowers Me to Go and Make it a Good Day — On the Road to Healing.
As part of this 10 part series I will include many details to illustrate my experience, NOT to a fix blame or point the finger in anyone’s direction.
I will focus on providing practical solutions that have empowered my process and given me hope.
May you find a new freedom and a new happiness as you read through this series.
Craig
Through my process I discovered that I desperately needed to address my shame, anger, negativity, criticism and judgmental attitudes.
Once I realized that I needed to address my shame, anger, negativity, criticism and judgmental attitudes I found myself back in a familiar anxiety. Upon further examination I found that my anxiety stemmed from my fear of physical and emotional abandonment. As I examined why I had the fear of emotional and physical abandonment, I discovered that — like Pavlov’s dogs — I had unknowingly been conditioned to believe that I was responsible for how people felt and whether they were OK with me.
Sadly, I was also conditioned to believe that if I did not measure up to their expectations then these individuals would go away — and I would be left with myself.
What amplified my fear was the belief that the ONLY way that I could be OK with me and have a sense of security was to measure up to the expectations that were set for me. What made matters worse was that the bar of these expectations seemed to constantly move — depending upon who I as interacting with at the time and what mood they were experiencing. Because I based my sense of emotional, spiritual and physical well-being on my ability to meet these ever-changing spectrum of expectations I experienced a pervasive sense of insecurity.
In the process I bought into the notion that I was also responsible for the emotional and spiritual well-being of individuals as they interacted with me. Consequently, not only did I feel responsible for the expectations that God and other people had for me, but I also bought into the notion that I was responsible for their emotional reaction (s) to me. In my insecurity, I spent much of my time saying I was sorry for making them feel…
What complicated matters for me was that because of the injury to my brain — which I did not know at the time — I had a difficult time adjusting to the unpredictable nature of unspecified expectations with the emotional fall out that ensued when I was unable to meet those demands. I then discovered that although the bar of expectations kept moving I was still led to believe that it was my responsibility to be able to anticipate and then accurately respond to the expectation — whether direct or implied.
Consequently, I remained in a state of hyper vigilance. In my hyper vigilance I remained in a state of pervasive anxiety as I attempted to control the uncontrollable. Through further examination I discovered that I was motivated by an ever present fear of emotional, spiritual and at times physical abandonment.
Through my ongoing awareness, I then discovered that the fear and anxiety that I experienced concerning abandonment confused all of my relationships. Instead of learning to cultivate my relationship — with God, myself and other people — I was on a crusade to make people OK with me — so that they would not leave me. I did so because I was convinced that if I made God and other people OK with me, then they would in turn make me OK with me.
In my awareness the obvious became apparent. I had no idea how to have a relationship with God, myself or other people.
To read Part 2 of the series, please click on the following link. Part 2.
In the event that you would like to be in touch with me, please use my Contact Page. I look forward to hearing from you. All questions are good questions.
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