Learning

[janbear]

Learning

Today, I do not accept other people's truth as my truth. Even if what they believe seems better or more obvious, I need to give myself credit for feeling and seeing what I feel and see. Learning is meaningful to me as it relates to or is understood within the workings of my own mind. Without something in me making it relevant, learning is very disconnected. I am the learner behind the information; I am the seer behind the seen. I learn by direct experience.

I learn to trust the perceptions that I gain from my own observation of life.
- Tian Dayton PhD

[clean42day]

I too had to do quite a bit of "reality testing" when I was new in recovery - cause I had lost the abiltiy to trust my own mind - perceptions - and feelings. Also being in abusive relationships - part of the abusers weapon is psychological scrambling....that certainly didn't help and years of smoking cocaine put the delusional icing on the cake.

Took me a couple of years in recovery of constantly checking my thoughts against my sponsors thoughts, counselors thoughts, and some trusted friends just to see if I was close to being on the same page or plane of reality. Many times I found I was not. I was coming from a deep insecurity of not being enough or smart enough and still not trusting myself and so that manifested in defensiveness and not trusting others either.

I did work through most of that and found that for the most part I can trust my own mind and perceptions today - I don't need outside validation to confirm what I know to be my inner truth, but at the same time I can also risk being wrong too without fear or shame of being corrected. School has been a big part of my learning expereince and I took that out into my real life.

I am the learner behind the information; I am the seer behind the seen

I do trust my own experience and when I get to have a different experience - then I get to shift my truth just a bit.

I don't think truth really changes all the much - but it does take on deeper levels of meaning and as I grow into awareness - truth either expands my life or sometimes it can contract my perceptions into a deeper "knowing" of the soul.


light and love

Gail

I really liked yesterdays coda reading.

You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go

True to Ourselves

This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou 'canst not then be false to any man.
—William Shakespeare

To thine own self be true. A grounding statement for those of us who get caught up in the storm of needs and feelings of others.

Listen to the self. What do we need? Are those needs getting met? What do we feel? What do we need to do to take care of our feelings? What are our feelings telling us about ourselves and the direction we need to go?

What do we want to do or say? What are our instincts telling us? Trust them - even if they don't make sense or meet other people's rules and expectations.

Sometimes, the demands of other people and our confused expectations of ourselves - the messages about our responsibilities toward others - can create a tremendous, complicated mess.

We can even convince ourselves that people pleasing, going against our nature and not being honest, is the kind, honest thing to do!

Not true. Simplify. Back to basics. Let go of the confusion. By honoring and respecting ourselves, we will be true to those around us, even if we displease them momentarily.

To thine own self be true. Simple words describing a powerful task that can put us back on track.

Today, I will honor, cherish, and love myself. When confused about what to do, I will be true to myself. I will break free of the hold others, and their expectations, have on me.

From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie