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At the root of it is ego. False identity.

The ego wants us to be important, and we are not. So it inflates our importance in our own mind. It creates an illusion and tries to convince ourselves that we are something special.

Sometimes it can do this directly, and we convince ourselves we are better than we really are...making excuses for our failures, distorting our memories and feeding on our highlight reel and convincing ourselves this is who we really are.

But othertimes our ego shows itself through criticism. We beat ourselves up for being mortal, flawed. This is actually the ego talking. When we criticize ourselves for things we would forgive in others we are really saying "Well, it's ok for the rest of the world to be overweight, but for ME this is unacceptable because I should be better than that". Holding ourselves to a different standard is actually egotistical.

When we try to eliminate the ego, it gets nasty, and says "but you NEED me, without me pushing you to be better you'd just be a worthless sack of crap, I am the one that whips you and drives you to be better...remember the time you did THIS, or THAT? That was because of what I did for you..." So we fall into the trap of serving our ego, thinking it knows what is best for us, that it will lead us the right way.

The ego feeds on feelings of inadequacy. I know a lot about it because I have battled inadequacy and ego my entire life. I'd say "I lost" the battle, but that is egotistical as it promotes false self modesty. It's a trap that I don't know I'll escape in my lifetime.

I have a lot more I could say on this topic, but the point I was trying to make is this- it is possible to grow and change without being unhappy with who you are. A baby learns to walk without beating itself up for being a pathetic crawler. We learn to talk without belittling ourselves. Learning is a natural process, and has nothing to do with self loathing or self criticism. Those are little extras we put in, as a backhanded way of complimenting ourselves on the fact we are so good that what we see in the mirror is a disgrace to how awesome we think we really are.


Me:38 XW:38
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Zues
Just chiming in. I don't know how you come up with what you write here, but this really hit me. This is so spot-on for how ego has affected me and throughout life and so much during my lowest points in my situation. The feelings of inadequacy have overtaken me so many times - ego has loved feeding on this.

Thanks for putting into words what I try to figure out for myself so often.

Peace
u-turn


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Thanks uturn. Trust me, ego and inadequacy have been a big challenge for me. It was a huge part of my pool playing. I'm on my way to a tournament now, but you inspired me to look up some of my old journal stuff on this. It has to do with pool of course. I'll quote it here and maybe we can talk about it on my thread if you want to reply, that way JB can actually get some support around this one wink

Thanks for letting me hijack JB.

Quote:

Your ego tells you that you are the greatest player in the world. At first it feels great to hear, and you become addicted to placating the ego. You begin to treat your ego like a boss that you are trying to impress, constantly striving to earn its ongoing praise. You win tournaments, money matches, set new high runs, all striving to hear the occasional pat on the back from the ego. You collect praise from others and silently feed the ego at night.

When things go right the ego takes credit for your accomplishments. It says that it is your master, and if you serve it it will make you the greatest player in the world. In the meantime, every time you miss a ball it whips, saying “I should give up on you, how could the greatest player in the world miss that ball???” (This is apparent every time someone says “I should have made that” or “The score should be 4-2 right now”)

You believe that you deserve a whipping, even welcome it because you feel it is making you better. In fact, whip me harder, master. You want to satisfy your ego so badly that you wish to get whipped, because the more pain you endure now the better you will become. The ego admires your ability to welcome the pain, saying “You whip yourself harder than anyone in the world, keep this up and no one will ever beat you because they are too soft to go through what you are going through”.

Now you have reached the point where every poor performance is a session of self abuse, followed by depression. To heal, the ego stirs up memories of past performances, telling you how great you used to be, or how great you will be, and your misery today is worth it when compared to the amazing joy that will come once you can beat everybody all of the time.

On a good day, it takes credit for your performance and says “this is a taste of what serving me can get”. It then feeds on your win and gets you your fix. Often times the only way to get this fix is to blow your accomplishments out of proportion (I ran 5 racks, never missed a ball, won $5,000, played perfect, it was amazing). You then try to convince other players that this is true, because if they believe it then maybe you aren’t that far from reality. Constantly comparing yourself to other players, asking people how they think that you match up with so and so.

It is almost like people rank all of the players in the pool world, and assumes that the best players are the happiest. After all, they can feed their ego slightly bigger trophies, so they MUST be happy. In reality, they simply have a higher tolerance.

[PART II]
Ego says (laughable when you expose it):

(when you first pick up the cue) You can’t do this. Look at how hard it is for you. Everyone else is doing so much better. You must be the worst player in the world, might as well give up. (Ego telling you that the only reason to play is outcome, if you can’t get everything that you ever wanted easily, why bother?)

(when you make your first shot) Look at you! Now you’re talking. Shoot, you’ve only been playing for a few minutes and you already made that shot! Think of how great you’ll be in a few months! You could be the world champion! (bipolar already kicking in, ego building expectations, beginning to believe that happiness is attached to outcome and performance)

(when you get discouraged and someone gives you a pep talk) See, people are saying good things about you. Listen to me and do what I say and you’ll be great and achieve happiness, glory, and acceptance. (ego blows pep talk out of proportion and feasts on garbage. Person that gave the pep talk is part of a culture that thinks that it is normal that when a guy is ‘down’ you pump him up. That is feeding garbage, as what they really need is an ego check.)

(when you get positive results) See, I told you that if you listened to me you could become the greatest in the world. Aren’t you HAPPY NOW!!! Look at how perfect you are! You are the man, and everything that you do is awesome! Finally, you are there! (ego blows accomplishments out of proportion and feasts on more garbage. People around say things like, ‘gosh, so and so won one match and now he thinks he is the best in the world’. Obviously you have always felt that, and just needed a tiny bit of positive outcome for you to feel that way)

(when you get negative results) Do you know what? You might just be the most terrible player ever. Anybody with any ability at all would never have (missed that ball, lost that set, blah blah blah). Here you had a chance to be someone, to win, to be happy, to have something to show for your time here on the planet, but instead you blew it and now will be eternally worthless, despised by everyone who’s respect you need. And you deserve it, even misery is too good for you, being in agony every second for the rest of your life is more than you deserve after single handedly ruining my shot at fulfillment. (aha, MY shot, ego wants to feed and is furious that it gets nothing, may result in eating more garbage by fishing for flattery again)

(shortly after negative results- the deal) You had better not ever let that happen again! But you will, if you don’t have ME to help you. From now on, admit that you are horrible and that you need my help. Just do everything that I say from now on and you will be great. I can do great things for you and give you everything you want. Understand that you are miserable now so that greater happiness will come down the road, and it will be worth it. (mini ego feast to feel good again, maybe the ‘someday they’ll all see how good I play and then it will all be worth it’, or the ‘nobody else is willing to whip themselves this hard, they are all weak, that is why I’ll be the greatest’.)


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Zues really interesting perspective
Foggy that's some really great insight about weight loss. Interesting regarding allowing yourself to be imperfect but actually preventing you from any binging

JellyB

I still stand by my love for people that are flawed. (My favorite characters were never the Disney princesses but I love those wicked witches! So much more fun and interesting and they always had depth Lol ).

Seriously though, we love Lucy because of her faults. Didn't you love grace and Karen from will and grace? Totally flawed. My best friend does so many things that are wrong but I love her for it. Ancaire, I never want you to suffer but I love you because you had the passion and righteousness to run into that truck. To be honest I would tell that story with pride (once it's a little bit more behind you) because it gives your soul lots of color.

A long time ago I wrote something pretty cruel and cutting about male and female dynamics...but honest to my best friend. This comment made us both look insensitive and pretty bad. It was more of a joke though. Like a joke where it's so bad but it's really joking about badness. Hard to explain. She had broken things off with her boyfriend at the time and he was mad at her and hacked into her transcripts and sent my husband a copy of what was written. My husband told me he did not read it and did not want to get involved. He joked with me, " I already know how nasty you can be. Your not sweet and innocent like everyone thinks". And we both laughed.

My point is that in a healthy relationship, you don't have to be perfect. Because your imperfections are what makes you you. You don't have to be perfect to have someone love you. They will love you because of your flaws. So embrace them laugh at them and then move on. Focus on the good things about you and keep building that up.

I really think it's as easy as that to learn to like yourself.


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There is a difference between self esteem and self worth.

With self esteem we rely on how the world values us and we do so accordingly. High when we perform and low when we don't. Not enormously useful as it roller coaster ride in extremis. All the best screen psychos have high esteem and arrogance. This leads to unhealthy guilt and shame, inauthenticity and dissonance. The superficial smiles of FB. Transitory stability and ever drive to perform to excessive standards. An external measure.

It has its place as recognition and achievement together with the trappings of success and the disgrace of failure. The happiest on the podium steps is the gold medal winner then bronze and then silver. Many silver medal winners consider themselves second best. It's so sad.

Measuring ourselves on our self worth, as how we hold ourselves and our intentions is much better. Healthy guilt and shame holds us to account and we can allow ourselves foibles and mistakes. That's ok.

Self worth is our higher power at work. An internal measure.

We need to measure ourselves with the right yardstick.

V


Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose.
V 64, WAW


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The other posters have shared so much.

I just wanted to drop by between errands and say that, if I could see you,I bet you'll be as gorgeous and lovely as I imagine you to be.

*wink wink*


You can call me Dory/ Grl.

As a wise fish once sang,"Just keep swimming!"

It's no use to go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.
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How are you my dear Jelly?



“Character is destiny” Heraclitus
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Oh what lovely people, thank you Foggy, Zues , Julie and Lady V thank you so very much for your posts, and investment in me. U-turn, Grlonfr and Mu thanks for checking in on me.

My head is spinning a bit, from the amazing posts you have made. I am attempting to sift through and find myself in what you have written and attempting to gain insight where I can. I feel shift happening incrementally. I feel like I am learning a new language and my brain and tongue gets a bit twisted in trying to 1. Make sense of it and 2. Get my head around the action.

Please forgive me for not responding individually I just need a little more time to process. On top though I think learning to let go of idealism and perfectionism is my lesson . I obviously expect it in myself, and see how I expect in others, in every facet of my life. I am a work in progress and I guess I will get there when I get there. Likely I will be human like everyone else and get there on my death bed. LOL.


It is an extraordinary experience to feel so loved and cared for. You all share a special place in my heart.


Jelly xxx

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JB

Just checking in on your thread and wanted to give you some hugs you really are truly a lovely lady

You have been an absolute godsend and I am privileged to have you as a friend

Take good care of yourself
G x


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Thanks G, I really appreciate you dropping by place. I am glad you feel coupld. I want to give back to a place and people that gave me a lifeline when I first separated from my ex. I was so scared of being alone again. Posters here rallied me and loved me, when I couldn't love myself and I didn't know what to do. They made me feel braver than I was. If I can pass that onto you or someone else. It makes me happy.

If you would like to do something for me. Please stick around to pass on what you learn. I saw in the last few days leading up to yesterday's triggers, you darting around the board leaving little notes of support and love. It made me feel so good to see. I would love to see you give back what people have invested in you. A kind of pay it forward G.

G, you have a lot to offer. You are a complete untapped goldmine. I'm not sure why I feel this way but I do. I think I recognise my own stubbornness in you. Like me, you tend not to like the thing that hurts you go. Most people know that when a burning match gets to your finger tips, its gonna hurt and burn.

That fact though G is that the flip side of stubbornness, is determination. The other thing I waiting for you is for you get angry and PO'd, about what is happening. I'm going to shout you a beer that day.


You have no idea how happy I am to have this conversation with you. As I said yesterday, if you are spinning come and chat with me. We can just shoot the breeze G. That's what friends do.

Sending you alot of love G. Come back and visit again.

Jellyxxx

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