Here we are again.

I have been doing better. I am not as sick as I have been. I am still taking a breathing treatment once a day and my cough is still quite bad, but I do not have pneumonia any longer and I don’t feel as though my head is going to explode. I have been taking it easy the last few weeks, which has been very nice.

Life has been hard! I have been learning so much about myself and trying to figure things out and hopefully all that will lead to change and healing. Sometimes I just want to cry and let it all out but crying is not easy for me though I have done much of it lately. Making the changes that I need have been much harder for me then I ever imagined. I am supposed to be starting a twelve-step program (Al Anon) and I still have not gotten around to going to any meetings. I keep thinking “how is this going to help me? I don’t deal with alcoholics.” It seems weird to me and very uncomfortable that I need to go but I need to do whatever I can to get the help I need to change. The church has a twelve-step program however the meeting is every Thursday and they meet about an hour from where I live and it really is too far for me on a week day. Maybe I can go during the summer but for now I will try Al Anon here. I am kind of scared to go because then it means that this is real and what if I can’t change it or don’t want to.

I finished reading “Codependent No More” and it was a great book. Any person would gain a lot from reading it even if they were not codependent. Now I am on to a second book “Boundaries” by Cloud and Townsend. When I first started reading I didn’t really think that it applied to me now that I am further into the book I see how it does apply to me. I have very good boundaries in my classroom however I do not in my relationships, and that means friendships as well. How can that be? How can I have great and wonderful boundaries in the classroom so much so that I am complimented on it regularly however when it comes to a relationship I have very confusing and fuzzy boundaries? It is so frustrating!!!!!! 

So the book "Boundries" it talked about two different types of people who have boundary issues compliant people and avoidant people and I seem to have a mix of both. However if I had to choose between the two I would say that I am more of an avoidant person then a compliant person. I do comply but not near as much as avoid.

Those people who are compliant (me) “melt” into the demands of other people. There spiritual and emotional “radar” is broken; they have no ability to guard their hearts. (pg 52-53) I am very compliant in relationships I just say yes when I should say no and my boundaries are very fuzzy and indistinct. Those people who are avoidant are unable to ask for help, to recognize one’s own needs, to let others in. Avoidant people withdraw when they are in need; they do not ask for the support of others. For Avoidant people, opening up to people is almost impossible. (pg 54-55) Me, me and me!!!! 

One other thing that I have been thinking a lot about is emotion. My whole life I have always felt responsible for other people’s emotions and many times other people’s emotions effect my emotions. I feel or felt that because they were sad, angry, upset (notice these are all negative emotions) it was somehow because of me. People’s emotions affect me so much because I take responsibility for the emotions they are feeling. Let me tell you what I have discovered and it has been GREAT!!! Everyone is responsible for their own emotions and I don’t have to be responsible for another person’s emotions. What a thought? You mean to tell me that you are responsible for your emotions and I am responsible for my emotions? YES!!! It seems so simple and logical however I have never seen it that way before. What does this new knowledge do for me? It gives me a whole new outlook on life and now I can free myself from other people’s emotions and start feeling my own emotions. I wonder what that is going to feel like because I have spent most of my life wrapped up in, or feeling responsible for other people’s emotions that I don’t know what it is like to feel my own. I think this is going to be a great experience and it is going to be kind of fun to explore and be responsible for my own emotions. I will have to report back, I have a feeling it is going to feel very freeing..