Stress Center Peer Support

Hi. I haven't posted much lately. but I can see that I'm in the same boat with a few of you. I've done lessons 1-4 and working on 8. so I'm kinda slow for as long as had program but I've been trying to go over the things I need to work on.

anyhow I can see I too often compare myself to others, or what I think others are. its like you are saying, we don't know what problems those people that everything seems to be going right for have.

when I get pa's like today, I really get down on myself, thinking I should have learned by now after 1 1/2yrs of this stuff how to deal with it. then I get to disliking myself for being weak which leads me to go further into the attack. I know part of it is about our faith, but also we really get down on ourselves.

anybody have any suggestions how we get to love ourselves and be kind to ourselves. I guess I'm not very patient either because I'd like to be over this and be able to just sit back and relax.

I guess I really could study more on the expectations huh? we expect more of ourselves than we expect of others don't we?

I know I'm richly blessed and know God is taking care of me. I just don't like me for not being able to control this stuff and not have it. our society is so performance oriented too.

what do ya'll think? how can we love ourselves more and be kind to ourselves...patient?

As for looking at others' lives and thinking wow, they have it all... you don't know what really goes on in their lives behind closed doors. They might be married to someone who appears to be "all that" but who treats them like dirt, cheats on them, etc. Or they may appear to have 'perfect' children, only to find out those children are abusing drugs, running away, or out of control. Remember--think how good that most of US are at hiding our anxiety, depression, panic attacks, etc. from the rest of the world? Well, other people are equally good at presenting one "face" to the world when actually their world may be falling apart. Remember Bernie Madoff? Wow... a while back from just observing, one would think he had the world by the tail. Well, look where he is now. Just because someone has money (or acts as if they do), appears to have the perfect spouse (there is no such thing as perfect) and the perfect family, things are not always as they appear. You need to find joy in the things you have! You need to find joy in you! Those other people who appear so perfect also might not have their health, when YOU might! There are many wealthy people who would give their millions to just feel physically GOOD again. So everything is relative.
I believe it was Abe Lincoln who said most men are about as happy as they make their minds up to be... need to stop focusing on what other people are doing or what THEY have and focus on you. Your family, your friends, yourSELF. Envying what others have (or appear to have) will get you nowhere.

Pear -

Getting to the root of your question, I think the most realistic answer is "sometimes". You can achieve many things, but you can't expect to get everything you want. All that being said, there is nothing wrong with setting your goals high. If you don't, you'll never get ahead of where you already are.

I suppose part of the issue is how you define failure. If you don't reach your goal is it really a failure? Maybe you made it part way. That is still a success. Maybe things worked out completely different than expected. That isn't necessarily a failure either. And maybe things just went plain down the drain. That doesn't have to be a failure either; there's always something that can be learned and used for the next attempt.

You can give up your dreams and set mediocre goals. But if you take that route, expect for little to change. So wouldn't you say it is better to reach for the stars and maybe get less than you planned than to get nothing at all?

Just some thoughts. Hope they help.

Jamie