Quote:
Monday, April 14, 2014
You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go
Perfectionism
Recovery from codependency is an individual process that necessitates making mistakes, struggling through problems, and facing tough issues.
Expecting ourselves to be perfect slows this process; it puts us in a guilty and anxious state. Expecting others to be perfect is equally destructive; it makes others feel ashamed and may interfere with their growth.
People are human and vulnerable, and that is wonderful. We can accept and cherish that idea. Expecting others to be perfect puts us in that codependent state of moral superiority. Expecting ourselves to be perfect makes us feel rigid and inferior.
We can let go of both ideas.
We do not need to go to the other extreme; tolerating anything people throw our way. We can still expect appropriate, responsible behavior from ourselves. But most of us can afford to loosen up a bit. And when we stop expecting others to be perfect, we may discover that they're doing much better than we thought. When we stop expecting ourselves to be perfect, we'll discover the beauty in ourselves.
Today, I will practice tolerance, acceptance, and love of others as they are, and myself as I am. I will strive for that balance between expecting too much and expecting too little from others and myself.
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Some of the thoughts I had about doing things right and if it wasn't done right, it wasn't any good, where rooted in old tapes which came from my mother. She use to say, "If you can't do it right, don't do it at all." It always had to be done her way and if it was anything less, it wasn't good enough. She would bake rather than show me how to do it. As my son says to me, "You didn't show me how to cook, I watched you." Those words we say to our children that we vow we will never day to our own kids.
Expectations can lead to disappointment and hurt. I had to learn to lower them, so they were attainable. I had to stop projecting my expectations onto others, most times they were not able to meet them, or they out did me, and then I would get a resentment.
As it says in the Big Book, we had to lower our expectations and have higher acceptance of our self and others.