WE KEEP PASSING ON – half correct ‘helpfulness’
PREVIOUS: SAYINGS… (#1)
REVIEW Intro in Part 1
3. “I don’t have to be perfect.”
What’s wrong with this statement?
💜 NO – Unfortunately, people in Recovery who say this actually consider it a sign of growth, but is in fact one of those sneaky ways our ‘damage’ keeps us hooked. Why? Because:
It implies we COULD be perfect, we just don’t have to be. NOT true!
No one can be perfect except God. So, what is true & accurate is that “Humans are not perfect, & I am human, so I can’t be perfect!” That’s normal. To think otherwise is arrogant. We can only do the very best of our ability given where we are in our life-progress right now.
It means that “To err is human”, so we must accept the reality of having limitations. This does not minimize our accomplishments or gifts! We can say: ‘There’s nothing wrong with being imperfect, because it’s a universal Truth”
4. “Feelings aren’t facts” is 💜 not about our emotions, as most people assume. The confusion comes from the reality that we use the word ‘feeling’ in 3 completely different ways: As physical sensations, as emotions AND as thoughts. See POST
5. “The way you do one thing is the way you do everything.”
💜 NO – It’s the word “EVERYTHING” that’s the problem. Taken literally, this is a blatant inaccuracy. Always keeping PMES in mind, how we do the various parts of our life depends on many factors.
It will depend on your fundamental personality, such as indicated by their MBTI or EnneaType – whether you’re more left or right-brained, (scientific vs artistic) Introvert vs Extrovert, AND above all what areas of childhood experiences were allowed & praised or ignored & punished.
So, I can be meticulous about how I dress & do my makeup, but sloppy about keeping my house orderly. I can be a brilliant scholar & writer, but neglect my family. I can be very talented & dedicated to my native art form but irresponsible if I have to do office work…. .READ article – a Lesson
▶︎ None of us do everything the same way!
(❤️YES) However, if we take this phrase more psychologically, we can use this woman’s experience to indicate where we’re stuck. Each of us can have the same kind of ‘aha’ connections – between everyday ways of doing (or not doing) things & how they’re a reflection of our fears & resistance to change. Such discoveries help us remove blocks which will improve our life.
6. “If you hate a flaw in someone else it means you have that flaw yourself, otherwise you wouldn’t be upset by it”
💜 NO – the things that bother us the most in the present, that push our buttons or ‘trigger us’ are actually the abusive / neglectful things that were done to us by our family (& other perpetrators) over & over throughout our childhood.
They are wounds we need to clean out, but they are not our character defects.
EXP: I’m almost never late anywhere, but I will definitely be angry at anyone who’s consistently late to dates / appointments, because of all the times as a kid I was left waiting to be picked up by my drunk parent….
❤️ YES – Al-Anon says that when we point a finger at someone else, 3 fingers point back at us. So the statement is true to the degree that our denied ‘character defects’ get projected out onto others, & we don’t like what we see of ourselves in them. These flaws are the 
emotions, beliefs & behaviors (TEAs) we internalized from our family & society, rolled into our Negative Introject’s voice (PP).
BUT that is not who we are. It’s the False Self we developed in reaction to our unhealthy upbringing.
Even so, our True Self sneaks thru in spite of early brainwashing – sometimes indirectly, sometimes obviously.
EXP: a secret interest, types of addictions we chose, our career path, the way we dress, places we love to go….. So the goal is to find out who we really are & live it!
NEXT: Sayings #3
if we dare reach for the sky & actually achieve some success >> at best we assume we’re frauds, & << at worst we find ways to sabotage it
HEAL & GROW for ACoAs 