Читать книгу Letters from a Better Me - Rachael Wolff - Страница 18

Trapped by attachments to titles…

Dear Self,

I’m failing as a mom. No matter how hard I try, I can’t get my kids to eat their vegetables. I can’t stand all the fighting over the table. I’ve tried serving them in so many different ways and they still won’t eat them. How am I going to make sure they do the right things in life? Other parents are going to look at me and not want to associate with me, the single mom who can’t even feed her kids the right way. My kids are going to be so weak because I’m a failure at being a mom. I’m a horrible mom, and I’m destroying my kids.

A Failing Me

Dear Husband,

I keep trying to be a good wife. I have dinner on the table for you at six—no matter how many things I have to shuffle to do it. I do your laundry and hang up your clothes the way you like them. I sit and listen to you for hours on the porch as you go on and on about your day. I clean the house even though I absolutely hate cleaning the way you like it. I put aside my life for the sake of yours. When will I ever do enough for you to realize how lucky you are to have me?

An Overwhelmed Me

Dear Student and Parents of Students,

When I’m in the classroom, I do my best to get you all the information I’m required to give you. Then I try to make sure I see each of you as individuals. I go home and have stacks of paperwork and calls to make in order to be considered a good teacher. I really want to be considered a good teacher. I’m expected to take my weekends away from my family to serve you. Otherwise, I’m not a good teacher. Am I not supposed to have any life because I want to be a good teacher? I’m miserable in my personal life and my kids are suffering because I don’t have time to be a good mom. Isn’t that just as important as being a teacher? I’m so tired. I’m starting to fail at both. I don’t know what to do. I want to be a good teacher. I want to be a good mother.

A Struggling Me

Attachment to Titles and Words

Thoughts of being unlovable and unworthy can plague us. We start seeking our worth in what we do for others. The cycle of losing our identity in the titles and words begins. Now, it is about being a good daughter, friend, sibling, employee, boss, wife, mother, and spiritual follower. We are lost in a feeling of lack. We don’t think we are worthy of being who we are, so we try to fill ourselves with the titles that make us worthy. We don’t realize that, if we don’t feel worthy just being ourselves, no title will ever make us feel worthy. We will use our failures as a source of more self-abuse. Then we’ll start turning our definitions of the titles onto others, expecting them to live up to our attachments to those titles.

That’s when we start reacting to the words that come with our own personal definitions. Let’s use the word bitch as an example. The definition of bitch is female dog. Some women have embraced the word bitch to mean powerhouse and feel proud to be called one. Other women will take it as an insult. Our attachment to words makes it hard for others to navigate their way through our psyches.

Our attachment to our titles and definitions make us feel like righteous judges against ourselves and others. If you’re letting a child play more than thirty minutes of video games, you’re a bad mother. If you don’t use the word God to describe your Higher Power, you’re a bad person. If you don’t come in early and leave late, you’re a bad boss. We judge ourselves and others on a series of titles. We make ourselves righteous even if we are secretly self-abusing because we don’t feel like we live up to the titles ourselves.

Become aware of your attachment to titles. See how you judge yourself and others based on titles. Christians, Muslims, Jews, man, woman, rich, poor, and on we go. Your relationship with and attachment to these titles could be causing you to manifest a reality you don’t want. If we have a negative attachment to rich people, we will keep ourselves from becoming rich, because we are actually fighting against them in our minds. We will sabotage any money that comes into our lives to keep us at a level in which we feel worthy. It’s not money or rich people that are bad, but our thoughts and feelings about them make them bad for us. We will even attract cruel rich people into our lives to prove our point. We get what we focus on. Be clear on what titles you are attaching to and how. If a title makes someone more or less, there is an underlying fear that needs to be faced.