Radical Acceptance Hurts

[bloodsong1]

Hurts like hell and you can shut up now, Goblin King.


My hospital is promoting better communication by teaching Language of Caring. This is a good idea and I approve, especially since thoughtful listening and caring responses are things I need help with.

This week is the first of many modules. She Who Does Not Like Me is facilitating.

I am afraid I will be embarrassed if she uses my mistakes as learning examples. I am afraid to talk to her about anything except "How to do..." Since she specifically told me "we will never be friends and I will not talk to you." She also said "don't take it personally, I don't talk to a lot of people." I'm still having trouble with that.

Tonight after my shower I stood in the bathroom and named the feelings that welled up when I thought about approaching her. There's a lot and few are "positive". Fears, mostly, of rejection, of embarrassment, of dismissal, of scorn. I don't want to give her the satisfaction of seeing me cry, which I will do if I try to talk to her about how I feel. So I give her big cheerful smiles and ask simple work related questions and that's the extent of our communication.

The other thing I realized is that I'm great at showing and giving compassion to others, but hardly ever to myself. It's my fault, it's my mistakes, she has every right to call herself the head of our team and She Who Tolerates Me the heart and leave me out entirely. I decided I will be the pituitary gland, quietly getting the job done. The supervisor can be the respiratory system.

Anyway! The point is I am working on giving myself compassion for feeling this way. The story isn't all about me and my cockups. She has her share too. I have tried, more than once but possibly not as hard as I could have, to make amends and start over. She has refused. That is not my damage, I have plenty of my own to work on.

So I'll keep acknowledging the fears and the pains and eventually I will reach a point where when these feelings rise up, I will surround them with compassion and they will no longer hurt.

I give it about ten years

Comments

[sheherazahde.livejournal.com]

Dealing with people who do not like you is hard.

{{{HUG}}}

I love you.

[bloodsong1.livejournal.com]

I love you too. *HUGS*

[craig139.livejournal.com]

What Zahde said!

[kenshardik]

For most of my life my default position has been, "What have I done wrong and what can I do to make sure this person doesn't abandon me?" I have had to learn (and re-learn and re-learn) that I am not only allowed to say "No" to friends and still have them as friends, but that not everything that goes wrong is my fault. I am fairly certain that "It's something I did" is still my default "setting" but I am getting better at revising my initial position. As you noted, it takes time and practice. Just knowing what your "default setting" is can be a blessing.