I'm a Parking Ticket

As I have been alluding to, it's been a difficult couple of weeks. I mean good God, the conflict both external and internal has been ridiculous. I've been trying to figure out a few things about myself. Sometimes I feel like a puppy that keeps bumping into the same glass doors because it doesn't know how to walk through the doggy door. I don't feel like I know the location of the doggie door at all most times, figuratively speaking, but I digress.

This week I had a staff retreat and I kept thinking about how I hit the doggie door. The eternal struggle being, how do I get myself to believe that I am fantastic so that I don't "need" other people to think I'm fantastic. Or as Rey used to put it so eloquently in college "I'm a parking ticket! Validate me! Validate me!"

I had two seperate people tell me that they really loved me this weekend. They said it with so much heart and genuineness. They both at separate times, unbeknownst to the other, told me that I had changed their lives. That their interaction with the world was changed by how I helped them grow. How they felt this change with different people and that this would ultimately lead to them being able to connect with the world in a deeper way. They emphatically declared that I was a gift. I sat their fully unable to articulate how I felt. ME. I had no knowledge on how to respond to that. Shamefully, to an extent, I have always hoped that people would look at me the way both of these wonderful people looked at me this weekend. The kind of gratitude they had was so gratifying and overwhelming. It's part of why the rescuer, rescues. Instead I almost felt like I had done something wrong. If they had this much knowledge of the hand I played in their process, then I felt like it must mean that I am a failure. Here they were giving me what is probably the most heartfelt thanks I have ever recieved and I am sitting there feeling guilt and shame.

As I processed the whole shebang and realized how cracked out my instincts were, I really got sick of the base reaction to all of it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an emotional crackwhore over it. I just want to feel proud of myself without the want for other people to feel proud of me. I want to feel beautiful without someone else telling me that I am. I don't want to have to wait until someone notices me and my gifts before I feel gifted. I know this all comes in time, but what exactly is the process to get there. I'm ready. I'll do it.

Does anyone ever really get there? I mean do I have this ideal in my head of a reality that doesn't exist? It just seems other people around me don't find the need to hear it as much as I do. I mean I also feel totally socially akward, now that I have verbalized it, I realize people don't agree with me. Crazy what your brain perceives that other people don't see. Oh the ruminations and how draining they can be.

I am energized however, the weekend went well, my staff got what it needed and the time spent was useful. I'm grateful to J for providing the experience. It's amazing to watch how good your friends can be at what they do. It made me feel blessed to have the people in my life that I do.