Progress Not Perfection II

The blog comments are emailed to me and I usually read through them at the end of the day. YOU GUYS ARE BLOWING ME AWAY WITH SUCH GREAT WORK YOU ARE DOING!!!

I’ve been reading a lot of GOOD WORK in the Check In Threads and other posts. I’m also hearing a bit of self-doubt or feeling down about a few slip ups emotionally (having a down day). So I want to remind everyone to give yourself credit for the hard work and keep on keeping on. I posted this last year and wanted to post it again. BE GOOD TO YOU!!!

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Then, without realizing it, you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time. Anyone can do this, it costs nothing and is certainly very helpful. Whoever doesn’t know it must learn and find by experience that a quiet conscience makes one strong. ~ Anne Frank

When I first started to look at my past and how screwed up everything had been and how it had affected me and led me to these horrific relationships with horrible people, it seemed HUGE and OVERWHELMING.

June Seminar

Someone who is registered asked about information in one of the comments…it is coming.

Because this is the only 6-hour seminar this year I’ve kept the registration open a bit longer. When I’m ready to close registration (probably in the next week), I will send out information re lunch, facilities, parking etc. If anyone needs hotel information see the tab above or send me an email. If you’re thinking of registering–HURRY!!!

TFTD 5/07/08 ~ Choosing To Change

I wrote this post about 15 months ago but as I was doing some self-analysis yesterday it occurred to me that a couple of things I was doing needed to change. At first I did the old browbeating myself about it and then switched to “self-inventory” mode which is: figure out what needs to change and change it WITHOUT self-judgment.

Figuring out what needs to change in you in a non-judgmental way is what I call being “self-analytical instead of self-critical.” Even after 22 years of doing this stuff I have to remind myself to do “change” in a certain way: recognize (without judgment) that something needs to change, choosing to change it and then setting up a plan to change it. I was looking through the blog because I thought I had blogged about this once upon a time and here it is. So I’m rerunning it. Enjoy!

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It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. - Alan Cohen

Choosing to change is choosing to take your own life into your own hands. It is acting rather than being acted upon. It is deciding instead of having decisions thrust upon you. It is being responsible for instead of being blamed for.

It is becoming self-analytical instead of self-critical.

Check in Thread 5/4 II

Hi Everyone: I’m changing this “while I was away” post to Check-in Thread 5/4 II since the other one is getting really long…feel free to continue on this one.

Email Exchange

I received an email from a reader who said she would like to exchange email with some others on the blog. If you want to do that, ask the other person in a post and if you don’t want to put your mutual emails on the blog, send the email addresses to me and I will forward them to each of you.

Check In Thread 5/4

This week’s check in thread. How is everyone doing????? Feel free to respond to, continue, last week’s thread on here.

Being Good to Yourself

‘Nese asked about being good to yourself and what that entails so here it is. Most of this is elsewhere on the blog and also some of this is from some of the seminar materials, but I thought I’d repost it here.

Addicted to Drama (Soundtrack Included) II

I’m rerunning the “Addicted to Drama” post since it’s come up in some of the recent comments.

Mail. We Get Mail on Being Replaced

Whenever you hear yourself say “It’s not about this…” Chances are: Yes it is. That’s exactly what it’s about. Happy Friday everyone!

Share Your D-BOM Moments

I talked about realizing that IT WASN’T ME in this post —> Blame

Life’s Lessons from the Dalai Lama

Someone sent me these tips for living from the Dalai Lama. I’m amazed at how many comport with GPYP philosophies. Good stuff!!!

On Growing Your Own Garden

I wrote this over a year ago and today I was looking at garden books and it reminded me of it. It’s important to grow your own personal transformation and decide how that is going to go and how you’re going to bloom.

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Love the moment. Flowers grow out of dark moments. Therefore, each moment is vital. It affects the whole. Life is a succession of such moments and to live each, is to succeed. - Corita Kent

I recently bought a house and can see that along the driveway are perennial gardens. I wonder what lies beneath the soil that will bloom in the spring and summer. I can’t wait to see and to fill in the beds with my own selections. I love designing a garden. When I first started gardening I would spend all winter with my

Guest Blogger: How Far I’ve Come

I think this is a positive “how far I’ve come” post that I really liked when I first read it. Welcome GPYP’s first guest blogger: Jenny. Many of you know her from her and from the email group. WTG Jenny!!!

Gratitude Journaling

As our erstwhile readers mentioned on the Check In thread, gratitude journaling is a great idea.

Check-in Thread 4/27

A lot of readers are doing “check ins” in various threads so I thought I would start a new thread every Sunday for everyone to check in and say hi, report progress, ask questions, send shout outs etc. Feel free to use this thread throughout the week for conversations and checkins. No subject except how’re YOU doing?

Mail. We Get Mail. When They Just Up and Leave

Dear Susan,

My fiance recently left me to return to his home country. We met last year and we tried moving to his home country and that did not work out so we moved to mine.

After a 2.5 year relationship, he woke up one day and told me that he was going home to be with his mother. He felt that she was sick and was hiding it from him and he couldn’t leave her to die alone. That is a reasonable excuse to move countries…again…but then why not discuss it with me? The very morning he told me, within an hour, his stuff had been packed and the shipping company had arrived to pick it up. He had arranged everything and all the while carrying on as normal, pretending that everything was OK.

Taking Back Your Power

People who thought they knew best drove me crazy when I was trying to be a victimized know nothing powerless whiny whining pants. They kept making it sound like I had some CONTROL over what happened to me. How annoying.

Front Page

One of our email members wrote a really profound post in the group today about her journey and taking a step back and looking at some of her old emails with her and the ex and what she saw (in herself) then (when they were first breaking up) as opposed to now. I thought it was a great post and it gave me an idea.

I’d love to have people write to me about their process and how they’re coming out on the other side of it and I will front page it here on the blog with or without credit (your choice). It doesn’t have to be your whole process but can be or parts of it that you’d like to share. How you know you’ve made progress and what that looks like etc etc. So If you would like to be “front paged” just send me a post. I don’t care how long or how short or how practical or ethereal and I will put them on the blog with their own headings.

There are many of you who have been here a long time and have much to share. And I think we’d all love to hear it!!!

Grief Work / Therapy

Included here are links to grief posts and the Relationship Inventory post.

“I Matter” II

Hi everyone: I’m still very much under the weather but thank you for your thoughts. I really appreciate it. I’m reposting this for one person who wrote to me. I hope it helps some. Take care all!

To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves–there lies the great, singular power of self-respect. -Joan Didion

In GPYP we talk about “get back where you belong” messages, those messages from ourselves or others that we received while growing up. These messages tell us we’re not good enough or there are x number of things wrong with us. They serve to undermine us in our quest for change.