Tup...
What you said about making this year all about you, strikes me as the best antidote to the residual toxins you're dealing with. It also vaccinates you against "future situations"... where you might unwittingly fall into the same old patterns. If you can push on and do this (don't worry about "acing" it... just do what you can)... I think you'll notice that overall you start to feel better, won't be stressed... or as susceptible to being pushed into a stress response... by normal life stuff.
It doesn't "feel right" initially, to put yourself first. And whatever the change you've selected to work on... the "path of least resistance" is to always fall back into the same old rutted neuro-paths. Of course, the reflex when one falls back... is to replicate the old abuse - the mental tapes, the feelings, etc... the "never good enough" scenario, which in turn kicks in the old stuff, which in turn starts generating those mental toxins, that turn into emotion poison, and then start affecting (some) of us physically.
When you continually, persistently, bring it all back around to you... and what you want (goals)... the first real changes are miniscule and subtle. It helps me not get discouraged and give up, if I simply focus on what I did accomplish (and ignore - for now, in that first phase) - what I didn't. I don't know about you, but I tend to "teeter-totter" a lot in this part of doing something new or making a change. Like a yo-yo dieter I'm really good about giving myself permission to return to the "old way" that I wanted to change... as if it were a reward (like my goal) simply because I associate "feeling safe" or "feeling good" with it.
Yeah, I know that's all tangled up. The goal can be the reward... all by itself... but my inner, conditioned emotional self is still convinced of the magic powers of the old pattern. There's probably a real neuro-response underneath what we experience... like a dopamine release or something... so that explains why it's so hard to change things like this about ourselves.
Trying to change one's Pavlovian response to others in need... when part of one's FOO role was caretaker... means having to work through stereotypes that WE hold about what's selfish or not, about what constitutes an ability/inability (whether it be time, money or relationship) to help, and sorting through and maybe even re-organizing our own beliefs about responsibility... what each person does for themselves and is expected to do for themselves. Yeah, this also gets into the muck of guilt, obligation, etc again... but at a completely different place and context than what one goes through initially... sorting out FOO-stuff.
Trying to change those kinds of programmed responses, also has the risk that we'll wake up our own inner critic... that collection of thoughts and emotions that make us feel lower than worms. Part of the real change -- is to be able to see it coming up to start the old tirades again -- telling it to stuff it -- and moving along without a second thought, twinge of guilt or fear of regret.
All those little baby-steps you make in trying to change... may not completely erase the old neural pathways; it might still be there later on. But you'll be in control of choosing to accept it... or say: HEY WAIT A MINUTE... I don't know that I want to do this!
And that's a good thing. Hang in there!! I think you're "getting it" just fine.
Amber
