No. I’m not going to Stockholm. That is way up north in Sweden on the Baltic Sea. I’m going to Malmo. That is right across the channel from Copenhagen, Denmark. I’ll take a train from the airport across a very long bridge to get there.
Denmark is where my mother’s maternal grandfather was born and raised. He became a fisherman on the North Sea, married in Denmark, and followed a brother to America to get as far away from the ocean as he could get – (or so the story goes). I visited Denmark many years ago. It was over Christmas and into New Year and very, very cold. It snowed that year for the first time in a number of years in Denmark and on Jutland where I was staying with a friend and her family in a little town called Glud. I had been in recovery for some time by then and learned how to be in the moment — was conscious of where I was the whole time. So, I had a wonderful time. I learned a lot about my ancestry while I was there and found living relatives (my mother’s second cousins). I even saw the beach where my great-grandfather’s fishing boat was probably anchored and where he took a dingy to go out to it. It was a little village that now is just holiday homes and no one is a year-round resident anymore.
But back to my blog. I am going to Sweden to work – volunteer work, not a vacation at all. And, this blog is not about the trip, not exactly. It is about being in the moment so I can remember where I was and what was happening. It is about what I will not do when I am there. I will not project and expect to know what will happen at the strategic planning meetings, conference, and convention I will be participating in and attending. I will not have preconceived notions about what to expect. I will just be there and do what I have to do and participate in what I have to and therefore be there the entire time I am there.
You may ask how I could be there and not be there? If I have preconceived ideas of what it will be like there, I will thinking about what should be happening instead of living what is happening. If I am thinking about what I said or didn’t say or what someone else said and I should have said something back, etc. I am not there. If I am thinking about what I will be doing later or not doing or wondering what I am going to be doing the next day or ……. I will not be there. I seldom do that anymore. I am usually present when at all times. I am fretting a bit about the fact that I have to get up in front of a whole room of people and tell them what the committee I chair has accomplished this last year. I know I will forget vital parts of it but I have to remind myself that it is okay. In fact, it is, most of what I wanted to say, I wrote in the report that was printed and is in the Delegates’ binders. So, I just have to remind them that our committee exists and that we need more people on it. The, I have to thank them and go listen to someone else and not think about what I said or did not say.
That brings me to what my blog is really about. It is about my thoughts on the idea of criticism, self-criticism, and constructive criticism. This morning, during my morning writing, I began thinking about that subject and then judgement came into my mind. What brought this up this morning was that I was reading from a book on self parenting was a list of exercises to do for my recovery. One thing on the list was a suggestion to jot down notes about times during the week when I had been criticized. I was then to share about how I felt about it at a meetings, and then decide whether or not I could use any of the criticism to improve myself. I realized that I will not stand for anyone trying to do that to me (or for me). When the situation arises where I can stop the person, I do. If not, I do not fret or dwell on it. I note it and tell myself it is none of my business what they think of me. I then, avoid that person if possible, or let my limits be known.
It is none of my business what anyone thinks of me is something I heard in my recovery program many years ago and it works for me. Criticism, wrapped up any way you want to do it, is judgement. I do not give it any weight. In my mind, people who criticize people are trying to shame them. I do not care how they try to cloak it. It is not a positive thing. So, why would I want to look at something someone who is trying to shame me and consider it has any value in my life whatsoever? I won’t. I’ve heard from seemingly healthy people that constructive criticism helps a person improve. How can the opinion of a sick person who wants to shame others make me a better person? Their criticism is their judgement of what they think I should be doing or how I should be thinking ad nausium.
As for self criticism, I used to be very good at it. I criticized myself and judged what I did because I wanted to be perfect. I no longer strive for perfection, nor do I allow myself to criticize me either. If I catch myself doing it, I apologize to my Inner Child to make amends and then find a way to praise myself, promise to do better next time, and work to change. Then, I write about what I was criticizing about myself. I look back at my life and especially my childhood to find out where I learned to do it — to find the root of my self-criticism. That will then be my recovery work until I dig it out. I use the root metaphor to remind me of weeds and the knowledge that in nature, if you pull a weed out by the root and throw it in the garbage, the weed cannot grow back. If you leave any part of the root, it does grow back.
That is true with issues that I ignore or talk about superficially and then put aside. They always pop their ugly little heads back up. So I have to sometimes have to talk about it and dig up my past until I find that ugly little root and take it out in the air and then “let it go” into the garbage where it belongs.
Carole's Morning Writing 