Recovery Meditations: August 6th

SELF-ESTEEM

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

Eleanor Roosevelt


I always used to feel “less than” everyone else, so I’d eat and feel even worse.

Without true love for myself I was dead in the water. I would compare the facts I knew about myself against the impression I had of you. I never seemed to measure up. Without self-love, I was unable to ask for, expect or accept love from others.

When I love myself and treat myself lovingly, it doesn’t matter what others think of me; what matters is that I do not think less of myself.

One day at a time ...
I ask my Higher Power to show me little ways
to act lovingly toward myself and to know deep within
that I am worthy of being loved by others.

~ Melissa S.

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"Don't Compare Your Insides to Somebody Else's Outsides."

~AA

 

When I began my journey, I wasn't sure how to love myself.  I wasn't sure how to stop comparing my insides to someone else's outsides. I knew I was a pretty good person, I just didn't like myself very much.  When everything was quiet & I was alone, I doubted my worth as a human being. I'd proven to myself, over & over again, that I was incapable of real change, so why should I try again to reel my addictive behavior back in? 

 

But I had proven to myself that I could make some important changes in my life. I divorced a husband, giving up financial security for personal joy. I went back into the workforce, after a 22 year hiatus, and I was managing on my own quite well. I wasn't making any real money, but I was finally free & happy.

 

I'd found my birth family, after 45 years of wondering who I was & where I came from. I found 6 half-siblings that welcomed me with open arms, and loved me as if I were someone special. Me! Someone special! What a novel thought!

But I was still overeating & drinking to excess. I was still holding onto crutches that I'd needed in the past, just to survive.  My obesity AND my alcoholism did serve a useful purpose, but now that I'd made changes, those addictions were no longer serving me.  Yet I didn't think I could give them up.

 

I knew it was time to start loving myself & treating myself accordingly. And so I did. I stopped overeating & I stopped drinking, 4+ years ago, and that is how I ultimately started learning to love myself. By practicing good behaviors.

I am worth all the trouble. I am worthy of being loved by others, but especially, I am worthy of self-love.  Through abstinence I found myself & the ability to treat myself with self-love & self-respect.

For today, it doesn’t matter what others think of me; what matters is that I do not think less of myself.