Help After Operation pt. 2

Hiya! I just wanted to follow up on this. Sorry it’s tell me a while.

Firstly to say, thanks so much for your well wishes, I am feeling much better now. Still in recovery and wobbly and slow, but in less immediate discomfort, and the catheter is out, thank God!

Your answer was so helpful. Saying “what if you didn’t need to be good at asking for help” was so liberating for me!! I realised I was holding back because I thought I would do it wrong, upset him, or make things worse! So I felt able to say something. We had a great chat, he was able to hear what I said without getting defensive (which is a tendency of his) or hurt (I hope), and instead we just talked about the last few days and how it had been. In fact, what I said was that I felt like I needed more love and connection from him. Since then, things have been better and he’s been more open and it’s felt more like we’re working together again. The situation with his mum has been really hard throughout though, and I am worried about him. But we’ve been trying to get him therapy, and hopefully will manage that soon. So really, I just wanted to report back and thank you. I thought I would end with a model, as putting other people’s needs before my own tends to be a model I get stuck in.

C: my needs
T: what if I don’t have to ask perfectly?
F: liberated
A: I am able to ask for help
A: I feel freer to examine what it is I do need without “general” worries of not being good enough for other people to crowd out my actual needs
R: I am meeting my needs

What do you think? I know I still need to do a lot of work on my self esteem. Is that another AAC or something we can talk about here? Thank you!

 

 

Answer:

How wonderful. We’re glad recovery is going well. Congratulations on communicating with your partner, don’t forget to celebrate you for doing the work to make these conversations happen in a confident way.

Whenever you have a question in the thought line, answer it. Find those thoughts that make you feel liberated and keep them in your pocket. Write them on Post-it notes and put them where you can see them. Add them to your lock screen. When doubts come up, have compassion and continue to remind yourself that you don’t need to be perfect to be worthy and whole.

This is the work for all of us humans, to learn to truly love ourselves as we are. You are on the path my friend.

Yes, please bring any self esteem questions and models here for coaching. It’s another place you can practice letting yourself not be perfect in front of others in a safe, anonymous environment where we all love and support you.