Blog entry for:

or being a pleasing person?
before i dive into what i heard this morning, i need to clear something up. last night i shared about becoming detached as part of my spiritual journey in this set of steps. when i speak of becoming detached, what i am talking about is detached from my judgements about others, myself, my feelings, what i share, my character defects and my shortcomings. part of becoming righted-sized, for me is learning how to make a judgement, evaluate it and decide whether or not i NEED to act on it. the result in my personal relationships, is that i am a better friend, better peer and certainly a better loved one, as i learn to put less stock in what i think, read judgements, and more stock in what i feel, my true will.
when i worked so hard to be a recovery rock star,. and was more than a bit successful at doing so, there was more than a small element of people-pleasing in that path. my efforts did not destroy the fellowship and may have actually helped it grow, but my motives at that time were far from pure or rooted in selfless service. it was all about me, and people-pleasing, although i would have loath to call it that, was part of my repertoire of behaviors, and one that i was quite familiar with, as i had honed it into a very sharp and incisive weapon, during my active addiction. believing i have something to offer and working with others through consensus and compromise is NOT the same thing as getting others to do what i want, by manipulating through what appears to be spiritual behavior. sure i want to be thought well of, and doing good things fosters that opinion in others. mi would be lying if i said i did not like to have my efforts noticed. what has changed, as my sponse has convinced me to change how i serve, is that these days, most of the time, i do not share about how i serve, i just serve, and when someone notices, it is almost embarrassing to me. from rock star to invisible servant, quite a journey and maybe now that i have tasted the extreme manifestation, i can swing back to somewhere in the middle.
i can see a bit of the people-pleasing behavior in that as well, for me. hiding under the cloak of humbly serving, i can pump up my ego and believe how much better i am than my peers, because they do not realize how much i do, do. the path to proper service, at least for me, is nearly the same, i serve because it is right thing to do. whether or not anyone sees and acknowledges that service is not relevant, i feel good because i serve, not because i get praise or an increase of stature, you know ”some are more equal than others.”
it is more than a bit ironic that what i thought was way off-topic, seems to become spot on. life is like that for me lately, as i feel like a puppet for the annual cycle of the daily readings.what i am starting to do, is get a sense of who i am and it is about fVcking time, after all the days in a row that i have been doing this gig. this is part of my journey to salvation, part saint and part sinner, but less and less using my judgements about what i am doing to affect how i see who i am, and as that process continues, thanks to another day clean, i people-please, less and less and just do the next right thing, for the right reason, regardless of how impure my motives may be.

∞ DT ∞