Demanding Too Much- "Meditations For People Who Do Too Much"

Sometimes we sense ourselves disappearing. We're consumed by demands of job, tasks of household, needs of the family, and expectations of others--rendering us believing we're useless in our very own lives. This emotional overload can rob us of the understanding that we, not others, actually decide our course. Today, we can look at the possibility that self-battering is an arrogant and self-centered activity that is not useful to us or anyone else.

Transcript

Meditations for people who do too much.

Demanding too much of oneself.

I believe that IQs change,

And mine dropped considerably.

I'm no longer very competent in any area.

My children all turned out well,

Not due to me,

But rather to a strict father who allowed no nonsense.

From Anonymous.

What has happened to this person?

Where did they go?

As we hear what they say about themselves,

We have the feeling that they are disappearing before our very eyes.

Many of us have had the experience of being devoured by our families,

Our houses,

Our jobs,

And our lives.

I once knew a person who used to keep looking back for footprints on the sidewalk because they had the strange feeling that their soul was seeping out through the soles of their feet,

And they would see the evidence on the sidewalk.

I can remember feeling as if I did not exist as a separate person when I used to work at the kitchen counter and my children would stand on my feet to make themselves just a little higher.

I also felt myself disappearing when,

As toddlers,

They wanted to get from one end of the couch to the other and they just walked over me,

As if I weren't there.

Life can,

At times,

Invite us to disappear.

We feel ourselves disappearing.

Yet how arrogant it is for the person quoted above to accept that her child turned out well and to believe that they had nothing to do with it.

What a dedication to self-abignation.

Today,

I will be willing to look at the possibility that my self-battering is an arrogant and self-centered activity that is not useful to me or anyone else.