Posted by 64bowtie on September 19, 2008, at 4:39:21
In reply to Feeling out of place again in church, posted by Dinah on September 16, 2008, at 8:49:48
>>> I am so afraid of socializing, and so aware of my unattractiveness on so many levels in a social setting...
(((Dinah))),
I accept and acknowledge your feelings whatever they might be, and w/out reservation...
That said, I puzzle at how to encourage you to acknowledge and appreciate your self-acceptance and self-worth... These are the building blocks of self-respect... W/out self-respect, self-esteem gets no traction, no grip, no impact on life...
I also puzzle at how I enjoy you being on the planet, now in my time, when, as a matter of course, I avoid folks who assess themselves as you have in the above paragraph as being toooo much trouble... So, either I missed the truth about you because I am blind/deaf/dumb/ugly, or you are mistaken... Good news for you, I'm none of those, so you've been listening to the wrong crowd...
Steve Martin once pointed out that its unattractive to eat your lunch through the tablecloth... But even that isn't who you are... That is something you did (or do), not a statement of who you are... "Concept of Self" is about who you are, not about how you act and what you do...
Parents mistakenly cross that line all the time and the kids all toooo often waste a good part of their lives believing the parental injunctions as fact... Parents were injuncted as children to coerce them into action, so they see no problem with such behavior continuing on to their own children... We all suffer when we are mistakenly measured for our worth by our actions, at the hands of someone holding on to the childhood myth, "We are what we do (did)"...
So, you remain attractive to me because of who you are, not what you do or how you feel about mistakes you may have made... You are never lieing to me to leave such things out of our conversations... I seek out who you are, not to be measured by what you do...
I do enjoy you...
Rod
poster:64bowtie
thread:852253
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faith/20080809/msgs/852830.html