Oh, Lighten Up!

“If your talk has been sane, quiet and full of human understanding, you have perhaps made a friend.” (Chapter Seven, Big Book)

“It does not lighten our burden when we recklessly make the crosses of others heavier.” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

Sometimes I can use the programme to stop working the programme. What’s an example?

Noting that others are either pissed off with me or are avoiding me, I will try to fix it using the programme. How?

  • Over-apologising
  • Using the opportunity to disclose my inner world (guilt, shame, self-hatred)
  • Actively seeking exoneration or forgiveness from others
  • Asking whether this has ‘solved the problem’
  • All of this accompanied by emotional writhing and a pitiful desire for approval

I thought this created intimacy, whereas it actually created alienation and pushed people away.

[NB this is sometimes called people pleasing, but my interest was not pleasing people but acquiring a pat on the head like a spaniel. The spaniel cannot conceive of the human’s internal world. Nor could I.]

Instead, I now apologise where necessary and then leave people to come round of their own accord, or not.