If you don’t have your own back, who will?

“The term good enough comes from the psychological concept of “the Good Enough mother,” which was coined by Dr. Donald Winnicott, an English pediatrician and psychoanalyst. This concept proposes that the role of a parent is to provide their child With a background environment that allows the child to develop the ability to tolerate their own distress…
Coming from Good Enough means that you acknowledge your humanity and give yourself the generosity that you would extend to others. You trust that the people you care about can tolerate small discomforts and mistakes.
Here’s what coming from Good Enough means to me:
-I am okay with making mistakes. (I don’t need to listen to the cruel voice in my head.)
-I am not defined by being selfish or selfless. (I am allowed to consider myself along with those who I care about when I make decisions.)
-I can extend the compassion I give to others to myself. (I believe that we all deserve compassion, myself included.)
As you practice Good Enough ask yourself:
-How does my fear of being selfish prevent me from accessing
Good Enough?
-What are the costs (physical, emotional, spiritual) of being selfless?
-In which areas of my life do I feel most convinced of being Good Enough?
-Can I bring the conviction that I am Good Enough to other areas of my life, in which I am less certain of my inherent Good Enough quality?
You are the only one who can give yourself the permission of starting from Good Enough. Be careful about getting caught up in wishful thinking that other people in your life will gift you this skill; self-compassion cannot be air-dropped–you have to build it yourself. By cultivating a mindset of Good Enough, you will naturally bring more compassion into your internal narrative.”
Selected parts from Real Self-Care by Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, pages 140-142

I shared this quote with several spaces in the sober community this week. This excerpt resonated with me because I had to apply a boundary in my personal life, and as the author states, even though I’m not a mother, and the person I was setting a limit with is not a child, I had to believe in this person’s ability to handle the distress from the disappointment as a result of the boundary. I had to trust the process because in trusting the process of setting a boundary, I’m inherently trusting myself to make the right decisions to protect my mental health and sobriety.

Hard decisions lead to the results we seek in our recovery, and we aren’t getting there by people-pleasing. Saying no to someone you love now is better than becoming resentful over a yes that should have been a no.

If you have a boundary that you need to set with someone and the idea makes you want to go throw up, consider this:

Trust that the disappointment they will feel will not kill them. Yes, we, as lovely humans, don’t handle negative emotions well. However, they are a part of the human experience, and in the same way that we allow kids to be disappointed by telling them “no,” and time and time again, they move on, so will the adults in our lives who we say no to.
Ask yourself: What do you stand to lose by saying yes to something you don’t want to do? If you are a person in recovery, this is a critical question to ask yourself. Is it worth risking a slip?
Remind yourself that if you don’t have your own back, who will? As much as others love us, our responsibility to protect and nurture ourselves ultimately falls back on us.

Published by Jessica Dueñas