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Why Your Own Opinion of Yourself Matters and How To Improve It
This is, by far, the most important thing that enabled me to go from having no boundaries for 50-something years to building healthy boundaries:
I came to care more about what *I* think of me than what other people think of me.
That doesn’t mean I don’t care at all what others think of me. Of course, I want others’ approval. I just make sure I have my own approval first!
Here’s what I mean by that. I used to be so focused on others’ opinions of me, that I didn’t really give much thought to my opinion of myself. I threw my integrity out the window by saying yes to things I didn’t want to do because I cared so much about what other people thought of me. That’s called being dishonest. I didn’t understand that at the time, however. I see now that I wanted people’s approval and I didn’t want them to think I was a bad person. To me, that meant someone who says “no” or is unhelpful. What I thought at the time was that I was “nice” and that’s why I was so helpful all the time.
Recovery got me to see that my helpfulness was more about appearing helpful than about actually being helpful. It’s not that I didn’t want to be helpful, it’s just that when I really examined my motives, it was the perception of being helpful that was more important.
