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Stop Building Pedestals

Stormyblue
Stormyblue

Hello, Friends, I am realizing that I have a lifelong pattern of seeing the highest potential in people, and regarding them as if it were a reality. Then I build a pedestal and put them up on it, honoring them and encouraging them- perhaps even adoring them. I did that with my husband and my children, and I do it with my closest friends. Need I say that the fall from the pedestal is long and hard?


It is no one's fault but my own when people don't live up to my lofty expectations! What needs to change is not the way people are- but the way I look at people. It is unrealistic. Too idealistic. And it leads to my disappointment and suffering.


I am passionate person by nature, so to head in a different direction will require a serious effort. I am not suggesting that I switch to thinking the worst of people to protect myself from hurt- I'm not even capapble of that negativity. But I need to become more emotionally self-contained, more observant, and stop projecting my desires of how I want people to be onto who they are.


Any thoughts?

patti22
patti22
#MeToo
MillaSofia
MillaSofia
Good self knowledge. My sister put my Mom on a pedestal and when mom grew ill, on her way to death, she fell off the pedestal my sister treated her very badly. It was confusing to us. She didn't know this about herself. You do.
Community Leaderbobinmaine
bobinmaine
There is nothing wrong with seeing the good in others and in seeing potential in others as long as we see the same things in ourselves. Underneath this suit we walk around in called the human body, we are all the same.


God Bless
patti22
patti22
Actually Bob, that's where I tripped up.

I tried to live up to a version that was TOO idealistic, and that I could never reach.

Thus...I was worthless. A failure.

It took a long time for me to find balance. To get there, I had to pretty much ditch everything that society had told me that I had to be.
SimpsonsOK
SimpsonsOK
Stormy, Ernst Kurtz wrote a wonderful book called The Spirituality of Imperfection. As Patti said so well, it is about finding the balance. When we accept people as they are, while admiring the best in them, we find the balance. Expectations are the source of disappointments, and occur in direct proportion. You will succeed in reaching the balance. Hugs.
Stormyblue
Stormyblue
Thank you all for your words of wisdom. I like that: The Spirituality of Imperfection. Have to check it out! Another that I love: "The Wisdom of Insecurity" by my Zen mentor, Alan Watts.
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