I'll be honest - I had never heard of Whitney Cummings before my husband forwarded me this podcast but I'm sure I'll see her everywhere now (isn't it weird how that happens?). So no matter if you like her work or not, this is worth a listen.
Almost two years ago, I wrote a blog explaining how my problems aren't "real" problems. It started like this:
Sometimes I feel like an addict but instead of alcohol or substances, I’m addicted to exceeding expectations and external validation. However, there’s no 12-step program to take your life from people-pleasing super productive to true-self pleasing f*ck what everyone thinks. And that’s where the problem lies because for years I’ve been thinking my problems aren’t real problems.
But from this podcast, I discovered that there IS a 12-step program for people-pleasers! It's a support group for codependence that she's involved with. Who knew?
I need to warn you that this is a long podcast - it took me several days to finish it - but they cover a lot and really shifted my perspective on the definition of addiction and how it's not necessarily bad and how it could really be our super power. Another revelation was that you can be confident but have low self-esteem (and how confusing that is). And another great take-away for me was the reminder of the power of forgiveness.
This was a great reminder that we're always working on ourselves and moving forward in our own way, with our own tools, and with a bit of humor.
With love,
Ming-Wai
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