Our anxiety about clarifying what we think and how we feel may be greatest in our most important relationships.
~ Harriet Lerner
We want love and acceptance from everybody, especially our most intimate friends. Because we fear their judgment—or even worse, their rejection—we pale at the thought of letting them know who we really are, what we really think, how we really feel.
Yet when we don’t let the important people in our lives know us fully, we never feel secure. We live in fear that they will leave us. Acknowledging that our happiness is this tentative can help us take the plunge into real honesty with others. What have we got to lose?
We couldn’t have taken this risk of honesty before coming to this program of recovery. But here we have role models to look to, sponsors to talk to, and a Higher Power to pray to. We will be able to do what we couldn’t do before, and our relationships will reflect it.
I can risk letting my friends see the real me today. My honesty, shared lovingly, won’t send them away.
© 1994 by Hazelden Foundation
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