This Thanksgiving I am grateful for…
Earlier this year, I entered Personal Development School. At the time, I was in a lot of emotional pain, desperately searching for meaning, answers, relief. I entered the school with the desire to get over the heartbreak but what I found was something unexpected. I found myself.
From a young age, I learned that when I conform to the rules and please others, I get them to meet MY needs. It was an unconscious belief that kept getting reinforced by my environment.
Growing up, I’d dutifully tend to my mom’s emotional needs to grant her more capacity to take care of me, her kid (not her fault – she did not know she was parentifying me while suffering from her own untreated attachment and mental traumas, passed on generationally by her post-Halaucost family-survivors.) The attunement to her needs, and the positive reinforcement it provided, gave me a false sense of safety and security. I learned to depend on the happiness of others to feel my own “happy” and to focus my energy on “giving” externally instead of internally because that was the only way I knew how to “survive.”
As an adult, I’d rinse and repeat by entering every friendship and relationship by being “on my best behavior.” It was that same survival mechanism that I developed earlier in life: if I nurture and provide for my humans, they’d nurture, like, and accept ME. I believed that deeply on a very unconscious level.
The change in my conscious awareness happened quite recently. I finally saw the true cost of my insecure attachment patterns: seeking external acceptance and validation entrapped me while providing that to myself was liberational. Accepting, with empathy, the little girl with her learned coping mechanisms and reparenting that child became the first step towards that liberation. Finding and drawing the boundary between where I start and another human begins helps me get in touch with my own needs and stop confusing them with those of others.
And as I am moving through a journey of healing my early childhood attachment trauma, I realize that I’d rather feel the guilt of not being liked by others than abandon my own self. I’d rather deal with conflict on-going, in microdoses, than maintain a false sense of peace, eventually building up resentment for not being seen. That I’d rather show up authentically and not be liked than be validated for being the best “narrative” of myself.
This Thanksgiving I am grateful for … finding myself. And the person that I found is not perfect. Yet she is beautiful, unique, interesting, smart, kind. Just. The way. She. Is.
Thankful Pizza Crackers
I am not including the exact measurements of the ingredients because this recipe is meant to be more of a guide. Some like more sauce on their “pizzas”, some less. I like a couple of slices of pepperoni on each bite, my kids like just one. Tailor this recipe to your own liking.
- Cappello’s Gluten-Free Lasagna Noodles
- Homemade pizza sauce or premade one
- Turkey or Pork Pepperoni
- Vegan Shredded “Cheese” (or regular if you can do dairy)
- Fresh Basil
- 1 Egg yolk
Directions
- Warm up the oven to 400
- Cut each noodle into 3 parts
- Place a tablespoon (or to taste) of the pizza sauce on each noodle piece and spread it to cover 75% of the area, from the center out
- Layer a piece (or more) of pepperoni over the sauce
- Shred some basil leaves and lay it over the pizza squares
- Sprinkle the “cheese” (optional, it tastes great with or without the “cheese”)
- Brush the uncovered area of the squares with egg yolk
- Bake until the edges are brown, or for 10 min
Drink Pairing
I tried this Slovanian wine at a natural wine bar in Santa Barbara and it is now my favorite with these crackers.
Good job on finding yourself