Empower yourself by going towards what scares you. Take it to the table and be with it. Get to know it and openly share company with it.
Opal was throwing up. She threw up more when she gained weight or felt fat. Throwing up didn’t help her lose weight. It was just a tool she had to deal with it all. Opal was told often not to worry about her weight. Told, she looked fine and not to weigh herself. No one said openly, “Opal, you’ve gained weight and you’re going to get other illnesses because of it if it keeps going.” They were afraid saying anything like that would make her throw up. Hm.
What do you say?
We remember the three things that help maintain long-term weight loss. Well one of the main reasons they work is because they help keep us present with “the problem” or “fear” or “shame” or however we name it. Our natural instinct is to go away from fear but this is another example of when we don’t get help following our instincts.
What empowers Opal is to get tools to contend with her struggle with obesity. It is probably a life-er for her and oh-well! We can love our flaws better if we stop running from them and grow our skills in living with them in a friendly way.
Get empowered with whatever you are afraid of in yourself. If you can’t do what you need to do to be in the place of that fear, it may be that you have a medical illness keeping you from coping better. It doesn’t mean you’ve failed. Staying with your journey, even to taking medication, even to naming brain illness in your life is so courageous. You become one of the great ones. Heroic. It is so much easier to disconnect and lose our opportunity to love our flaws.
Have you ever heard someone call their life-er, “my old friend?” Maybe it is arthritis? Or recurring cancer? Maybe it is brain disease. Some day, we will also name our own, “my old friend.” And we, with Opal, will mean it.
Self-Care Tip – Empower yourself by your presence.
Questions: How do you do what is friendly to yourself when your instincts tell you not to? What has that done for you? Please tell us your story.
Related articles
- Is There a Link Between Sleep and Weight? (thelifestylechanger.wordpress.com)
- Taking Care of Our Own Emotional Junk Empowers us Not to Take Care of Theirs (friendtoyourself.com)
- Other Fears of Medication For Brain Illness (friendtoyourself.com)
Alternatively ‘my old enemy’, Doc?
s’pose. if we were to say so, we could word it “Cindy’s old enemy frightens her by it’s power. Her instincts tell her to stay away from dealing with the fear. Her courage keeps her present with it. Staying present with herself, even her old enemy, has done for her…”
i got carried away w words. 🙂
I am terrified of making the wrong choices. It scares the crap out of me that I have to be so responsible in my life & other places that rely on me like work. I am afraid if I step up, I will only let people down. That leaves me indecisive as h e double hockey sticks! I am completely traumatized by the unknown, so I run away from a lot. I like routines because the routine tells me what to do, it’s automatic and feels safe.
Over the past two days, I have made decisions in taking the steps to get the help I need again. It’s going to cause problems, & I will have to stand up for the choices/decisions I have made. I keep telling everyone I don’t know what to do, now I think I do & I am ready to take the heat if anyone disagrees with me. Now, I am pretty sure that’s all I can do.
hoorah! lola, u matter and we r cheering for u. up or down, this way that way, inside outside, hot cold and all that space in-between. u r valuable and worth every effort u put into yourself. keep us posted.
We should find ways to comfort ourselves with our flaws? That doesn’t seem honest. If there are lifers I suppose we must cope. They are conditions over which we have no choice. But we can work on character defects as part of self improvement.
i hear your point and i’m sure it is just the way i worded this that is getting to u. i suppose another d we will resonate :). to say it how my dad would, “u can lead a horse to water by dragging and beating him or use can lead him gently. either way he will drink.” i think that’s what our choice is like when we think of our life-ers. thanks for your honest self carl. keep talking. u make me better.
When I hear voices I called them “my cheerleaders” even though they are doing the opposite. It is just because they are always present, together, messing with me. It puts a little humor into the tragedy of itself.
that rocks LV
I love this, Doc. Much to think about.
Kate, i’m learning from your comments that u hv a way of communicating a sense of knowing. that u know what i’m trying for and u nudge w a few words the direction u’s like to go. awesome. thank u.
we have to make friends with our grievances, our lifers. It gives us peace of mind and helps us grow. We need to forgive our grievances or our lifers. Forgiveness leads to love. Then we will love ourselves.
Thank you for this post.
so good. thank u. these comments always complete the post. all d i felt this was the missing part but just realized it. smile.
I have found that working on things to make myself better, and condemning myself because of them can have two very different results. I think it is important to realize your flaws, what you want to change and than take positive steps to change them. I also think that condemning yourself instead of using flaws as stepping stones is very self destructive and will not help you to change anything. As a matter of fact, condemnation only makes it worse. I learned a great lesson one time to put things in perspective. Everytime I said or thought something negative about myself, I had to immediately say three things about myself that I liked! This required effort on my part. The reward was in seeing and recognizing that I was not a failure just because I had faults. Sometimes, we focus so much on the things we do wrong, that we forget how very many things we do exactly right.