We can live and suffer or we can die. Those are our options. None of us get to live, just live, without otherwise. We suffer.
So, we all, all of us, have a culture of suffering. We all have an agreement.
What is yours?
Do we live with a friendly relationship with our prickly imperfect selves? Do we love her? Do we treat her with the tenderness a friend would? Please tell us your story.
Self-Care Tip: Get friendly with your imperfect suffering parts.
Repost.
How does one fight feelings of inadequacy?
With Truth I barricade against my lies that I am not enough. Of course I am adequate; and I fight to know that in more dimensions than just cognitively. After all, facts change if you don’t believe them.
Take parenting for example. Wow! Sometimes I think that strangers would do better. That the very parts of my soul those children hold would be better off with more distance from their home in my heart. Am I inadequate to be a mother? No, but some days I have to beg not to believe the lie.
In these moments of calamitous thinking, I am reminded of the term “all-or-none” thinking. I am reminded that feelings of inadequacy drink from them like fat mosquitoes. Catastrophizing is an egotistical view and nothing could ever be that bad or that good. Not Me. Not anyone.
Fighting feelings of inadequacy means being a friend enough to yourself to say, step away from the ledge. To say,
you aren’t so special that you could be that terrible.
To fight right, you have to slide away from all bad into some of the gray area, and stop before getting to all good. Because believing you are all of anything is just arrogant.
There are temperaments that do better in gray zones than others, those who feel comfortable grazing between thoughts and situations of life. There are others, however, also. People who almost seem wired to self destruct; whose own genetics thrash them towards polarity. Those people are tortured, familiar with the often lonely fight I speak of.
To fight feelings of inadequacy, perhaps you fight your own design. Hopeless? Well no. That is an extreme word and not to be trusted. Remember at some level, that the truth is in the gray.
Self Care Tip #4: Move away from the edge. Be a friend to yourself.
Joana Johnson, from CreatingBrains.com, found the following story on the NPR iPhone App:
http://www.npr.org/2011/07/25/138606501/one-womans-struggle-to-shed-weight-and-shame?sc=17&f=1001
One Woman’s Struggle To Shed Weight, And Shame
by Tovia Smith
Part of an ongoing series on obesity in America.
In her 37 years, Kara Curtis has seen every dress size from 26 to 6. Looking through old photos, in her slimmer days, you see a young girl standing tall and pretty in her tiara as high school prom queen, and strong and lean in team shots of her track and swim teams.
Growing up in rural upstate New York, Curtis and her family were totally into fitness and nutrition. Her mom used to send her to school with a lunchbox packed with liverwurst on homemade whole-wheat pita, topped with sprouts grown in their kitchen cabinet. It kind of makes sense, Curtis says, that she went a bit crazy for chocolate and cheesy stuff when she was finally living out on her own. But it still took her by surprise after college when she gained nearly 100 pounds in a year.
“I remember the first time I ever heard myself called obese — it was terrible,” Curtis recalls. She was at her doctor’s for a regular check up when he started dictating notes in front of her, describing her as “an obese 22-year-old.” “I was just shocked to hear the word obese related to me.” Curtis says.
No Easy Solution
Fifteen years, countless failed diets and another 100 pounds later, “and now I’m morbidly obese,” Curtis says. “And it’s just overwhelming.”
Indeed, as one of the 70 million Americans who are obese, Curtis has watched her weight become the overriding fact of her life. It’s why she put off buying a new car, and stuck with a less-than-fulfilling job (she worried her size would limit her options.) It’s why she bought a custom-made bathrobe and porch swing and why she can’t comfortably go to the movies or get on a bike or in a boat.
“I love to kayak, but I haven’t been in years because I’m afraid my hips will get stuck,” she says.
At 300 pounds, every day is a struggle with the little things — like chafing on her inner thighs or tying her shoes — and with the biggies — like love. With bright eyes and high cheekbones, Curtis is as pretty as she is engaging and witty. And she’s into kids and family, but totally down on the idea of ever getting back into dating.
“It’s not like I can just fix myself and be done,” she says. “If you lose the weight, you’re still stuck with the stretch marks and the extra skin, and the toll you’ve taken on your body already. And I’m probably still not going to be excited about getting naked with somebody.”
She has poured all her energy and untold resources into trying to get fit. But it’s hard to stay motivated, Curtis says, when the challenge begins to look not just difficult, but impossible.
“Really, if there was an easy solution, Oprah would have bought it,” she says.
Many Factors
There is little that Curtis hasn’t tried. Making breakfast one day — a pureed concoction of hemp and rice protein, coconut milk and avocado — she recalls the gamut: macrobiotic diets, Weight Watchers, Overeaters Anonymous, acupuncture, aerobics, meditation, therapy and all kinds of exercise — from punishing pre-dawn runs to what she calls more “joyful movement.”
She starts most days with a vigorous hour-long walk, escorting a group of neighborhood toddlers to their day care. Pulling several kids piled into a big red wagon, she breaks into a sweat just minutes into the mile-long trip. Several times a week, she sweats through a rigorous dance or yoga class.
But sitting down later to a lunch of a squash soup, Curtis concedes that what she really needs is not to burn more calories but to eat less. And yet every time she tries to diet, she ends up binging.
“This is not a simple thing,” she sighs. “There are genetic components. I mean, I look just like [my] grandmother and my aunts.” Looking back, Curtis says, she has battled serious food addiction and body image issues since she was a little girl. “Clearly, there is this piece that is programmed in.”
But it’s not the only piece, Curtis says.
She’s as conflicted about what’s behind her obesity and how to deal with it as society seems to be.
One minute she’s sympathetic and cutting herself slack, and one breath later, she’s beating herself up.
“It’s a very schizophrenic relationship we have with obesity,” Curtis says. “I understand it as addiction, but then there’s also this other piece of me that knows that there is a lack of willingness on my part. So really, who’s to blame for that? Me!”
But another moment later, Curtis will pivot again: It can’t be all her fault, she says. Those who make and serve or sell really unhealthy food also have a role to play.
Walking through her local grocery store, she points out the junk food that lies, like a trap, right inside the front door while the healthy foods section is at the far corner of the store.
“It would be really hard to walk out of here without something with sugar on it,” she says. And once she starts, “I’m never going to eat just one cookie. And there are times recently where I’ve eaten most of a box.”
The Personal As Political
What’s brutal, Curtis says, is that your failure is out there for everyone to see and judge. So, for example, at the checkout, she says, “There will be that moment of being like ‘Oh my gosh, I have ice cream on my conveyor belt.’ Like there is that pint sitting there. And I catch someone checking me out, like I shouldn’t be doing that.”
It’s the same kind of glares she gets on an airplane. These days, Curtis says, it’s like her personal problem has become political.
“Now, it’s not just like ‘You’re fat and I feel sorry for you.’ It’s like ‘You’re fat and that’s taking a toll on my life. You’re burning more fossil fuels, you’re raising health care costs.’ It’s more vigilante. It’s more harsh.”
And that tends to be counterproductive, Curtis says. It just ends up making her feel bad — and eat more. But she’s working hard to get past it. It was a huge step for example, to go on NPR and talk about being fat. It’s taken a long time, but she’s begun to measure progress by more than just her dress size.
“I’m really proud of myself for being honest about my situation,” she says, fighting back tears. “I feel like it was gutsy to come on and say this is what I struggle with, and I want it to stop.”
It’s all part of a very uneasy paradox, Curtis says. She’s got to accept herself and her body, even as she’s desperately trying to change it.
“There were periods of time when I used to hang skinny pictures of myself up on my fridge,” she says. “But that was brutal and mean. And I don’t want to be brutal and mean to myself.”
Curtis says she had a huge breakthrough recently, when she came out of the shower and caught a reflection of herself in the glass door.
“It was the first time that I’d seen that body and not been horrified,” she says. “It was not like I don’t want this to change, but it was just about standing there and seeing the entirety of my shape — and still feel loving toward it.
Curtis actually took a picture of her reflection, and she still looks at it, almost giddy with hope, that she might finally be on the way to shedding her excess weight by shedding the shame that surrounds it. But on the other hand she adds softly, “I’m also at the highest weight I’ve ever been, so that might be complete delusion.” [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]
No one can tell me what’s wrong with me!
When medications don’t do what we hoped we wonder what that means. We think about the possibility that our diagnosis is wrong, that we are outside the known world of science or a new variation of diseased who will suffer without a label. Is suffering without a label even decent?
Image by forestine via Flickr
Stephani wasn’t the only one in the world with these thoughts but she felt like it. It was as if she was waiting for her real life to begin when she considered herself well. There was the good part of her that was about fifty percent of her day hanging around. The rest of the day was wrong. She wasn’t able to cope with stressors and became helter skelter at random times of the day.
Trading places, in the door and out, out and in, polite enemies at best, the good Stephani and the wrong Stephani vied for platform. Either part of her never felt fully right because of the looming flaws. She couldn’t trust herself as long as they divided her life.
I don’t know why I don’t get better.
I don’t know either.
That’s a precarious position to maintain as a physician. My job is at stake because who goes to a specialist without answers? …At least not traditional answers.
Take this pill tonight and put this warm compress on your bladder. In the morning you’ll feel better.
Darn it! Sometimes I so want to be that doctor! But this is me.
What are you waiting for? Is this place in life better than losing your life? Why?
And then Stephani mentioned a few things that kept her breathing: hope to get well, hope to have a family some day, life itself, her husband….
Why are you right or wrong? Why are you well or sick? Can you be both?
Hm. I saw some relief begin to settle in. However, I also saw frustration. Stephani wasn’t ready to be flawed and perfect. She really like either/or. That’s fine for now. We were able to spend a little more time on the idea of loving all of her, of being a friend to all of her and of counting this moment worth living more actively. If she doesn’t bale on me, we have time for her to get into the same room with herself. The joining up of her wrongs and rights will make her life journey a lot better and less confusing.
People like Stephani have an addiction-like disease process to the either/or, the extremes, the poles, which we describe as “all-or-none” thinkers. They remind me of any other blessed addict. They would most likely do great working this over as an addiction. Working the Steps. Then they would understand what any other addict who works The Steps understands. Failing is just part of the journey.
Questions: Can you be both flawed and perfect? How? How do you love both parts of you? Please tell us your story.
Self-Care Tip – When you fail, remember that it is just part of your journey and keep on.
LIFE
Misty sounded relieved,
Yes. That’s it.
She had just realized that life isn’t fair. Sure. She knew that before, but she just realized what she knew. Don’t we all love that moment when our senses join up – sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell, emotion, intellect, spiritual and the rest. That is a lot to coördinate after all and sometimes some of them don’t make the train.
Misty was a single mom of three. Her ex-husband was what she called, “Disney-Dad,” and her kids relished their time with him. Misty complained that she didn’t get to spend the special times with her kids. She mainly took care of them, but missed out on irresponsible fun. She was sure her kids wouldn’t look back and think of her like they would their father. She was getting angrier about it all the time, ruminating about it and it was getting in the way of her ability to connect with others and feel pleasure. There it was in front of her blocking her from seeing her kids even, let alone herself.
Then after weeks of this along with medication and talk therapy, she told me,
Yes. That’s it. Life is not fair. There are many other things in my life that aren’t fair either and if I look for them, I could spend my whole day every day counting them off.
It broke my heart a bit to hear her and see her there. Humble like that; she would I think affect you the same way. So real.
Yesterday, Carl D’Agostino replied to our post about growing our understanding of our choices beautifully.
…we wait until we are at our wit’s end before we seek assistance…. considering reaching out as personal failure or inadequacy re: our own self-esteem…. Foolishly we wait until our way just is not working anymore. That is why AA calls this a gift: the gift of desperation. …For many, the depths into which we have succumbed are now found not to be so deep at all and in fact, ladders are readily available if we use them in recovery.
Ah Carl. Say it again.
The gift of desperation.
Too good. Don’t you think?
Questions: Have you ever received the gift of desperation? What did it bring you? Where did it take you? What did it do to you? Do you still have it? Please tell me your story.
Self-Care Tip – Celebrate your gift of desperation.
Self-Care Tip #172 – When you can’t control this, emote empathically. Be a friend to yourself.
A couple of days ago I wrote about being transparent with ourselves and others when we are not in control of things. (Say, “I Can’t Control This” When You Can’t.)
Image via Wikipedia
It got mixed responses but all worth thinking about.
Jennifer responded on Facebook,
The 3 C’s help me all the time; I didn’t cause it, I can’t control it, I can’t change and or cure it!
Isn’t that wonderful?!
And it’s helpful to remember that claiming these 3C’s still may not remove us from the stressor. We are however more present with ourselves and others despite the stressor.
Another reader BeeBlu’s, brought up that famous “fine line,”
I agree that it’s healthy to have this attitude to certain things in our lives, but as you say, it is also no excuse for bad behaviour and letting emotions go into free fall at the expense of others. I think there is a very fine line between the two. bb
…And her signature, “bb,” – awesome.
A line that is thin implies insecurity, danger and something precarious that may end up all wrong. I wonder about that line.
On one side we have the 3 C’s: cause, control, change. On the other side of the line we have responsibility for the boundaries of others. I wonder if there really is a dividing line after all or if it is just bad lighting. If there wasn’t, there would be no need to thicken the line, to defend, or to pick sides.
Emotional health makes shadowy lines disappear. It takes someone who has emotional health to be able to say their 3 C’s and still consider the internal and external milieu of others. It takes someone who has done their self-care and put money in the bank; someone who has reserve built up that spills over into empathy. We can’t emote empathically so well when we aren’t emotionally healthy. The less of that, the more real the line becomes. The less of that, the more precarious we are.
Gaining emotional health may take medication, exercise, sunlight, granola, grandma’s kisses and all sorts of things. Each of us has to figure it out for our own selves and just do it.
Questions: What do you think about this business of shadows, lines, and living cautiously? When you have been healthiest, how have you been able to embrace both the 3 C’s and emote empathically at the same time? Please tell me your story.
Image via Wikipedia
Self-Care Tip #162 – Know what you are fighting for. Be a friend to yourself.
Bridget told me,
I felt free to do something creative without having to feel guilty about it.
She had read the blog post, “Self-Care is Freedom, is Democracy, is Because We Are Accountable.” I was just starting to think about other good places to go with that but before I got too far she hit me with,
I just hate myself!
Hearing those words is like watching squishy and partly moldy tomatoes hit the wall. It’s messy. It’s dirty. No one’s excited about dealing with it. And, there is something negative that brought it on. Readers, you’ll remember this countertransference when you’re the counsellor in some other situation and think, “Darn that Quijada!”
My thoughts bumped and piled up. Stopped, until they started pulling themselves off of each other. I tried to put these disparate bits of Bridget’s narrative together. And I wasn’t alone.
I don’t get it! Why do I feel this way?
Who doesn’t have conflicting feelings about themselves? Bridget perceived and celebrated her freedom to self-care, yet was betrayed by her own, just when she was reaching for it. Is that ok?
What strikes me about Bridget is her journey. She has struggled with anxiety and depression for many years. I know with me, she’s been in treatment for five of them. During that time, she has been lovely although not perfect. She does her hair, glossy blond in large waves, trim body frame and polite like no one I’ve met. Many medications have failed her and she has taken those failures and claimed her future over again. The intense forward movement of her inner self has never been muted, even when she has had thoughts of wanting to die.
I have learned what she values, what she’s willing to let go of and what she isn’t. Her appearances matter. She is artsy and gets energy from being alone. She loves people. Her marriage is rocky. She struggles with parenting. She loves her husband and her children. Bridget’s journey is a journey of imperfection, beauty and courage.
And here she is again. Conflicted self, ill, hopeful and claiming her future. Bridget is right on her course. I wish I could help more. I wish she wasn’t still ill. But I can at least be as courageous as she is. I can hope with her. I can stand with her or walk. I know that put to the question, Bridget prefers this journey than losing the right, the privilege, to journey at all. Bridget is free. Many of us are not as free as she is, who knows what she is fighting for.
Question: What are you fighting for? If nothing were to ever change for the better in your life, what makes your journey worth it? Please tell me your story.
Image via Wikipedia
Self-Care Tip #134 – Looking past the dark magic in your life might require medication. Be a friend to yourself.
Much of what psychiatrists do at work is help with misperceptions. Seeing something one way does not make it true.
In Scientific America, there was a great article, “Magic and the Brain: How Magicians ‘Trick’ the Mind,” By Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen L. Macknik | November 24, 2008 | 17. It tells us that we misperceive things so easily, that people use that quality to entertain others. Magicians use it to entertain and exploit the limits of cognition and attention.
Magicians aren’t the only ones to exploit that. We do. We exploit ourselves. Tsk. Not too friendly and not generally as entertaining.
How is having our misperceptions a form self-exploitation, you say? Because we nurse them and drive our own selves into the ground with them. No one else is doing it when down to the last trick.
It comes to me that when we feel disconnected from others, we are mistaken. Some magic turned us awry and we don’t see the gazillioin links touching us all around. When we feel worthless, when we think we are despised, when we feel singled out for suffering, that be black magic my friends. When we think our lives our so hopeless that we would be better off ending them, look for the mirrors. Look for the rabbits and top hats. We aren’t seeing things right.
When I move the curtains across my clinic day, I often find medical diagnosis hiding behind. Some sort of biology giving us the slip.
My dad often told me, “Things are never as bad as they seem.” I realize he was talking about this kind of magic.
Question: How have you gotten past self-harmful misperceptions? How have you seen another do it? Please tell me your story.
Image via Wikipedia
Self-Care Tip #115 – If it’s not serving you well, don’t waste your time on it. Be a friend to yourself.
Trixie Hidalgo, advocate to end violence in America, tells me that many of the people engaging in gang crimes tell her that they are put in their life positions (poor, stereotyped, impoverished) by the people who have the power, to keep those people in power and to keep them down. They have some credible arguments we’ve shared before in history relating to oppression such as race, color, gender, money, or status. Are these people victims? Sure, why not. But is that the point here?
The victims reminded me of a clinic I was in the other day. I was working with Marcus and his father. The father was torn about where to go to get his disabled son, Marcus, treatment. Marcus was disabled with both brain illnesses and severe psychosocial stressors. Currently we found Marcus, 2 years into treatment with me, and as of yet, father and mother (divorced without amicable terms) had yet to engage in treatment with me. They wanted to know why Marcus was the way he was. Father pointed at Mother and Mother pointed at Father. They blamed other things as well, the schools not providing the right services, the medications for not working, his genes, and more. Meanwhile, Marcus is tearing up his classroom and his own life. He is barely functional socially. Moody and volatile. Anxious with physical symptoms. He was having multiple medical work-ups going successively for various physical complaints.
Before I let them go, I told his parents, “Who cares what his diagnoses are? It’s not about the diagnosis.” The purpose of a diagnosis is to serve the patient. The patient doesn’t serve the diagnosis. Right now, Marcus was serving the quest for his diagnoses. If all they can see is that, and they miss the fact that their son isn’t functioning, he’s depressed and anxious and violent and no one can stand to be around him, Marcus is worsening continually while they go on debating – they’ve missed “IT.”
They’ve missed it. And so have we when we waste time counting up the offenses we’ve directly or indirectly suffered. We miss it when we increase our injury by holding ourselves responsible to our history. I asked Marcus’ parents what the point of what they were doing for Marcus was. I ask the victims of America, what the point is when they point to history to answer for their present condition. If it’s not serving you well, if it’s not doing something good for you, than what are you doing with it? Do good things for yourself.
For the victims, for Marcus, and for Marcus’ parents, 1st make sure we weren’t missing something medical that was keeping them from having life quality. You can’t give what you don’t have. Then move on to the psychosocial issues and spiritual and so on. What ever we ran into that missed our point, we’d walk past it together and on to something that served us well.
If you’d like to read more on this topic, read more in “It’s Time to Grow Up” and “The Whole World Becomes Blind.”
Question: How have you managed to move past things that weren’t serving you well? Please tell me your story.
Image by faster panda kill kill via Flickr
Self-Care Tip #105 – Grow up, think on your own, and stay connected. Be a friend to yourself.
Staying connected doesn’t mean loosing your freedom. Staying connected doesn’t mean immaturity. And independent thought doesn’t mean disconnecting from others or your foundation in life.
When we move into adulthood, we move into roles requiring responsibility, autonomous decision-making, teaching like parents. This is confusing don’t you think when we were designed to be connected? Well when something feels so wrong inside, listen to it. There is a incongruence with what you intuitive know. Independence includes dependence
Adulthood means learning to have creative thought while being willing to learn. It means disconnecting while remaining connected. It’s not all-or-none. It’s seeing the strength in vulnerability. Part of taking care of “Me” includes choosing dependence.
Dependence never takes away freedom. Sometimes when I listen to people telling me how I should feel or think, I feel caged and start doing things to make me feel less caged. Unfortunately sometimes that isn’t a healthy thing, like eating chocolate or… well it’s often eating for some reason. Other people do this too. They may cut on themselves or bang their head. Unnecessary, because we are free no matter. Drugs. Whatever it is that in the moment somehow springs you from the phantom cage only to put you in another.
Question: How do you live free yet connected? How do you deal with feelings of infancy, immaturity, loosing freedom when it comes? Please tell me Your story.
Self-Care Tip #98 – Getting out of all-or-none thinking may mean getting medical help.
Number five on Bella’s list:
“The day has been ruined!” Bella said. Her eyes sparkled and flashed as she spoke of her injury. Bella was not so pleased with her labor’s reward. She was not so satisfied with being accountable for her children‘s behaviors, when they thwarted her every effort at having a good family experience.
A reader eloquently commented what I now want to write on my mirror, about her walk through and away from all-or-none thinking:
..really only part of my day was ruined – the part when I was hurt or angry or frustrated or depressed, etc. – and, even then, only PART of me was totally miserable. I was still able to think about other things, get things done around the house, talk to a family member or friend. It’s really calming to know that I can hurt and still function because there are so many pieces of me and my life that are still okay. Suddenly, everything seems to be easier to deal with.
In an earlier post, “Adequate,” we talked about the truth being in the gray. As my Dad so often told me,
Things are never as bad as they seem.
I had a hard time believing that at times when I was a kid, and now that I’m old-er 😉 I buy it cognitively but find I often doubt is at an emotionally intuitive level. However, things do get much much much better for all of us after good sleep, exercise, water, and if medically needed, medication.
All-or-none thinking, extreme thinking, catastrophizing isn’t just about coping skills. It can also be about our medical condition. It’s very difficult to modulate emotions when you are emotionally ill. I’ve heard so many confounded people say that they just couldn’t stop themselves from going into extreme emotions. They struggled with reactions way past what the experience warranted.
A kid doesn’t listen to words and Dad is kicking a hole in the door.
A couple argues over levels of intimacy and the girl finds herself in the bathroom with a cutting tool.
Work is another day of punitive treatment by an employer with lesser intelligence and she’s vomiting up food.
In these examples, we reflexively coddle the person, saying, “Anyone would be upset if….” However that is not true entirely. Enabling someone’s illness is easy to do. Bad things happen to everyone. But not everyone responds in a way that is repeatedly unhealthy to themselves.
In order to treat ourselves well, we need to take care of our physical/biological/medical needs. Say hypothetically that we are getting our sleep, and all that good stuff, yet still have involuntary inappropriate extreme emotions, think about an organic reason. Give yourself a break.
I have told my Dad, “True, things are never as bad as they seem, but only as long as you get out of their current seeming-reality.” Getting out of that reality, may mean getting medical help.
Be a friend to yourself.
Question: How do you stay “adequate?” Please tell me your story.
Number Two of Bella’s List – victim or what!?:
Last night I took my 5 year-old daughter on a sleep-over date at a hotel. Generous I thought …and boy was it! To me!! I couldn’t believe how much fun I had. I quickly realized why I had done this.
A bit of me still wants to float away on wings of the modern-martyred-Mom, and I can, because it did take a lot of time and money and energy and…. But it’s not too friendly to me. As attractive as that flight may seem, I’ll lose air at some point and take a big fall. Ouch. I might fall on my kid too which is against my intuitive effort here.
Being a victim is attractive at some level, no? My story is a softer example, but we all have tougher ones. Like Bella’s when “she spoke of her injury.” The gravity of her injury was created by her perception of things. Our perception makes our emotional success. My story about last night with my daughter sounds pretty because that’s how I perceived it. However, I have other stories that have negative power over me as Bella’s had on her and as yours have on you.
The key here is that when we take the victim role, we aren’t just telling our story or venting. We are feeling self-pity. But venting is not necessarily self-victimization. Venting can be healthy. Venting can be done without taking a victim air-bus to no-where good. Venting can be a way of being present in your suffering, of going where the pain is and letting it lose power over you. Self-pity only gives the suffering more power.
The great novelist and philosopher, David Foster Wallace, who courageously lived and died with major depressive disorder, encouraged,
To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties.
The willingness to learn or grow is the foot-path away from victim-ville. Could we even say that being a victim is “arrogant?” We – Me, my patient Bella, you – have we taken steps to tell our story, to be present, to live with the humility it takes to look at ourselves and not escape/fly-away?
Whatever it is you are going through, it might help to vent it! Grow and learn and get bigger than that experience.
Self-Care Tip #94 – Get in your own space to choose freedom from self-pity. Be a friend to Yourself.
Question: What barriers have you felt to telling your story? What has made it difficult to be in the space of your own feelings? Please tell us.
Ok folks. Not much time to write tonight. My girly girlfriend is moving out-of-state and we’re off soon on something of a Ta-Ta! date. Why in the world do I feel rejected?! If I were French I might think it was the language of the heart. But I’m not French so I can’t say what they’d say.
Friendship requires ongoing navigation through life. You can’t ever just sit back and expect safe waters. The close pals go far away and although they’ll always be friends, here we find ourselves, beached and sifting sand. Finding gold is thought to be infrequent I think when sifting sand.
Today my daughter told me her classmate’s father lost his job. Big ouch. She told me, “Mommy, I wish money covered the streets everywhere so no one would ever not have enough.” She hasn’t entirely learned what gives value to the dollar. Friendship is like that. Valuable and uncommon.
My friend told me once that I chose her and she chose me. It’s awesome to be chosen!
So I’m off to rub my coins together and be with my friend. She is a treasure.
Self-Care Tip #90 – Don’t forget that your friends chose you too. Be a friend to yourself.
Questions: Have you noticed that you’ve been chosen too? Please tell me your story.
Image via Wikipedia
Self-Care Tip #89 – Practice being real. Exercise it! Be a friend to yourself.
Sara Stein MD and author of Obese From the Heart, wrote
There’s nothing romantic or mysterious about advanced age. It’s painful and difficult for everyone, but there are good moments.
I like that. We could say it about a lot of other things too. Just today in clinic for starters, Mary said she’s falling asleep during the day, but is doing less self-injury since starting topiramate. Max has gained about 20 pounds but he is over his Staphylococcus infection and he’s sleep through the night. Marge is crying because there is no cure for her son’s illness, but he can still be treated medically and protected against further disease progression.
Any time someone asks me how I’m doing, I’m in a paradox. It’s the drive I struggle with to express emotions purely and completely that can be my own Rocky (Dir: John G.Avildsen, 1977) experience or it can kick me in the back-side. Doing what Dr. Stein so eloquently did isn’t as easy as it looks.
“Fine,” I say. “Things are wonderful. Thanks for asking.” (Snore.)
Or, (trip,) “I’m tired and parenting is difficult, and as much as I talk about it, I can’t seem to figure out how to take care of myself. But I’m also really good and haven’t been this happy in a long time.” (Panting holding my sides.)
Being real without boring or tiring yourself out might take some practice.
The “real-thing,” blogger Film Fan wrote
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Benjamin Franklin Parkway, 26th Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. The most famous location in Rocky is probably the stairs he jogs up during the ’Gonna Fly Now’ training montage. The good news is that you can re-enact the scene and jog up and down them, the bad news is that there are 68 steps… That’s quite a few if you’re jogging.
If you ever want to get bored quick, try to be happy. Try it. Try to be good. Try to ignore the monotony. If you want to be bored, draw your house with a window and a door and a sun shining in the corner. It’s no good for boredom when you draw in the shadows and colors. But doing that well might not be natural for everyone. We might need to get into a training program, like Rocky Balboa before we can be in the presence of the bad and the good of our lives without loosing our breath.
It may take practice to be real, but you will be less bored if you do.
Question: How do you find being real with the good and bad of your life affects you? Please tell me your story.
Down with guilt, I say! Let that mighty tree be felled and burnt and each season that brings up new creepers into life again – let them be taken down! Guilt! How many times it has weakened us. A sickness, that ebbs the energy and confuses the mind. Often unrelated to deed or intent, in comes the uninvited guest. As in Mansfield Park, guilt is our own Henry Crawford courting Fanny Price. He may dress well – in church attire, in a business suit, or in a child who thinks she should spend more time with grandma.
Like lucifer’s apple, guilt brings knowledge that can’t be trusted. Swallow it and you’ll be looking for fig leaves. See if any good will come of guilt. I dare you. See when you plant it, what will grow. See when you hide it, how you are tethered. Let it educate you and notice that you grow smaller.
Today a friend asked me how things were. I remembered yesterdays. Wonderful with sunny emotions. A collection of connected moments. I wanted to say something about them. I was looking in at a shop window. Chocolates on the shelves behind the glass. But remembering today, I was denied.
I yelled from my darkened face. And then I yelled again. That was the morning. Then the kids went to school and I went to work. What a way to walk. I thought of this and out popped:
I yelled at the kids which I hated, but I don’t hate myself.
It even surprised me. Saying that to my friend, let me realize that today wasn’t an all-or-none parenting moment. Many earlier days that began much the same weren’t so forgiving. And because I didn’t forgive myself so easy, I didn’t forgive others so easy. The anger chases it’s ratty tail, you know until Guilt tires him out.
Because I didn’t spend the day guilty, the afternoon and evening had a chance. Down with guilt! Up with new chances! Hooray!
Self Care Tip #68 – Take the new chance! Be a friend to yourself.
Question: How have new chances redeemed you? Please tell me your story.
“I read a lot of self-help books, but look at all the difference it’s made in my life!” Sarcasm noted. My friend was coming out of a dark melancholy of several years and complained that bringing something from your head into your life is hard. Another case of trying to keep it real.
People call what we do “word play.” Mouth flappers. Those of us whose actions can’t keep up with our mind-matters fend off judgement like OJ Simpson. We’re guilty alright but it’s not murder folks. Let’s get into the empty seats to applaud the performance of Good Intentions. Good intentions come in degrees. There’s the thought, the desire, and then the levels of action that happen before and until execution. Not all life is like playing horseshoes. There is “win” in process too.
But my friend’s real beef was with the expectation she had that those books and their words would marinate her. Soak her until she smelled and tasted and essentially became something new and better. She didn’t think they did. How does someone somehow bring what is out there inside?
If you want more about some of the biological play on this, read this post. Basically if you are trying to grow, you are most successful working with a growing-style that is congruent with your temperament. There are other intersecting paradigms also, including spirituality, external stressors and biology. Bringing it inside is a balance between paradigms in life.
If I were speaking to my friend though, I’d applaud her thoughts, desires and degrees of action that have constituted her journey of Good Intentions. I’d invite her into the stands with me and take some time to watch a replay of the parts of her life that made her glad. That in itself opens us up to what needs to come in. And we are more able to keep on.
Self Care Tip # 55 – Applaud. Be a friend to yourself.
Question: Do you ever lose yourself in processing? Tell me your story.
“Successful people expand their dreams to move them forward, others shrink their dreams to justify where they are.”
—Sam Meers
How do you see yourself? To be truthful, any of us will find ourselves in a straddle. Which side we think we’re leaning towards will depend on emotional confidence at the time and our perception will flux accordingly. Getting yelled at by a respected mentor may make you see yourself as stalemate, but that doesn’t make it truth.
If we stayed on the exact course of our current, what do we imagine our lives will look like in 5 years? There are bits of tack and turn we influence. No matter the level of abuse suffered, individuals have a sense of their own person. Their separateness. Their choice is there held fast on the buoy of their human right. 
While shrinking some dreams to justify condition, the mere courage to persist in life is a form of expansion. You might not agree with this. We all have people we scorn. But this isn’t a matter of opinion. Without expansion, we die, even the grossest of us. There are more obviously lovely examples of expansion, of going towards what is congruent with your inner self, of doing what gives you energy. When someone is in flow, aren’t we all drawn to them? When someone is not, it can be hard to make eye contact, even with yourself.
When getting friendly with yourself, give your straddle a nod of courtesy. Counter intuitive at times, this in fact promotes self-respect. The more we trust the ebb and flow down our river of dreams, the more a part of our own journey we can be.
However, if you can’t look yourself in the eye, if despite setting your jaw and keeping a strangle grip on life you still feel like the ground is sucking you under, think about a medical reason. You always have a choice.
I really liked what Mr. Meers said, but I’ll say it differently for our purposes:
Successful people expand their dreams to move them forward even while they shrink their dreams to justify where they are.
Self Care Tip # 21 – Be a success by joining your journey. Be a friend to yourself.
Does loving and liking go together? Not always. I like to think of loving as a constant not entirely dependent on us. Thank goodness!
Waiting to like someone is like waiting to go to the gym until you’re in shape. Or, not getting to know God until you are a good person.
This morning I woke up to the sound of dishes and quiet excited little voices. There was a vibe of energy in the air. My eyes were still blurry and crusty and my mind in a haze of, “What’s happening here?”
Some mornings I wake up to the anxiety of hearing other sounds. Someone wasn’t being nice to someone else. Wondering if I was going to have that job for the rest of the day of refereeing and…. Some mornings I am afraid. Some mornings when I wake up, they know I don’t like them. Because we love each other so, it just hurts all of us.
But today I couldn’t believe it. The kids had folded and put away the laundry and were unloading the dishes! Before I woke up!
Why? They knew the deal. No going to their friend’s house to bake cake until finishing all their chores. So, their motives weren’t all lined up right. They didn’t do it out of largeness. Nor did they do it for me. After licking that wound, I jumped up and down and whooped for them!
We don’t wait to go to school until we have knowledge. That’s the point of school.
God doesn’t care why you go to Him, he just wants you there. He’ll take care of our motives.
We don’t keep off the game field until we already know how to play.
With my children, I’m hoping some of how I felt was noticed by them. Maybe they’ll remember some of how they felt. There was a joy in the house that a time-out just doesn’t invoke.
Moving back to loving and liking, well, they don’t always go together either. The inherent goodness in something like that is responsible for drawing forth the other. The same force I’m counting on to move in my children. The same force I’m counting on for me when I wake up scared. When we trust that force, we’re more able to be present with what is already around us. We can say, “This is enough,” without giving up on what we still hope for.
Self Care tip #20 – Trust what is inherent. Be a friend to yourself.
Friend to Yourself 
