personal growth – Live Now and Zen

Side Roads

by MeMay 3, 20233 Comments

A couple months ago, I started posting to my Instagram story every day. My Gen Z sons told me years ago that “posting to Insta more than once a day makes you look desperate.” I assume they meant for attention, and I get that. Later, they told me about comedian Bo Burnham’s stand up, and I discovered White Woman’s Instagram and I felt a little seen. I even wrote a blog post about it. Since then, I’ve been careful about how often and what I post, lest I seem like more of a cliché of an upper middle class white woman. I mean, I drive a Tesla, have an espresso machine I use daily, and have posted photos of a charcuterie board and a Nicoise salad. What can I say? I am a white woman with an Instagram account.

As a way to still engage on Instagram without posting photos of latte art and golden retrievers wearing flower crowns, I started posting memes to my story every day. I’ve been doing this for a couple months now. I’ve been collecting memes on my iPhone for years. Some are funny. Some are inspiring. Some are political. Some are observations about our culture. Many are laced with swear words. They all reflect me in some way, either because I agree with what is said, I reflect what is said, I have said what is said, or I just have that twisted of a sense of humor. This was today’s post:

I’ve had a couple friends today tell me that they don’t necessarily agree with this sentiment. If you take it literally, I suppose this could be not a great statement. I mean, if you’re being mugged, perhaps you are in the wrong place and there is no right way to look at it. But I didn’t take it down that road. I get something different from this saying.

Too often in life we wind up in a situation not of our choosing. Something we worked for or wanted is no longer available. When we’re in that place, it’s easy to be negative about it, to feel sorry for ourselves. We might become angry and frustrated. We might give up. These are all choices. We could just as easily decide, “Well, this is something. Wonder where this will take me?” And then be patient with life and see what new things arise from the ashes of what we feel we’ve lost. Or we could say to ourselves, “Nope. This is unacceptable.” Then we can work to transition ourselves back onto, or at least closer to, the path we wanted to take.

I’ve been guilty many times of giving into the negativity. I’ve blamed others for my situation. I’ve blamed myself, telling myself I was not worthy of what I missed out on. This is ridiculous. All I needed at the time was a change in attitude. Looking back, there were many times when I did not get what I wanted or thought I wanted. In all of those instances, as I reflect back, I can see now the beauty in being denied what I was so eager to have. A lot of the things I missed out on led me to a situation more appropriate for me in some way, more in line with who I am and not who I thought I wanted to be. My life story is a tale of many disappointments I am grateful for. I just didn’t look for and couldn’t see the beauty of the plot twists at the time.

I’m still working to cultivate a patient approach to life, one that allows me the time and space to be curious rather than judgmental. I’m not sure I will ever be thrilled when the record starts skipping and I have to pick up the needle and move it to the next groove, but if you’d asked me at 24 if at 54 I would have the life I have now, I can tell you I couldn’t have imagined it. Like Maya Angelou, though, I “wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now.” It may have taken me a little longer to gain consciousness from the stupor of my past than I would have liked, but I am here now. Who knows if I would have made it to this place without all the side roads I had to travel to arrive here?

Not Too Big or Too Small Or Too Hard Or Too Soft: A Tale Of Accepting I’m Just Right

by MeApril 26, 20233 Comments

“Only a few find the way, some don’t recognize it when they do — some…don’t ever want to.” ~Cheshire Cat

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll’s famous novel, reminds me of my experience in life. No. I’ve never met a grinning Cheshire Cat, although I would like to. I do, however, know how it feels to be disoriented, awkward, and entirely uncomfortable in my skin like Alice was. It’s how I’ve lived most of my life. Alice, as you may recall, drank some potion and shrunk her way into Wonderland and then ate some cake and grew so big she didn’t fit there anymore. In my case, someone I cared about would criticize my physical appearance, personal tastes or beliefs, or general demeanor, and I drank it in and got small. I began tiptoeing through my life, lest I be stepped on by larger creatures who appeared to have their lives together. What if I said or did something that proved how intolerable and unlovable I was? Other times, someone would acknowledge the good in me and I would greedily ingest it. Feeling bigger than usual, I would dare to be my true self with others, only to leave the interaction feeling I had occupied too much space. What if I’d bored them by talking too much while saying nothing interesting? Defeated, I would shrink again, caught in the same relentless pattern. One step forward, two steps back, slogging my way through my life, feeling forever out of place like Alice.

Somewhere deep inside, though, I knew the premise that I was the only scratch-and-dent model around was ridiculous. Maybe others were just better at displaying themselves in a way that minimized their flaws? Maybe they’d already worked on their parts so they were left with just a few scratches? I wanted to believe I was and I am fine as is. No adjustments necessary. Sure. Some people might wish I would speak out and stand up for myself more or just stop whining about feeling invisible. Other people might wish I would sit down and shut up so someone else could get a word in. But none of that was ever a me problem. Other’s opinions of me are none of my business, and shrinking myself to avoid judgment is not what I am here to do. I’m here to live my life and to be true to myself, no matter how many dings I’ve got. To achieve this, I going to have to leave my Alice analogy and walk myself into a different story, one I haven’t even considered occupying before.

After all, I’ve been Alice. I ate the cake and drank the potion. I became bigger and smaller to fit other’s narratives. What if, instead of being Alice, I take a shot at being Goldilocks? I can decide what to eat and in what type of chair to eat it. Maybe I will conclude I like my porridge cold because it’s basically overnight oats? Being Goldilocks and boldly choosing what I want in my life might move me quite a few steps toward Zero Fucks Given Road. It’s exhausting not being authentic, though, and I am tired of making slow progress toward self-acceptance. It’s time to practice wild and radical self-love. I can’t be Alice or Goldilocks. I can only be me. Yes. I am talkative. I can be defensive. I overthink everything. (Ask me how many times I pack and unpack and repack a suitcase before a trip only to end up with more than I need but nothing I want.) But, I am also curious, adventurous, determined, clever, and a little feisty, in the fun way. It’s what I am, the good and the bad, different and yet the same as every other human on the planet. So I will stop spending time with those who treat me as a tedious chore to be endured or a spouting fire hydrant to be capped. I will quit editing myself to fit into other people’s narratives. If I’m not Alice and I’m not Goldilocks, it’s about time I become my own protagonist.

“Damn. Somebody ate my porridge all up.” ~Baby Bear (probably)

The Game Changer

by MeApril 17, 20236 Comments

Photo by <a href="http://Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/ko/@rihok?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Riho Kroll</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/game?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">UnsplashRiho Kroll on Unsplash

Last Tuesday, I wrote about a shopping trip with my sister that brought up some big feelings for me. The trip highlighted the ways in which opportunities that are mundane for many are triggering and difficult for me. (I had to have two vodka shots before going to try Thai food for the first time.) Almost nine years ago, I had an eye-opening fight with my mother. It wasn’t a fight I initiated or that I saw coming, but it changed my life by creating an opening through which I could see that what I believed had existed had not. Since then, I’ve been in and out of therapy, working to heal and begin again without the baggage.

I’ve acknowledged and grieved the loss of the reality in which I had lived for 46 years. I’ve scrutinized what that time in the dark meant my life had actually been. I spent years laboring earnestly, like an archaeologist with dental tools and brushes, to unearth the way events of my past had created who I was now and shaped the life I had created for myself as an adult. I wasn’t guarded, cynical, and defensive solely because I was born that way or because it was what had been modeled for me as a child. It was also attributable to decisions I made as an adult because of the messages I ingested through my youth. That was a heartbreaking revelation. I spent years learning to forgive myself for not having figured this out sooner and, instead, flying blindly through life until midway through my 40s. That was precious time lost. But I survived it all and am feeling much healthier and happier. I’m not disappointed in or angry about my past because it made me resilient and capable. I am not only to see but also appreciate the me that I am.

After Monday’s EMDR session in therapy, I awoke on Tuesday feeling lighter. EMDR psychotherapy can radically alter a person’s perception of their memories, and the messages they carry as a result of those memories, in just a few hours. By Wednesday, Monday’s work had been processed enough that I felt different in my body. I felt taller and more willing to take up space in the world. I felt less willing to settle for the crumbs I used to think were all I deserved. Every day since then I have continued to practice living in that place. I’ve noticed that comments from others that might have sent me into an overthinking tailspin and elicited an immediate, defensive overreaction have shifted to more innocuous thoughts like, “Well, that’s one way to think about it.” I believe I am not responsible for anyone else’s thoughts and feelings. I don’t have to bend myself into a pretzel attempting to fix things that make others uncomfortable, nor do I have to make myself smaller so they can feel better. Although I’ve known that on an intellectual level for a while, I hadn’t been able to actualize it. More incredibly, my thoughts about myself have shifted. I’m not seeing myself as broken or in need of fixing. I recognize the parts of me that maybe aren’t my favorites, but I also see the ways I am actually pretty awesome. I’m learning not to take everything so seriously and to know the people who love me wish me no harm, and the people who are unkind or unengaged don’t matter.

I’ve worked long and hard to get here. And while I’m not finished doing the work, I am pausing today to take a victory lap for this phase of my journey. Halle-frickin-lujah!

I know this post is totally random, but this is where I am today and it felt important to mark the occasion. Ten years later, this blog is still for me what it has always been, an online journal, a place to store my experiences and memories and enshrine my struggles and growth. So that is what I came here to do today. I also want to thank my readers for traveling some rough seas with me, and for tossing me an orange, float ring and hauling me back into the boat when I’ve fallen out. Your patience and kind words have been a lifeline on more occasions than you might believe, and I am grateful for you.

Here’s to love and light going forward, with only the occasional storm to weather.

Disappointment Is A Growth Opportunity

by MeMarch 4, 20234 Comments

I’ve reached an important but difficult stage in my journey to reclaim my life story, the one where you start living your truth. When you’re used to a life where you make decisions based on what others want or what will keep you out of “trouble” with them, it’s a scary step. And when you decide you no longer want to be a people pleaser, the people who have benefitted by your remaining in your role and doing what they would prefer aren’t fans. While I am not 100% clear what I want from my life, I am resolute regarding things I do not want. I’m finished living someone else’s playbook.

My middle sister called yesterday to invite me to her birthday party. I love my sister. We have our differences and we’ve had our struggles due to the dynamic that was set up for us in our childhood. That said, she is a kind, loving, thoughtful person with many friends and a deep love of her family. When she told me that my parents would be at the party, I winced. I knew that was coming. I wasn’t sure I was ready to deal with this moment now, but it was here. I took a deep breath and told her plainly, while I would love to celebrate with her on her birthday, if our mother and father would be present then I would not be. It was the first time I’ve faced one of these moments with my family of origin. While I haven’t had any direct contact with my parents in well over a year, I’ve accomplished that by having excuses not to see them rather than by directly expressing it was my conscious choice not to see them. I knew she was disappointed, but she respected my boundary, which I appreciated.

When I got off the phone, I realized my pulse was rapid. I was anxious. I felt guilty for letting my sister down. She is collateral damage in this situation. She and I were parented differently. We have different relationships with our parents and different demons as a result. I had to remind myself that, although my sister is likely frustrated about the situation between my parents and I and what that means for the family at large, she is an adult and she will be fine. I had to remind myself that even if people become upset with me for my choices, that doesn’t mean I don’t have the right to make those choices. And I had to tell myself this will take practice. With time, expecting other people to deal with their disappointment rather than disappointing myself to preserve their happiness will become a habit for me and bring me greater peace. I can only imagine how freeing it would be to say to someone, “I won’t be attending,” full stop, rather than concocting some excuse to avoid their judgment.

Many people cannot accept that someone might be so traumatized by their childhood experiences that they need to abandon their parents to heal. When I tell people I don’t communicate with my parents because of childhood wounds, they tell me all parents of that generation were not the best or I will be sorry when they are gone that I didn’t try harder with them. They tell me I should forgive and forget and move on. These comments, well meaning or not, invalidate my experience. But I no longer am triggered when people don’t understand my choice regarding my parents. I’m at the place now where I can hear these comments and let them roll off me. Those people don’t have the full story and, even if they did, they don’t get to tell me what I should do because it is what they would do or what they feel is right.

It’s my life. You don’t have to understand it. You don’t have to approve of it. You don’t have to comment on it without my request. You don’t have to tell me how I can make it better. You don’t have to do or say anything about my life because it’s not your concern. Despite what I was told in my youth, taking care of yourself and your mental health needs is not selfish. It’s imperative to living authentically. While disappointment is part of life’s experience, I’ve mercilessly disappointed myself for too long. Allowing others to manage their disappointment offers them a growth opportunity. And so I begin letting others grow too.

I Need To Stop Eating The Dogs’ Food

by MeFebruary 23, 2023Leave a comment

These are dogs. I am not one of them despite my behavior to the contrary.

My husband has been gone this week, enjoying time in Steamboat Springs with his mother and sister. When Steve heads up to the mountains with our fourteen year old border collie, the corgis and I chill at home. Well, I chill and they annoy each other until they get tired and fall asleep. Then they chill too. The biggest difference between life in our home when Steve is here and when Steve is gone is the menu. Steve is a foodie. He loves to eat. He is continually thinking about his next meal. When he works from home, there is a steady stream of activity as he traipses upstairs and downstairs, between his home office and the kitchen, foraging for food, making food, carrying food downstairs, and then bringing the empty plates back up when it’s time for the next meal. Sometimes I think he must be a hobbit. Breakfast. Second breakfast. Elevensies. Lunch. Afternoon latte. Dinner. Then supper. Me? I don’t get all wound up over food. When you have the food intolerances I do and food can make you rather sick, you decide that maybe eating isn’t all that exciting. The most for thrilling food choice I contemplate is whether for my afternoon snack I should mix it up and skip the baby carrots and go crazy and eat a handful of raw almonds instead. Yawn.

For dinner this week, I’ve had some gluten free/dairy free/soy free soup from Whole Foods, some gluten free butternut squash ravioli, rice noodles with peanut sauce and broccoli, and a couple kale salads. Tonight, I decided I would treat myself. I planned to put in the effort and cook some actual meat. As I was choosing which cut of steak to buy, I waffled. I had thought I would pick out a beef tenderloin for myself, but when I saw the price I balked. So, I bought a top sirloin, which was less than half the price. As a result, the dinner was disappointing. I didn’t time anything right. The sautéd mushrooms and shallots were done before the sweet potato, which was done before the steak, which took forever to cook because it was so thick. Even though I had trimmed it, it was too fatty for my liking. The potato was perfect and the mushrooms and shallots were a delight, but I ended up feeding most of the sirloin to the corgis, which they were quite happy about, thank you very much.

As I was doing the dishes, I started pondering my disappointment. Was I disappointed because if Gordon Ramsey had been watching me cook, he certainly would have stuck my head between two slices of white bread and told me I was an idiot sandwich for not getting the timing right and not cooking the steak to a perfect medium? Was I disappointed because I made a huge mess in the kitchen for a meal that I ended up giving to the dogs? Was I disappointed because I enjoyed the mushrooms and sweet potato the most, which isn’t surprising because I lean towards vegetarian anyway so what was I thinking? It was none of the above. I was disappointed because I’d cheaped out on the steak for myself. I wasn’t willing to spend the extra money for the tenderloin I really wanted because I prefer the leanest steak possible. Instead, I opted for the same organic top sirloin I feed to our dogs with their kibble and green beans. What’s ridiculous is that the extra money for the steak I wanted was not an issue. We definitely had enough in the bank account for the tenderloin and the extra amount on the grocery bill was not going to mean I had to cut our budget somewhere else. How depressing is it that I couldn’t bring myself to spend an extra $12 for the cut of steak I really wanted? I mean, I probably wouldn’t have cooked it right anyway and I most likely would have still messed up the meal timing, but at least I would have enjoyed the steak rather than giving it to Loki and Goose. So apparently, ala When Harry Met Sally, I am the dog in this scenario.

I’m disappointed in myself because I haven’t yet learned my worth, even though I keep saying I’m figuring it out. I guess it’s a lot to ask of myself to forget a lifetime of negative programming that convinced me I didn’t matter and didn’t deserve anything good. But I have been working so hard in therapy to reimagine myself in a more positive light, to feel that I’m worth something. It kind of sucks to realize I haven’t gotten very far with that yet.

Don’t I know by now that I’m not top sirloin? I am organic beef tenderloin, dammit. Sigh. Hopefully next time I will remember that and treat myself accordingly.

The Long And Winding Road To Self-Acceptance

by MeFebruary 19, 2023Leave a comment

I have this app on my phone called Timehop. It collates the experiences you shared on social media on that particular date in previous years. Most days, happy memories populate my Timehop feed. I love when the app shows me photos of my much younger sons or of me traveling or participating in an event or hanging out with friends. For the most part, it is a positive way to check in on my progress through this life.

Today, one of the photos was a shot I captured in my therapist’s office three years ago. I remember that session well. She handed me a deck of cards with colorful, emotive drawings on them and asked me to sift through the deck and pull out any cards that resonated with me somehow. There were some fifty cards in the deck. When I finished, I had four cards in my hands. She asked me to show them to her and tell her why I had chosen them. It was one of the most eye-opening sessions I’ve ever had. Here are the cards:

The first card shows a little girl standing on a table while people around her, presumably family and friends, mock her. The second card presents a stern-faced judge issuing an admonishment. The third one is of a person alone, backed into a corner. The final one depicts a child running on a hamster wheel surrounded by scary and sad thoughts. Oof.

I explained the first card represented how I felt as a child. I was that girl on the table, red-faced, awkward, and singled out as wrong simply for being me. The second card represented the result of being that little girl in the first card. I am constantly afraid to do something wrong, to draw negative attention, to be chastised or called out. I’ve lived my life trying to fly under the radar, to not be seen lest someone catch me making an honest, human mistake or appearing naive or uneducated or imperfect and pointing it out. The third card told the story of how I usually feel on the inside as a result of the experiences I related from the two previous cards. I feel isolated, inherently broken. The final card represented the usual state of my mind. I’m a perpetual over-thinker. I spend most days in my busy brain either ruminating on past mistakes that come up because of a more recent, similar mistake or trying to figure out how to just be better because it’s obvious there is something wrong with the way I am. Yikes.

If you’d asked me when she handed me the cards what I thought was going to come of this exercise, I would have told you probably not much. I was so wrong. The feelings that came up for me when I saw those four cards explained where I came from, what that past created for me, how I felt around other people now, and how I lived my daily life. It was all negative and it was a lot to take in. As the session closed, I asked if I could take a photo of the cards I had chosen. I guess I thought I might want to reflect on them again at some other point. Apparently today was that point.

When the cards showed up in my feed today, they hit differently. Yes. I still recognize that little girl in the first card but, instead of feeling there is something wrong with her, I feel there is something wrong with the rest of the people in the scene. Yes. I sometimes still shrink when someone close to me points out my flaws, but other people’s opinions about my choices in my life mean much less to me now. Others don’t hold the map for my journey, and I know they are out of their lane. Sometimes I still feel alone and different, but I recognize the feeling will pass. I know we are all struggling and lost. It’s nothing unusual. And yes, I still run that damn hamster wheel in my head. These days, though, the thoughts are more appreciative of the me I am now rather than reproachful of the me I was.

The past three years have been something else for us all. They’ve been a little extra for me too, but I’m so stinking proud of myself. The work I put in is paying off. And I kinda kick ass.

When You Don’t Like What You’re Seeing, Change The Filter

by MeDecember 15, 20224 Comments

Yesterday I did something I don’t normally do. I hopped on a bandwagon. In this case, the bandwagon was the controversial Lensa AI app. Twenty-four hours ago, I didn’t even know the app was controversial. Hell. Forty-eight hours ago, I didn’t even know becoming an artist’s rendition of yourself via an app was a thing. I had only recently glimpsed a headline about the popularity of trying these lenses and then saw a post on Facebook from a friend who had tried it out the previous day. My decision to see what the fuss was about was based solely on the idea that it might be fun to see what images of me the app would come up with. I suppose downloading an app and then uploading my photos to it without understanding more about the technology was foolhardy. I didn’t understand what I might be getting myself into. Perhaps it was a little naive, but I’ve been home alone for ten days with little human interaction, so I was looking for something to distract me from myself. We make a lot of our dumbest choices out of boredom or curiosity. If I were a cat, I would have exhausted all nine of my lives seventy times over by now.

At any rate, I signed up for the app’s seven-day free trial, uploaded some selfies, paid $5.99 (come on, people, that’s the equivalent of one grande Starbucks oat milk latte) for 100 Magic Avatar images, and waited fifteen minutes for them to materialize. When the results populated my screen, I was fascinated. Some of the images were quite realistic, looking an awful lot like me in art form. Some of them were a little off, my eyes farther apart than they are in reality, my eyebrows higher, my nose straighter. Some of them were so far off I dismissed them completely. Still, it was a fun endeavor. I’m 54 and not getting any younger, so it was inspiring to see myself as a fantasy princess and a space warrior. I’ve never imagined myself like that. The images begged me to question why I hadn’t. Seeing myself in those images made me realize maybe I’m not as plain Jane as I have always thought. It might even be possible that I am, gasp, sort of pretty. I decided that the experiment was worth the $6. I downloaded the images I thought looked most like me, canceled my free trial, and deleted the app.

Feeling a little puffed up about how cool I thought the generated images were, I posted a small collection of them to social media. It took only five minutes before I got my first negative comment. Oh, social media. Aside from a family member’s house, where else can you go to have other people instantaneously judge your choices and question your intelligence? I chose to brush off the disdain and review the rest of the feedback. Overall, it was intriguing to see which images other people liked and disliked. A couple images I thought were only me-adjacent and not fair representations of me at all garnered quite a few likes, which confused me. Do people think I look like that? Do I appear that way to some people despite my own eyes telling me otherwise? Do they wish I looked like that? I couldn’t figure it out. Maybe they simply liked the artwork? A couple of the images I felt most realistically depicted my features and expressions were not liked at all. How does that even work, I wondered. That is what I actually look like (minus the airbrushing, mind you). Why did people not appreciate the images that most resembled me in real life? Those were the ones I was drawn to, the ones that made me look slightly younger and way more badass than I feel.

The experiment made me consider our self-perceptions. Having been raised in a decidedly negative household, my general self-opinion has mostly remained negative. I am fantastic at telling you what is wrong with me. Ask me what I do well and I’m stumped. Maybe that was why the images the app created enchanted me so. I looked at the woman in the artwork and saw a different side of myself, a stronger, braver, sassier me, one less afraid of her own shadow and more empowered. One who is really great at knowing what to do with her hair. Perhaps I was seeing the me I might have been earlier if I had figured out before now that I can, at times, be dynamic and inspiring.

The lesson I emerged with from this little experiment was this: when you’re feeling down, try viewing yourself through a different lens. There’s nothing wrong with you that can’t be changed by picturing yourself as the unique, bewitching, and formidable badass who forever dwells within you, even when you’re just doing the dishes or taking out the trash.

Unfu*k Yourself, Already

by MeDecember 12, 20222 Comments

I read a book last week. Yes. A whole book. It was a short book, but still. The book was Unfu*k Yourself by Gary John Bishop. To be honest, I started listening to the book on Audible, enjoyed the introduction delivered with the author’s no-bullshit, full-on Scottish attitude and accent, and then got on Amazon and ordered a paper copy because I knew I would want to highlight passages. When it arrived, Mr. Bishop and I got right back to work. The book, as you can imagine from its cheeky title, offers suggestions for those of us who feel stuck on repetitive hamster wheel of self-sabotage. It’s a book about unsticking yourself.

As I listened, a few things became clearer to me about my life, the consequences of my upbringing, and my future trajectory. First, there was the admission that I’ve been spinning and getting nowhere for about four years now. There are several life situations that coalesced to create a quicksand pit from which I have not escaped. The specifics about them aren’t as important as the fact that I was able to name them, which gives me a concrete place from which to get to work. You have to know what stopped you to figure out how to get around it. Second, the book prompted me to do a lot of thinking about the areas of my own modus operandi that work against me the most often. The result? The behavior that most often holds me back is fawning. I am a people pleaser. This does not mean I succeed at it. It just means I attempt to make others happy by doing what they want. I regularly set aside my own wishes to avoid conflict, to ensure other people are happy and comfortable, and to be palatable. You’ll often hear me speaking Fawn-ese: I’m good with whatever. You choose. Whatever works for you is fine with me. Really. It’s okay. Don’t worry about me. I’m flexible. I don’t want to be a bother. It doesn’t matter to me. I’ve got it. No worries. I can make that work. These statements (a product of being raised to believe I am the world’s most sensitive, overreacting, selfish jerk) make me feel like I’m being generous and thoughtful to others. In reality, however, I often say them because I’m so used to deferring to others that 1) I don’t know what I want or like, so I don’t know how to ask for it, and 2) I assume that letting others get their way will make me worth hanging around with. The truth is that my fear of speaking up for myself often makes me grumpy. Who wouldn’t be grumpy when they take on more than they can handle and often end up doing exactly what they don’t want to do? Unfu*k Yourself is about getting out of your own way and moving yourself into a better future, and Mr. Bishop outlines some key things you need to do to bring that about. And he does it by not pulling any punches and speaking directly to the multitudinous methods people employ to hold themselves back. In fact, the way he reads the book in audio form you can just about hear his frustration. I’m fairly certain he is tired of having to point out to people that the path to their best life runs only through them.

In one chapter, he discusses how we are wired to win. What he means by this is that we get what we set ourselves up for and expect. We are masters of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Spending your life bemoaning your history of finding the worst partners? You’re probably attracting all the wrong people because of something in your past. If you don’t fix what’s behind that curtain, you will keep winning at picking the losers to date. But, if you sift through the memories of your old relationships, perhaps you can pinpoint where they went wrong and do some work around your discovery so that next time you make a different choice. The bottom line is that when you’re wired to win, you can win at losing or win at winning. There’s a famous quote attributed to Jessie Potter that fits this idea: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.” You can keep repeating your mistakes and blaming mysterious exterior forces that don’t exist or you can do the work, get your poop in a group, and do better in the future.

The chapter that I most needed to hear right now was entitled, “I am not my thoughts. I am what I do.” As a person who spends a lot of time in her head, thinking, rethinking, analyzing, overanalyzing, and reanalyzing those analyses, this chapter reminded me that I will never get anywhere good this way. I have to stop thinking and start doing. I’ve been unhappy with my fitness level. I can either sit on my sofa thinking about how I used to be in great shape and now I can’t seem to get motivated or I can haul my sorry ass off the sofa and put it on the seat of the Peloton bike and change my situation. I can whine about a relationship in my life that is dying but that I keep trying (unsuccessfully) to revive or I can decide it’s time to let it go and put my energy towards endeavors that may lead me somewhere I want to be. People who are successful have one thing in common. They stop talking and start doing. You can’t just hope things will get better. You need to look for solutions and then go out and do something to put you where you would like to be.

Now, I’m sure there are plenty of people who might read the book (or listen to the audiobook to enjoy the author’s delivery of it) and say, “Yeah. Yeah. This all sounds familiar. Nothing new here.” But that is kind of the point. If you’re still reading self-help books and saying they aren’t helping, maybe it’s because a book can’t change your life. YOU have to do that. And this book has some ideas about where you might want to start and why, if you don’t take action, you can continue to enjoy all the crap you feel life has handed you that you don’t deserve. If all I take away from this book is the mindset to get back to better health and get rid of relationships that don’t serve me, it will totally have been worth the paper it was printed on.

What was it Red said in The Shawshank Redemption?

“Get busy living or get busy dying.”

I am getting busy living. I will figure out who I am and what I want along the way.

My Autobiography: In Five Chapters

by MeOctober 13, 20223 Comments

Along my path to a healthier me, a me who isn’t stuck operating from the trauma responses I adopted as a child, I found this poem. It has been my goal post as I move through the stages of recovery.

*Autobiography in Five Chapters by Portia Nelson*

Chapter I

I spent most my life unable to move beyond Chapter I. I was self-unaware. With no understanding the dynamics that had been in play when I was a child had heavy consequences, nearly everything I encountered was a challenge for my nervous system. Normal interactions and situations triggered my fight, flight, or fawn defenses. Without those defenses, I would have collapsed in on myself like a dying star. I had no real idea who I was underneath the overthinking, perfectionism, people pleasing, boundary ceding, bullying, and negativity. Worse yet, I didn’t see there was anything unhealthy about my MO at all. I was stuck for a long, long time.

Chapter II

Six days before my 46th birthday, I was sabotaged in public by a family member. Because my eleven year old son had been used as an unwitting pawn in the scheme to humiliate me, something in me snapped. It was my roller shade moment. After decades spent repressing abuse I endured as a child, the window shade I had pulled down to protect myself from repeated trauma flew up. I could not unsee what had been lurking behind it. I was bumped into Chapter II, forced to acknowledge my past and reckon with my trauma responses and their repercussions. I couldn’t stop using them to protect myself yet because I still needed them. So, I kept behaving mostly the same way I always had, only now I was aware how unhealthy my reactions to every little thing were. I didn’t know how to stop them, but I knew they were wrong. Every time I caught myself in an epic overreaction, the shame was overwhelming. I read a stack of self-help books and realized I needed to start regular therapy. Through therapy, I faced my past. It was painful and slow going. Every time I hurt my husband or my sons because I could not control my responses, I felt like the worthless person I was told as a child I was. I was a skipping record, stuck in a groove, doomed to repeat my patterns.

Chapter III

After some research, I decided to shift to a new therapist who offered EMDR therapy, which has helped thousands of people suffering from PTSD see their trauma in a different light. I’ve spent most of the past two years in this chapter. It has been an endless cycle of acting out my old habits, catching myself, acknowledging my behaviors and thoughts are not helpful, apologizing to myself and others for my missteps, and then forgiving myself and trying again from a more mindful place. Sometimes I would react in a more healthy manner immediately. Other times I had to sit with the negative pattern I had repeated for 5-10 minutes before understanding how I could do better and then ameliorating the situation for myself and those I had been unfair to. I saw my progress and was encouraged, but I also knew I could be in this chapter for decades until I was skilled enough spot the hole before falling into it.

Chapter IV

Recently, and with some extra assistance, I’ve had some legitimate success walking around the trauma hole. I can bump myself out of my well-worn groove and react differently in the moment. I’ve made it to Chapter IV. I don’t live here full-time, but I am finally here. I catch negative thoughts mid-stream and I make a choice to walk around that hole. Holy shit. There is no way to explain what a monumental life shift this has been for me. While I still stumble into my old patterns a few times a day, I also stop them a few times a day. I’m owning my mistakes because I know I’m not expected to be perfect. I’m beating myself up less, looking in the mirror and seeing myself in a positive light more than a negative one. I’m stopping my inner bullshit before it gets loose. I’m holding myself accountable. Best of all, though, I’m holding others accountable too. I differentiate between a me problem and a you problem. And I am able to stand up for myself, walk away, and let someone else deal with their own inner bullshit. I no longer think I am broken or horrible or perpetually wrong. I am still working but I am more present. I am proud of myself.

Chapter V

A lot of people have lofty goals for their lives. They know what legacy they would like to leave behind. Me? I don’t concern myself with any of that. I just want to get to Chapter V and hopefully live there for a bit, with a reasonable level of control over my actions, some mindfulness, and a lot less reactivity. If I get to a place where my childhood trauma responses are a faint whisper or dull memory rather than a full-fledged fire alarm, I will have walked the path I believe I was meant to walk. My goal in this life is to recover, to do better for myself, my spouse, and my children, to break a cycle.

The light at the end of the tunnel is growing brighter. I know someday I won’t have to negotiate my way around the hole at all because I will have already walked down another street.

An Ongoing Exercise In Dismantling Self-Doubt

by MeSeptember 27, 20222 Comments

“You’ll never be a first class human being or a first class woman until you’ve learned to have some regard for human frailty.” ~C.K. Dexter Haven, The Philadelphia Story

This week, my therapist and I began working on my ever-present self-doubt. Self-doubt, I’ve only recently come to acknowledge, has played a big part in my life. It’s not that I always felt confident or comfortable in my skin or my actions. I didn’t. But, through trauma, I became so adept at pretending to be sure of myself that I honestly bought my own fiction. I maintained this alternate sense of self that existed completely disconnected from my true self. My persona was a cardboard standee I would place in front of people, somehow absolutely convinced that they took my bravado at face value and would never peer around the side of the 2-D cutout I’d presented to them to discover there was nothing there to back it up. In fairness, I think some people figured out that my insides didn’t match the outside I presented to the world long before I understood that I had been play acting for others most of my life. Their superpower was being comfortable enough in their own skin to recognize an imposter when they saw one. My superpower was pretending I was perfect when, deep down, I felt like shit scraped off a shoe.

In my therapist’s office the other day, we did some guided meditation to address my lifelong self-doubt. First we did a basic relaxation technique, starting with visualizing my happy place. From there, she asked me to conjure up a meeting place, a place where I would feel completely at ease. I envisioned a warm, cozy room inside a log cabin house with a fireplace, a plush sofa, and floor-to-ceiling picture windows through which my view was the surrounding mountains in their fall splendor. When I was good and comfortable in that mental space, she asked me to invite my self-doubt to join me there. Self-doubt, my imagination decided, arrived in a dark cloud that obscured the sun and dimmed the room, making it feel chillier. She asked me to give the dark cloud a name, so I named it after the place where my self-doubt originated in my early youth. I was required to sit with my self-doubt with a neutral mindset, neither allowing it to overwhelm me nor allowing myself to ignore it. And that’s as far as we got in my session before we had to end for the week, but even that small effort made me consider my self-doubt in a new way.

I wasn’t born with self-doubt. Self-doubt was thrust upon me at a young age, the result of incessant criticism, which led to an understanding I was not good enough or worthy of respect, attention, or love unless I did what others thought was best or wanted. Self-doubt is what I got when I tried and didn’t reach the mark others thought I should. It’s what happened when, instead of being told, “You’re human and humans don’t always get it right and that is okay,” I was informed, “You should have known better” and admonished “You’re embarrassing yourself.” I have since come to understand that my relentless perfectionism is a by-product of continually being told I could and should do better, rather than being gently reminded that life is a process and you learn and grow over time. I wish I had heard more thoughtful “Go easy on yourself, you’re trying” and less demeaning “Everybody knows THAT.” The perfectionism I ended up with in a useless attempt to be good enough for everyone else (in order to believe I was good enough in my own skin) was backwards.

The truth is when you feel good enough in your own skin, you don’t have to be perfect for anyone else to appreciate you. You live your truth and know that you screw up sometimes but you also get it right sometimes. From that place, you learn to forgive yourself and others for the crime of human frailty. It’s challenging to think of myself 10 or 20 years ago, when I was 150% convinced through my perfectionist mindset that I was mentally healthy the way I was. I was throwing down that cardboard cutout of a perfect me as reality and challenging others the way I had been challenged. It was misguided, but it was all from a place of deep hurt and misunderstanding. I didn’t know who I was. I only knew who others thought I should be. And so, with my own sense of self dampened and obscured, I became full of self-doubt that could only be lessened by my attempts to be perfect at everything and for everyone.

Self-doubt is insidious. I know it plagues even the most well-adjusted among us, but it’s such a pointless place to work from, whether that place be a waiting room we occasionally occupy or the impenetrable fortress we inhabit. I’ve come to the place where I can acknowledge it’s a shame that I didn’t get better messaging as I was growing up, but I’ve also come to believe it’s incumbent upon me to give to myself the grace and forgiveness and gentleness and kindness I did not receive back then. It’s up to me to lift that dark cloud. No one else can do it for me.

Listen to Mustn’ts, child, listen to the Don’ts.
Listen to the Shouldn’ts, the Impossibles, the Won’ts.
Listen to the Never Haves, then listen close to me.
Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.

A poem by Shel Silverstein