Saturday, January 14, 2012

What RULES your life?

How do you know what is 'right' when everything is 'wrong'?
If you could count how many times you 'should' yourself every day, would you be shocked? Probably.
What about those days when everything seems to be a challenge, and you don't think you can take one more problem?
"What am I doing wrong?"
"It's all my fault."
"I deserve to be sad, unhappy or [hungry]"
Do any of these sound familiar?
What about........
"I know I will make a mistake. There is no use in trying."
"I forgot to call my friend back last night. I am a terrible friend, forgetful, and not worth anyone spending time with. "
"My perfect score on the exam was just luck."
"No one called me back about the job. They hate me and I will never be hired."
"If I am not chosen to attend the seminar, I will ever have another opportunty."
"My entire family hates me because I have never done anything right."
These are examples of 'cognitive distortions'. When the internal (and often external) messages you send yourself are extreme, and often stem from negative beliefs or perspectives about yourself.
These messages most often greatly affect the quality of your life.
I was a victim of getting caught up in more than one of these, often for long periods of time.
Much of the time it centered around my core belief that I was a 'bad' person, and that I deserved to
be punished. Good/bad, right/wrong, and should/shoudn't, were the rules I lived by. They were not chosen rules, but rules that I truly felt sentenced to; as a life term.
It is much too complex to explain right here, but once I decided to allow myself to 'choose' what rules to follow, and what I truly believed,  the anger, resentment and frustration began to melt away. I began to respect myself and others more, and I let go of the guilt and fear that I had felt for most of my life.
Ahh......in the midst of this process I could not see, nor could I even imagine things ever being better or even different. There is true beauty in hindsight.
Life is not fair. This is one I will always struggle with. When 'normal' pains and losses in life occur, I find myself trying to balance it all again. No longer is it about punishing myself, or is it related to eating or food. But I often find that I must again evaluate who I am in the bigger picture, and what meaning it all has for me. I don't have to always be happy or like the way I feel.
I simply need to keep going.
Without apology.....♥

2 comments:

  1. Boy can I relate to many of the negative messages you have shared here. I am just beginning to look back at all the lies I believed about myself for so long. It has been a very long journey but I am now able to believe that I am a person worthy of love and praise. Even though life has it's ups and downs I am more able to cope with the ebb and flow now that I am in recovery.

    Last Saturday I went for a "Group" swim in the San Francisco Bay (a new found hobby/sport) and stayed a bit longer in the frigid water than I should have. I am an experienced pool swimmer and I am a strong swimmer but by the time I realized I had stayed in too long it was almost too late. My legs cramped up and I had to pull myself through the water using my upperbody alone. At first the thought that this was going to be a horrible way to die flashed through my mind as I was too far from the dock to get back on my own power and the rest of the group was too far from me to realize I was in trouble. Had I given up and just said I quit I WOULD have died but I put into practice some of the skills I have learned in my recovery journey and started some positive self talk to help me stroke my way to the shore. I say that to relate back to what you said above about when I was deeply entrenched in my eating disorder I would have just given in to the negative voices and given up hope for survival...too many times I was at that place in the past. I learned last weekend what my reasonable limits are in regards to swimming in cold water and I also learned that my inner voice is sometimes stronger than I think it is!

    Thanks again for sharing from your heart! You are a real inspiration...

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  2. Good to hear from you.....so happy to hear that you are living your life ♥

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