Challenging My Negative Thoughts

It's exhausting, really, how often I am trying to deconstruct my own psyche.  I am constantly learning about myself and trying to reshape my understandings of the world.  Most of this comes from WAY too much over thinking, obsession, and circuitous logic which at times has led me to some wonderful prescription medications that make me feel much more like my self and less like a computer in overdrive.

Just a fraction of these self-reflections are constructive or even enlightened.  Reading some wonderful, introspective books is one way that I am learning to monitor my progress...and the book du jour is Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall. Let me share some of my new inspiration:

"One of the most powerful things you can do to challenge negative thoughts and behaviors is to test them out. You'll learn whether or not the assumptions that you're organizing your life around are based in reality or just in your mind."

Sound familiar? It's like Kjerstin read my mind. Sometimes it feels like all I'm doing is creating a protective glass bubble around myself based on thoughts and ideas that COME FROM NOWHERE! Or that come from inside me, rather. But maybe, like Kjerstin, I could slowly adjust these ideas if it is important to me.  For example, my fear of attempting an Exercise Routine (dun dun dunnn).  Exercise Routines have at times dominated my daily schedules, sometimes pushing me to exhaustion that I could not recover from.  Exercise is tied up with dietary restriction and unhealthy habits in my mind.  So today I am scared to try to exercise.  

This picture scares me for a lot of reasons.

I attended a Drama Therapy Practice Group and decided to challenge this assumption in what's called a psychodrama (ask me for a definition of this if you're curious). Through this activity I discovered that my fear of exercise comes from a fear of failure to be perfect at it.  Failure to keep going for 40 minutes,  failure to enjoy it every minute, failure to burn enough calories. A fear of failure to move in all of the ultra-flexible ways that I want my body to move.  In other words - a fear of being human.  This is where my mantra came from.

This was step one to getting un-scared of exercise.  Step 2. Stop calling it exercise.  I just HATE that word.  It torments me.  I have decided that all I really need to do is MOVE. I just need to move my body.  It doesn't matter how.  And, god, that feels so much better.

Yay for challenging a negative assumption!  So what's next?

Food.  Food is next.  And food is the scariest because I have worked long and hard for three years to love food again in a healthy way and to enjoy it instead of merely keeping track of it.  I don't want that to change; I really don't.  So I'm moving slowly.  And, like I mentioned in my last post, maybe Kripalu will have some inspiration for me while I'm there this weekend.

Meanwhile, I found a crazy cool "poem" from Kjerstin's blog page that I just had to share, because it resonates so strongly for me.  While you're reading it, think about how often you are told just the opposite - that food is something you have to be in control of all the time, with no ups and downs whatsoever. And to that I say: BS! There is no such thing as total control.  And the more we try to have it, the more we end up scrambling as we lose our grasp.

What is Normal Eating? by Ellyn Satter

Normal eating is going to the table hungry and eating until you are satisfied.

 It is being able to choose food you like and eat it and truly get enough of it -not just stop eating because you think you should. 

Normal eating is being able to give some thought to your food selection so you get nutritious food, but not being so wary and restrictive that you miss out on enjoyable food. 

Normal eating is giving yourself permission to eat sometimes because you are happy, sad or bored, or just because it feels good. 

Normal eating is mostly three meals a day, or four or five, or it can be choosing to munch along the way. 

It is leaving some cookies on the plate because you know you can have some again tomorrow, or it is eating more now because they taste so wonderful. 

Normal eating is overeating at times, feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. 

And it can be undereating at times and wishing you had more. 

Normal eating is trusting your body to make up for your mistakes in eating. 

Normal eating takes up some of your time and attention, but keeps its place as only one important area of your life.

In short, normal eating is flexible. It varies in response to your hunger, your schedule, your proximity to food and your feelings.

My favorite line is the cookie line.  So so true.  My second favorite line is "trusting your body to make up for your mistakes in eating."  When I would restrict my eating heavily, if I tripped up at all, I would automatically feel like I would be fat forever (that is old me vocabulary, by the way...I don't use the word fat anymore). There was no going back and I hated my body so how could I trust it?  Anyway, reading this poem made me feel like there are other people out there (of course there are!) fighting for a balanced relationship with food that isn't all about control.






I am so looking forward to challenging more food-and-body-related assumptions and I hope you will be inspired to challenge some of your own! I am reminded of a motto from a wonderful organization/website called Beauty Redefined.  It is:

I believe this applies to any and all body health and awareness.  If something hurts, makes you sad, or down on yourself...then that is just not the way to do it.  So I challenge you to ask yourself if any of your health routines hurt your mind, body, or soul.  Challenge your assumption and see what inspiration shines through when you do!

I have so much more to say.  I may have to continue posting daily just for a week or so so that I can catch up on my thoughts.  I do hope you'll continue reading - or at least jump back in in a week or so after some of the rants are done.

With virtual hugs and sun salutations,

Gabriella