Breaking the cycle
For those following along, I’ve recovered significantly from being the shit recently. How? First, by utilizing the support tools I mentioned, working with my coach and, well, life moved on, too. This week wasn’t short on complications to make things overall easier. In fact, it was more complicated than the previous weeks. Perhaps that left less time for me to pick apart my life? OR, perhaps it allowed me to change seasons, at a micro level. I think we can talk about seasons as chapters in our lives spanning longer timeframes, but we can also look at seasons in smaller pieces. Something shifts – a focus, a need, a perspective even. I’m well aware that I will return, at some times, to where I was. I didn’t fix myself fully, nor do I think we ever “fix” ourselves. We evolve and learn. If we pay attention to the signs – internally most of all – we can spot similarities in situations that we’ve already navigated. So while I know I’ll return to the shit at some point, I’m taking all my tools with me!!
One thing I felt spiraling a bit within myself, in the last few weeks, was getting too far ahead of things in my head. This can be wishing for something in the future that hasn’t happened, but that I hope will happen. It can also show up in the form of worst case scenarios, or the little “daymares”’ I find myself thinking about. For example: as my husband heads out the door to the store, I suddenly start thinking about him getting into a car accident and then I worry about him until he’s home safely. This is me letting my head completely take over.
The output, for me, is control and perfection. I overcompensate and try to control everything around me, including that even the outcomes need to be perfect. Not only is this overwhelming, it’s just not feasible. We have a few words we don’t use in our house. Perfect, is one of them. It’s astounding how often this word is used in daily, general, interactions. “Ok, perfect, thanks!”. “That sounds perfect”. “That was perfect!”. Without direct intention, we’re assigning unrealistic heights of attainment on ordinary, imperfect things. Or, said another way, we’re assigning ordinary, great-for-the-moment, situations the highest achievement. What this can do, and did for me subconsciously for years, is create a desire and need to make ordinary moments extraordinary and outcomes over-the-top wonderful. This isn’t realistic to how life works, especially in ordinary, everyday circumstances. It means every moment and outcome needs to be the best, yet. Each circumstance and situation winning out over the last. By creating these expectations, I’m signing myself up for disappointment and self inflicted failure.
It’s very clear how this robs me of the present, imperfect experiences around me.
Here’s how it starts to stack in my professional life:
{Childhood} Not the most talented soccer player / diver on the team = failure.
{Adult} Struggling to find the energy I need in order to complete a run this morning = failure.
{General} Feeling down and grumpy = failure.
{Parent} Forgot about something important = failure.
Here’s how it starts to stack in my professional life:
Didn’t nail the presentation = failure.
Didn’t wow the client in an over-the-top way = failure.
Made a mistake = failure.
Didn’t get promoted (or quick enough) = failure.
This might seem extreme in how I’m explaining this. Peeling back the layers for a moment, let’s look at the roots. Consider the cycle: Belief —> Thought – Emotion & Feelings → Behavior → Experience. We all have certain belief systems that are composed throughout our lives, starting even before our births. These components include our environments, our family, our friends, our teachers, our neighbors, the media, society and the list goes on. Think of it as all of the inputs we’re taking in on a daily basis. At certain points we’re solidifying beliefs for ourselves (whether they’re accurate or not). Our thoughts then are born from our beliefs, which then creates emotions and feelings. From here our behaviors occur and those create an experience for us (good or bad or neutral).
I’ll give you an example:
Belief: I must be busy all of the time, otherwise I’m lazy and not accomplishing anything.
Thought: I really want to just take a moment and rest, but that would be so lazy of me.
Emotion: I’m angry and sad that I’m always so tired.
Behavior: {See’s spouse on the couch resting} “How can you just sit there when there are 100 things to do?! Geez, I guess I have to do everything around here!”.
Experience: I made my spouse feel terrible and made myself angry at them, creating resentment.
You see, it was never about my spouse sitting on the couch, taking a rest. It was always about me and my belief that I need to stay busy and go, go, go in order to feel good about myself and feel accomplished. Instead of addressing my belief, I put a rift in my relationship and dampened the whole day.
What I’m trying to get at here, is that it can be really easy to overthink things, try to control things and try to make everything perfect. And, it’s easy to say “Well, that’s just the way I am!”. I think it's just the way we were molded, though. Every circumstance where we try to control the outcome or be perfect is a great place to get curious and ask “Why am I thinking or doing this?”.
Here’s an example of how you can start doing this (using the context from the last example):
Thought: “I really want to just take a moment and rest, but that would be so lazy of me.”
Notice: “Huh, there’s that pattern of thinking again.”
Question: “That’s a really negative way to talk to myself and think about this situation”
Challenge: “Why do I think I’m lazy just because I need a break?” “Listening to my body is part of taking care of myself.”
Reframe: “It’s ok to take breaks. It doesn’t mean I’ll never get back up again. In fact, it will help me feel more energized for the second half of the day. Breaks are healthy!”
Action: Take the break, then get up and resume.
Reflect: Notice how it felt to go against your belief and thought. Notice what happened in your body. Notice what DID NOT happen!
This curiosity of my beliefs has unchained me from what I thought was “Just the way I am!”. In fact, it’s helped me be more present in relationships as well as more accountable. Taking accountability for my life has been the greatest gift I’ve given myself. We can start with the curiosity around the reactions we have in certain situations. Connect the dots on trends and then tie those back to our beliefs. We all have this going on. The work of self evolution isn’t easy. In fact, for anyone doing the work on themselves, THANK YOU! Your work on yourself is work for the world and humanity as whole.