Or: Crazy mood swings often mark my day.
I'm always amazed at how much better I feel when I get the house around me picked up. I feel like I'm exerting some kind of control over the chaos. I feel good. I feel in control. Even though it's often a very loosely held control. It's especially nice when I make improvements in areas that have been messy for awhile. Tonight, we did some heavy duty pickup and put away in the kids' rooms and upstairs hallway. Several times since then I've stopped briefly to admire the open spaces, the declutter, the successful effort to improve something.
What does this have to do with food? Isn't that what this whole blog is supposed to be about?
It's all woven together. My food thing isn't really about food. Sure, I love food. We go way back. It tastes good. I enjoy mixing together a bunch of things and getting something that is so much more than its parts. But my problem with food isn't really about food at all. It's about control.
I grew up in an environment where I had no control. Not over my life decisions, my personal goals, my daily routine. Worse, the grown ups who were exerting all their control were often unpredictable. Unpredictable in a loud chaotic way. I don't live well in that - perhaps more accurately, I didn't live well. And once I got old enough I was able to make some decisions, primarily about food. Combine that with a lot of bad body image stuff, poor nutritional education, and very easy access to junk food - and here we are.
And so, when I get the bedrooms and hallway picked up, I feel better. And when I feel better, it's easier to say no to the extra food. I still want it. I still think about it. I just have a higher chance at walking away.
Today's reading of "Thin Within" talks about the "path of performance" - essentially, the failure you experience are taken as a personal, negative thing that comes along with self-condemnation, which leads to poor decision making, then more failure, cue: the cycle. I live stuck in this path. I'm working on changing that in everything I do, especially in my personal relationships and in my eating habits. Sometimes, success needs it's own cheerleader.
A few sort of related notes:
I usually make a daily to do list. It helps me stay focused. Plus, an awesome friend helped me figure out a flexible, positive system that works really well for me so I don't hate the process. But some days all I can see are the places I failed: the things I didn't check off the list. So I was thinking... what if I ended the day with a "success" list? Listing out the things I've completed, accomplished, and/or feel good about for that day. How about defining success? Or is this sort of emphasis just the "other side of the coin" for failure? To me, success and failure go together, but not in the sort of "same coin" idea. Thoughts?
(insert some witty comment to transition to next note here)
I made banana pudding yesterday. My favorite kind, with Nilla (not off brand) wafers, thin slices of bananas, and the cooked pudding that soaks into the cookies and makes them all soft and yummy. I LOVE eating this pudding for breakfast. It tastes wonderful the next day, and seems like my perfect breakfast food. But you know what? It's not in my 200 cal range.
And today? Today I didn't eat banana pudding for breakfast. I. Win.
[Don't worry, I'm not completely reformed. I ate pudding for dessert.]
I am trying something new. I am trying to view events as neutral. Whatever happens is a neutral event until I assign it a label. I bring it to life and allow it to lift me up or weigh me down. Granted, this is probably not as easy as it sounds, especially not for "big events".
ReplyDeleteI feel that the concept of success and failure is just like that though - they are merely labels we assign to what happened so we know how to react. Today didn't go the way I planned. I would normally qualiify it as a failure. But instead I'm going to try and not dwell on it and how it didn't go as planned. It just was. And now it's over. Tomorrow is a whole new day that might work the way I plan, it might not.
I should be able to draw from my experience as an EMT here to remind me of this concept. I encountered many, many people who never would have thought they'd end up in my rig that day. Or that they'd be listening to me tell them there was nothing more we could do and I'm very sorry for your loss. I realize not everything is life and death, but I strive to live with the intensity that it really is life and death, and today could be it.
Most days I forget. And I'm not an active EMT anymore, so my reminders are less frequent. But every once in a while, something crops up to remind me, and I renew my attempt to readjust my life. To make the day matter, whether I can check it off my list or not.
Chris - that's a really proactive idea. To try to leave things nuetral until you "assign" the label. I think success/failure is definitely very personal. And sometimes, failure is success. Or something like that. I think this idea is kind of what's going on with my thought about writing down my end of day successes. As a way to help me understand how things were overall. Maybe reassign the "failures."
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