#i didn’t realize what self sabotage was and i often felt helpless

[sn0tcl0wn]

"all you have to do is hold on until you're a legal adult" lmao dude im almost 25 and im still stuck with my parents. stop acting like everyone can just leave at 18 and that isn't a form of privilege. like what about those of us with no friends and no one outside of our families? we get left to the wayside by the ones who assume we can just leave whenever we want because no one ever bothers to help us. we're the ones that get lumped in with the immature parasites who want to stay home because we have no skills or abilities we can utilize and get out. please stop telling kids they can just leave at 18 as a blanket statement. many actually can't. most kids in abusive homes cannot just leave, specifically survivors of religious abuse. there is an entire population of people who got pulled out of school (if they ever went to begin with) and had their heads filled with lies, were indoctrinated, and raised to fit in specific boxes (in my case; traditional housewife) thus making it very difficult for us to do anything with ourselves when we do inevitably leave. we always end up back with our families and in the same or similar toxic situations even if it's not the cult like ones. and of course i say religious but literally any form of childhood abuse that results in complete isolation will make it much harder to leave than just heading off to college or moving out at 18.

do not hold on to the idea that you can just leave at 18. if you end up where im at you'll be drowning in self loathing and regrets because you couldn't do it. instead just stick to more vague affirmations like "i'll be out some day", "nothing is permanent", "a long time isn't forever", etc. giving yourself set dates and times to get out of a situation and putting numbers to shit does nothing but put unnecessary pressure on you. i ended up having all my hard work pushed back because the people i tried to escape sabotaged my entire life and left me for dead causing me to first go to my dad who just genuinely had no idea what to do with me and now my mother who's toxic as all hell and has no idea how badly i was abused causing her to respond to my symptoms and stuntedness with hostility or bitter annoyance. rushing to get out at 18 made me the family disappointment because i wasn't ready and my abusers still had too much control. but i was always told 18 was that golden age when you can just Leave. it isn't. especially not for anyone in the younger millennial/gen z range because the economy is trash. stop letting people in their late 30s and older tell you you can just leave at 18. they're from a different world and honestly? everyone who gets away from abuse and toxicity at 18/19 probably weren't isolated and had somewhere or someone to lean on to some degree.

if you're someone who has no one and you're in the 16 age range, do not bet on just two more years. hope and work for it but do not look at people who can do it and automatically think you're gonna be ready if you haven't even been allowed to go to school. the isolation is enough to make you unready for most situations and many times people like us go back because we need to. do not put yourself in a position where you need to go back. work so that you never need to go back at all ever again but be patient because 18 is in no way ready if you're an isolated person like me. and there are a lot more of us who slip thru the cracks every day than anyone knows or wants to admit.

stop making these blanket statements about just leaving at 18 if you weren't 13 or under in 2008 and especially in a discussion about toxic and abusive families because most of us can't afford it to begin with and many people in emotionally abusive situations are victims of some form of brainwashing or extreme, forced isolation that results in mental problems, stunted development and social skills, and will often have to go back by age 20 because they left too soon thanks to that advice.

and if you want a better solution then how about we as a fuckin society start cracking down on these families and stop putting the responsibility to not be hurt anymore on literal kids who just recently have legal rights as adults, eh? how about we don't just fuckin ignore it when a kid gets pulled outta school and falls off the face of the planet like so many oft do? take people in without making them feel like burdens. just don't let kids fuckin slip through the cracks man. my life never needed to be this way but no one gave a shit about me outside of my fucked up family until college where people still would not help me get out of that house officially and for good. no one would help me with anything period because i should have known that. it's the apathy and willful ignorance of others that truly causes us to be harmed to such extreme degrees. stop telling kids they can get out at 18 unless you personally intend on bringing them in if and when shit hits the fan or are willing to sit and explain basic adulting shit to someone in their 20s without being annoyed. if you can't or won't do those things then you can't go around telling 16 year olds they only have two more years because you're creating another generation of disenchanted and virtually homeless twenty-somethings. especially now. this isolation shit is gonna last like a year or two if the influenza comparisons are right. these kids wont be able to move out at 18 unless they're taken care of. period. use your fucking head and think about current reality instead of looking back 18 years and saying "well it worked for me". like honestly fuck you.

and to those who are stuck like me, i love you and we will be okay. this sucks so fucking much but we're still alive so we can make it to where we all wanna be in the end. it's never too late to do anything for yourself and it's never shameful to take your time or go back to your abusers when you have nowhere else to go. they made it like that on purpose and no matter how it feels it's not your fault. if you're like me and went back to less bad but still toxic family, you didn't make a mistake, you just tried taking a responsible route when being faced with homelessness and got screwed. this is not your fault and you will overcome and get out just like you got out of the last one. it's so easy to hate oneself like this especially seeing people so flippantly act like 18 is the golden age of stability and maturity where we can leave home and live as an adult. this isn't the 1950s, we don't live in that world anymore. if you're alive right now and you still have the urge to leave, then you're doing just fine and it won't ever be too late for you until you die or, worse, choose complacence. just work towards a better future and don't beat yourself up when that future isn't tomorrow or go putting time limits on milestones and escape plans. it helps no one but those who want to use it as ammo when you come back in need. and many of us often do. ain't no shame in it but the shame society and its constructs put on us. you're still a kid and you're gonna be okay even if you're not ready yet. it'll happen, trust me.

i just really felt the need to get this off my chest because i never want anyone else to cry every birthday past their 18th because they "should be on (their) own by now" and i am so sick of everyone putting that age on this weird pedestal. i also don't want anyone who was in a cult like situation to feel ashamed or helpless when that happens or when they have no choice but to go back. but mostly i want people to be more fucking mindful of what they say regarding things like moving out at 18, especially if they're over 30. we need to undo the harm the "leave at 18" mindset has done as well as make an active effort to actually stop or at least help people get away from abuse and make sure no one ends up like me. i have no reason to hate myself and yet, because everyone loves shoving it in my face how supposedly easy it is, i do. let's not do this to gen z kids, guys. like please do not do this to them. i want everyone right the fuck now to realize that they're all isolated very much like i was and the ones in bad situations will come out a lot like me.

#im actually close to getting my own life and it took me like 7 years because of the way these things affect shit #like its possible and its never too late #but we need to work on this shit #im not trying to scare you kids #im trying to scare the adults #we'll be fine if the world around us stops being dicks abt it #long post #rant

[tsukiyaki]

Discipline

A couple weeks back, my life group studied the Lord’s discipline in Hebrews 12:3-11. At the end, I testified about how I came into 2020 knowing it would be a year in which God would teach me discipline, and that through that, the Spirit would bear the fruit of self control in me. In the last 3 months, I have approached work, my relationship with God, and self care with more intentionality and discipline than I ever thought I was capable of. I shared about the fruit that has come out of this grueling season. 

But shortly after, a series of events unfolded that completely destroyed my newfound lifestyle.

Growth vs. perfection

I’ve noticed that whenever I testify publicly about something great that the Lord is currently doing in my life, that very thing seems to fall apart shortly after. When that happens, my first instinct is often to question the legitimacy of the word of my testimony and wonder if I’m just a fraud. Make one mistake, and every victory from before feels invalidated. I used to think this was purely spiritual attack. But now I wonder if perhaps it’s a test of my faith. It could very well be both, knowing that what the enemy wants to use for harm, the Lord has other plans for. 

This time, I looked at how easily that practice of discipline shattered in the face of adversity. As I pondered my feelings of shame and disappointment, I realized that I still desire/value a perfect record and the certainty of approval that comes with it more than the heart and character God is interested in developing in me through both success and failure. 

If I were to truly establish my complete identity in Him and boast in Christ alone, I could fail a million times and get back up again, knowing that I have nothing to lose and my failures can’t define me, because God uses them to continue to refine me. But I am still afraid of failure, because I do still have something to lose, something that He can’t protect me from, because I have not fully surrendered it to Him: an idea of myself, who I’d like to be, and where I’d like to be able to say I’m at.

I think the perfection of Christ comes from who He is, not what He did. If I am to be perfect as Christ is perfect, the first thing I need to be able to do is let God define “perfection” and understand what its source and measure truly are. Since He is always looking at the heart, it must start there. And since only He can change a heart, there’s really nothing I can do but let Him in and embrace however He wants to bring that change to pass.

Breaking down

Starting last week, the coronavirus situation has been wiping the floor with me. At first, I was very angry at how this virus made me feel imprisoned against my will. Basically everything I was looking forward to leading into the summer got canceled. If you remember from a few blog posts ago, it’s very hard for me to deal with change. There has been a lot of nonstop change. On top of all that, the week was also very emotionally demanding for different reasons.

So I was terrified. With what felt like very little preparation, I would soon have to navigate a world that has restricted access to human interaction. How could I do that and come to a point where I could accept that that is part of who I am and a legitimate need, but also know that even without that, Christ is sufficient for me? I couldn’t, as far as I was concerned. So I rebelled and self-sabotaged.

I threw discipline out the window. I did whatever it took to feel like I still had some semblance of control over my life, even if that control was over how I chose to destroy it (e.g. not sleeping, shutting God out, indulging emotional whims).

Turning back to God

It took me a few days of mistreating myself before I summoned up the will to seek accountability. After I sent a few friends an update on my situation, I laid in bed and reached for my phone. I think it has been months since I’ve turned to God for a “Spotify therapy session.” I put my worship playlist on shuffle, and He speaks to me through the songs. I realized that I had stopped because I thought it was a cheap way to connect with Him, that I was cheating in some way by not sitting myself down for hours, highlighters and pen in hand, solemnly deconstructing the Bible word by word to find Him instead. I still had this impression of what “seeking God” looks like based on the standard examples provided at church, and everything else just didn’t seem legitimate. But He continues challenging me to stop looking to other people to tell me how to live my life, stop waiting for someone else’s approval and affirmation before I can believe that I know anything, and to start trusting that I know how He leads me.

We often advise people to “give it to God” or “go seek the Lord,” but what does that really mean? Just like no two people relate to others in the same way, apart from God Himself, nobody knows better than you and I how we best connect with God. And while the Word and prayer are inevitable, they aren’t confined to retreating with a paper Bible or assuming a certain prayer stance. Finding comfort in God and hearing Him speak could look different for every person, and it’s our job to figure it out for ourselves. But across the board, I think what we’re really saying is whatever your method is, go do it so you can get a fresh revelation of Him, a fresh encounter, a moment of connection in which you step into His presence, encounter His glory, and watch it eclipse everything else. And that’s what happened to me over the course of 14 songs on Spotify. 

Spotify therapy

Before I pressed play, I was a shell of myself. I had no desire to do anything. I was defeated and desperate. I thought there was no way out of the suffocating circumstances I found myself in. Within an hour of listening to the Lord speak to me, I felt like I had risen on wings like eagles.

He opened my eyes to the fact that the same thing that's causing so much division and chaos right now may be the very thing that forces us to become tighter and more connected globally and in our own communities, if we want to survive. Because anything else that anybody could usually find their security in is being stripped away right now. What's left is a really good, honest look at where our hearts really are, and what is really worth building a life on that’s capable of sustaining us. The answer will be Jesus.

In my own life, I’ve seen in the midst of a much more demanding workload that being able to regularly be with people is something that matters as much to me as breathing. And when coronavirus threatened that and took it away, I threw a fit, because I felt out of control. I felt helpless and feared the pain of having my air taken away. I also felt guilty and scared that I seemed to have learned nothing about discipline, and that people were still an idol in my life. But when I finally chose to bring this all before God, He simply reminded me that I am fully provided for, and I actually believed Him. 

His love bolstered me. I remember those 14 songs and the message He spoke to me. He is my provider. I have all I need in Him. His love is my reward and the reason I keep pressing forward. I am not alone, and He goes before me to make a way. He loves me. He loves me. He loves me so much. He has already won this war. Even as I play my part and partner with Him, I walk in and towards certain victory. He has won my heart more than any other. There is no one more beautiful, more wonderful, more glorious than He. He is so much more than what I leave behind, so much more than anything I could ever lose, so I can afford to live this life to its fullest. I can love like I am unafraid of having my heart broken, because I can afford to love like Jesus loves. I do not have to stand here second-guessing myself and calling myself an idiot for caring too much. I can stand here confidently knowing His people are worth every fallen tear, worth facing any fear, worth the effort. And that includes me.

And whether it hurts like hell or the fight is won, I will praise the Lord, because He calls me to do so and says I can. So I will.

Getting back up

Even when everything felt like it was falling apart, the moment He showed me that He knows exactly what’s going on, nothing has changed between us, and He is so close that even without me telling him, he knows where I'm at--that was enough for me to stand back up and try again, without anything changing for the better in my circumstances.

Things didn’t stop at me feeling better about my life or myself. After being strengthened again, I went out and did what the enemy tried to stop me from doing: I praised God, I declared His truth with even more boldness than I had at life group, and I saw nothing but opportunity where there was once despair. I had not only found vision and purpose again, I heard His voice again, a voice that silenced every other. I reached out to my coworkers with newfound appreciation in my heart, and I made sure they knew how much they meant to me. I reminded a coworker of how when the darkness grows, the light shines ever brighter, and that is exactly the climate the world finds itself in with this coronavirus pandemic, and he too was encouraged and caught the vision. I had a great talk with another friend later in the day and was able to encourage and comfort him through his circumstances.

I sucked it up and stopped being angry that I would have to suffer for at least the next month and not get to connect with people in the easy, convenient way I’m used to. And I realized if the world won’t hand connection and community to me on a silver platter, fine, because God built me with the gifting and vision to make a silver platter of my own, even to be that silver platter for others, and that is enough.

When the war is won but the battles keep on

Honestly, I wish the testimony could end there, but it doesn’t. Just a few hours after all of those victories, I sunk back into an emotional pit. But things had changed, ever so slightly. I went to bed on time. I kept seeking accountability. I ended the day admitting that I was even further from perfection than I thought I was, yet I was somehow more accepting of where I was than before. And I took that as proof that I had grown. 

This week has been another week of trial by fire. It has been the hardest week of 2020 so far (I honestly didn’t think it could get worse than last week, but the record amount of tears I’ve shed prove me wrong), but not for the reasons I thought it would be. In just the last couple of days, I realized I’ve made several wrong conclusions in this very blog post about where I’m at and what I need or desire. But admitting that I’m wrong opened up the door to more growth, a very challenging and painful kind of growth.

And then it hit me: this is discipline.

The Lord loves me so so much, for He is disciplining me. Hebrews 12:3-11 could not be more real to me than it is right now. I didn’t waste the first 3 months of this year. I didn’t get thrown into this situation carelessly. God has been preparing me way ahead of time by getting me to a point where I could survive my current circumstances. He trained me in discipline that I could schedule and plan for, which was a step up from having none at all. But now, He is building discipline into my character. 

Character is something no storm in life could ever take from me. Character is what’s left when my habits and willpower are stripped away like they were this past week. I’ve got a long way to go, and I’m honestly not looking forward to it because it’s going to be painful. Hebrews promised me that much. But I want that yield of peaceful fruit of righteousness in those who have been trained by discipline. I want to be a child of God who has given Him everything, so that He can work in me to will and to work for his good pleasure, with no restrictions. I know, somewhere deep down inside me, this is all going to be worth it.

Please pray for me as I continue this arduous journey. I need it.

#dominoes

[mbti-notes]

How can I, an INFP, help an ENFP in a loop? He's been looping for months, it happened after his gf ended the relationship. He's very judgmental, hates humanity, has violent fantasies towards his ex. He often talks about winning/losing, dependence/domination in his relationships, projects his feelings of dependency and weakness into his friends and is sometimes very disrespectful to them. (1/3)

[con’t: (but he isn’t always like that. (!) He can be very friendly and respectful and then suddenly change w/o a visible cause). He says he never ever felt happy for another person, that he never feels pity, never is emotionally touched by something. When I talk to him, I’m sympathetic. He is in a lot of pain and can’t see a way out. But I also tell him when his behavior is childish or low or cruel. I try to give him advice and he genuinely listens to me (and he wants to talk to me about his pain)but can’t apply it (I know it’s very difficult for a looping person). He used to be a creative, charming, sweet and very amicable and optimistic person. He did feel happy for people and he did feel pity, I know this. But now he says he feels like he can’t change because his feelings of contempt and despair are his identity. How can I help him? (we’re all in our early 20s).]

When NFs turn their pain into their identity, there’s not much you can do to help them because all of your suggestions will sound to them like you are disrespecting their individuality and that “you don’t really understand” them (therefore, they shouldn’t listen to you). It’s a difficult situation to deal with. He still hears you out and is not so far gone as to dismiss you outright, which is good. It’s good that he’s known what it’s like to be healthy. Unhealthy NFs tend to suffer self-esteem problems and are extremely sensitive to criticism, so your words should carry a tone of positivity, encouragement, and hopeful possibility. You’ve already got the empathy, make sure it comes out in everything you do and say if you don’t want him to become defensive towards you.

The way he indulges his pain is a defense mechanism (tertiary loop). Anger and vindictiveness provide the illusion of strength and control. When a person is forced into a powerless and vulnerable position (as is often the case with romantic breakups), it is natural to want to stabilize oneself by grasping for any form of power and influence. Why do you think many divorces get so nasty? For enfps, this unfortunately takes the form of Te loop, which essentially means becoming an asshole, as you’ve witnessed firsthand. But this is just a flimsy way to hide from the pain of feeling helpless and the hurt of feeling discarded. Ideally, a person should embrace their vulnerability, take the hit and face the facts of the negative event, i.e., to exercise proper self-care and graceful acceptance. When they can’t, the negative emotions remain unresolved, just left to fester, escalate, and turn into something ugly. This can be particularly difficult for men who have been socialized to believe that they are entitled to what they want and that they should never have to feel helpless and vulnerable, so their low emotional intelligence leaves them with no healthy recourse to release their negative feelings, which unfortunately promotes anger and violence as last resorts.

Issue 1: He takes the breakup much too personally, which most people are prone to do; it is the rare person who can remain on good and amicable terms with all their exes. Relationships end for a variety of complicated factors and reasons, sometimes for good reason. It seems that he doesn’t understand the real reason why this relationship had to end, which means that he still holds on to the idea that it “shouldn’t” have ended. “End” doesn’t have to equal “bad”, especially when it opens up the possibility of finding a better relationship. Being dumped feels like someone stabbed you on purpose when, actually, the person is simply realizing that it’s not the path they should be on, which automatically means that it’s not the path you should be on, either. When FPs get vindictive, it is because they believe they’ve been “wronged” and they want to even the score. This is not the right way to look at the situation because it means you’re holding on to something that’s dead, you’re wasting time and energy on something that’s dead, you’re harming yourself terribly by filling your heart with hate and spite about something that’s dead. Oftentimes, forgiveness is not even about the other person and what they did/don’t/didn’t do, it’s really about exercising self-care and not wanting to be a hateful and spiteful person. 

Issue 2: He turns pain into his identity, which is easy to do when one’s identity is fluid or poorly defined as is usually the case with lack of proper auxiliary Fi development. One of the great things about being NF is that a person genuinely believes they can be whatever they imagine they can be. In the best case scenario, this means that they strive to achieve their true potential and they work towards becoming a better version of themselves. In the worst case scenario, this means that a person can get totally stuck when they can’t imagine that anything better is possible. In other words, in terms of their self-image, belief often becomes reality for NFs. With inferior Si, it is common for enfps to jump to the conclusion that “hope is false” when their ideals/dreams are proven wrong/empty by a painful setback or failure. When mired in Te loop, enfps don’t have to take responsibility for being their worst self because they are able to pin the blame on something/someone else for “making” them turn bad. But a person can only be “made” to turn bad when their moral foundation was weak to begin with (Fi). Anger feels good when you’ve convinced yourself that it’s “righteous”, and he’s thusly motivated to indulge and perpetuate it. I think he fails to accurately envision where this road really leads him and he seems willing to destroy himself to prove a moot point that only he knows and cares about, which speaks to weak Fi. By indulging the false and twisted power of cynical anger, he can convince himself that he is not bad but rather it is the world and other people who are bad and he’s “forced” to be a part of it, that he is somehow better than the gf. But the reality is that his negative behavior basically just proves that she was right to leave him, and if this ever dawns on him (though it probably won’t), it can create an even bigger blow to his self-esteem.

Whatever other people do or don’t do, if you’re truly a good person, you’ll at least always try to make good moral decisions no matter what problems and challenges you encounter in life. If you can only be a good person under certain, shifting, very conveniently defined conditions, then it’s not real, is it? This is what he doesn’t understand because of weak Fi. At the end of the day, you have the final say about what kind of person you choose to be. If you choose to be full of spite, then it is you who has chosen to close the door to everything good in yourself - it is self-sabotage. Choosing one path often means that you can’t choose another: choosing negativity means that you close the door on positivity, choosing to harp on the past means that you close the door to a better future, choosing anger means that you close the door on feeling love. He needs to understand this truth so that he can accept responsibility for his life, then he can practice self-care and move forward.

#enfp #te loop #si grip #revenge #anger #forgiveness #emotional intelligence #ask

[takethepresent]

August 20, 2018 - Open

Looking back, I am actually surprised I was as open and vulnerable as I have been these last few posts. I hid a lot in. I bottled it up. In the moment, it seemed so natural. Now that this part of myself has surfaced, it seems so foreign to be open about anything.

Even as I type this, my throat randomly started hurting for the last hour. I started coughing. I guess it’s time for me to open up. Truthfully, these feelings surprised me too. I think I didn’t realize I felt this way back then either. They were just there, and I was numb.

I have been pondering on why I manifest drama in my life. It is very unlike someone like me to be involved in drama at all. I am so chill and go with the flow. I normally smile at drama and move along.

However, I manifested the most dramatic person I have ever met in my entire life in a romantic relationship. I know she mirrored me, so I have been pondering on what this truly meant.

At first, it sounded like a foreign concept. Me? Dramatic? I literally hear about suicide and depression on a daily basis and don’t bat an eye. I see the most violent, aggressive, hurtful things on social media, and it doesn’t faze me at all. I react so calmly to angry or aggressive people.

However, my relationship was filled with so much unnecessary drama. It felt like she wanted to start drama for the fun of it. It almost seemed like she liked the attention. It seemed like the liked the thrill of it. I meditated on this and got some answers.

For one, I was a very dramatic person before my conscious journey. In my family life, I complained about everything. I was the pickiest eater ever. Part of me relates that to my mom. She was very particular about things. My dad was also a big critic. I feel like complaints have been a core part of my experience. I don’t really know what it means to be in at peace externally. This part of me doesn’t know what it means to be at peace internally. It has experienced strife its entire life (ironically, the last card in my tarot readings was “Rest From Strife”).

In high school, I was very dramatic. In fact, I often enjoyed being at the center of the drama. The drama I was apart of wasn’t the relationship kind of drama. It wasn’t related to my relationships with people necessarily. Rather, I was more into the publicly embarrass you on Twitter type of drama.

I was known for this. People even feared me. Some called me a legend. Some hated me.

I have vivid memories of certain things that I did. These memories were when I went too far. To me, it was all fun and games. However, I remember seeing the look on this girl’s face when she saw me the next day. She hated me so much. I had teamed up with one of my friends to “expose” her on Twitter.

I think part of myself felt justified. Some of these people really were bullies. I put them in their place. I never really picked on anyone who I thought was truly innocent.

I did this for three years. It only made sense that I would experience three years of unnecessary drama in my relationship.

I bullied people for three years. It only made sense that I got bullied for three years in my relationship.

I pushed everyone away for three years. It only made sense that I would get pushed away for three years in my relationship.

I watched myself self-sabotage for three years. It only made sense that I would watch my significant other self-sabotage for three years.

I think part of me enjoyed the drama. For once, I got the attention I always wanted from my family. I finally felt heard. The entire school heard me and feared me. The power of feeling heard was very real to me.

I think I also enjoyed the drama because it was an escape from my routine lifestyle. Rather, it wasn’t my daily choices themselves that were routine. It was the mask I wore was boring to me. I sought out ways to make it fun or adventurous or interesting. People-pleasing really is so fucking boring.

I watched my ex try so hard to please others for three years at the expense of our relationship. I watched myself try so hard to please others for three years at the expense of my relationship with myself.

Part of me likes how messy and chaotic drama can be. I think I liked it because for once, my external reality matched my internal reality. For once, I felt like I had a valid reason to feel the way I did inside. For once, I felt like others could feel what I felt for so long.

For so long, I felt like a broken mess inside. I felt a dark chaos inside of me. I was so scared of ever confronting it though. I bottled it up and threw it in the ocean that is my subconscious. I tied weights to it and hoped it would sink to the very bottom. It did.

I had to dive to the bottom of my subconscious to uncover it.

Inside the bottle, I find the familiar dark chaos. I find the familiar feelings of helplessness. I find some familiar memories. I find memories of me surrounded by people and feeling lonely. I find memories of me at the wildest parties and feeling so numbingly depressed. I find memories of me so afraid to be my true self. I remember caring so much what key people in my life thought of me. Many of those memories involved girls. I was “close” friends with so many girls, and all of those friendships faded.

I find the familiar feeling of abandonment. I find the familiar feeling of wanting to runaway. I find the familiar feeling of wanting to cut everyone off. I find the familiar feeling of feeling so misunderstood. I was living a lie.

I am a scorpio sun and moon. For a scorpio to suppress its emotions is the fastest way to self-destruct. It will stop at nothing to feel those emotions in the most intense way possible. It will stop at nothing.

I always loved The Weeknd’s music. I could always feel the pain in his music. It reminded me of that inner chaos.

I am going to feel it now. Perhaps I will write some more after that.

Well I felt it. I felt it a lot. It was incredible. A lot of ugly crying for so long, lying on the floor of my shower. It was incredible. Truly. Wow. A lot of truth uncovered.

I was raging in my apartment. It was triggered by thoughts and feelings about my ex. I quickly released it in whatever way it wanted to come out. By the time I hit the shower, I had my sacral chakra playlist on shuffle, and the anger was fading. I could feel the sadness.

I distinctly remember saying, “I hate that I love you” many times. I’m sure that “I hate you” always means “I hate that I love you” in some way. At first, it was about my ex. Then it was about me. What happened?

Once again, I realized how my relationship with my ex mirrored me.

I was attached to my ex because she mirrored my inner crazy. I thought she was beautiful though. I loved her for who she was despite her feeling like nobody would ever love her for who she truly was, hence why she hid herself from everyone. Even when she revealed herself to me, she became secretly afraid that I would suddenly abandon her like she abandons herself every day trying to please others.

I released my attachment to my ex in loving my inner crazy.

As I did this, I found the most beautiful person ever. I found the most beautiful mind. I found so much beauty. I was blown away. How crazy did I have to be to judge this part of myself as crazy? I was no longer numb. I could finally feel again. I could feel what I have done to help others. It was incredible. I could finally feel all of the things I have ever done. Wow. I am such an amazing person, truly. I inspire myself. I love myself so much, I even wrote myself a love letter. I posted the last part of the letter on my blog as well. The love letter could easily apply to my ex in that it mirrored all of the ways that she loved me. She loved me so much, so much.

I picked up on so much mirroring. Most of this was in the initial sadness I felt as I first stepped in the shower.

Initially, I thought about how it was so blatantly obvious she was running from herself. I thought about how she is trying to act like I never existed in every way possible. That mirrored the way I treated this part of myself. I tried to act like it never existed in every way possible. I felt so much sadness from this part of myself from that.

My ex really had no issues with the relationship literally a week before. She was so happy. However, fear made her suddenly self-sabotage. The same applied to me. This part of myself that I cut off and judged as crazy was never crazy at all. There were literally no issues with my relationship with it. It was perfect, but I cut it off suddenly out of fear. Our relationship was amazing in so many ways.

My ex is trying to replace me but it would never work. I filled all of her voids. I gave her every bit of love she could ever desire. I loved her in every way that a person needs to be loved in order to find inner peace. I opened her up to new dimensions of consciousness. I helped her out of her most destructive times. She was flourishing. I showed her the beauty of life. I helped her learn so many things like how to stand up for herself, how to say no to manipulative/controlling people, how to feel her emotions, how to form genuine connections with people, how to rebuild her relationship with her family, how to appreciate the parts of herself that she judged as crazy, how to forgive herself for her most shameful behaviors, etc. Now, she is likely seeking out people on social media. I noticed that the lonelier she felt, the more she replied to people’s stories on Snapchat and Instagram. I even noticed how when she wasn’t getting attention from me, she would seek out attention from other men. I noticed how when she wasn’t with me, she would settle for the most surface level, empty interactions with people. She would act like it was fulfilling, but it never was, not like her interactions with me at least.

The same applied to this part of myself. It gave me everything. EVERYTHING. It literally exposed me to higher dimensions of consciousness, and it still didn’t feel like it was enough. I literally cut it off. It completely changed my life, and I cut it off like the coward I was, just like my ex. Incredible. I had the nerve to call it crazy. Was I not crazy for repeatedly cutting off the best thing in my life for years? I tried to replace it. I even tried to use my ex to replace it. It worked for 3 years. That’s how beautiful my ex was inside and out. However, before my ex, I had settled for so much empty, surface level stuff. I settled for surface level interactions that could not possibly fill the void. I did this so much. I settled for mediocre content and activities and relationships that could never replace this part of myself, not even close.

My ex is all about self-care now apparently. I was annoyed because that is so hypocritical of her. How can you talk about self-care, but you just cut off the person who enhanced your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health/well-being in so many ways? That sounds a whole lot like self-sabotage.

The same applied to me. How could I post about self-care tips on my Twitter, but I was still cutting off the part of myself that enhanced all of those parts of my life? I was a hypocrite.

I felt so sad that nobody would help me with my ex. She was so obviously running away and self-sabotaging. She obviously still loved me so much. This was the 5th time she has done this. Everybody acted like it was healthy. Everybody acted like pretending like I never existed was healthy, as if I was not the most important person in her entire life.

Then I realized that they were running away just as much. The way she framed the breakup to people made them think she was doing it in a healthy way. No, you actually had to be present to notice the signs. If you listened to her on the surface, you would never bat an eye.

The same applied to me. This part of me felt the exact same way. It felt so alone. It felt so hopeless. It felt like nobody would listen to it or help it. I was so obviously self-sabotaging, and nobody else would help because they were running away just as much. This reminded me a lot of high school. I was literally exposing people’s worst secrets on Twitter, and nobody around me said anything. I was so obviously depressed. It was obviously a huge cry for help. I was so depressingly numb and empty. Everybody else in my friend group was numb and empty too. They just laughed and thought it was funny. We just continued on, just like my ex is doing. Her friends probably think it’s not a big deal at all.

What they don’t realize is that my ex will literally not progress in life until she reconnects with the part of herself she cut off. She irrationally cut me off, blocked me on everything, and acted like I never existed. She cut off so many forms of love that she was dependent on me for. This part of herself she cut off, the part of herself mirrored by me, is so important for her well-being. Without it, she will surely experience a downward spiral. Anyone who knows this and doesn’t do anything about it cannot call themselves her friend. It is the same as passively watching someone with an extremely unhealthy addiction.

Speaking of which, I realized that when we become deeply attached to people, they become more like drugs to us. They are just a way for us to feel a certain way. We no longer see them as people. We see them as another way to avoid ourselves.

Anyhow, life is so fucking amazing. I love you all. I am going to spend more time with this part of myself. I missed this so much.

#journal

[myheartislookingforyoualways]

03.12.2021

Dear G,

I hope had you a better day than yesterday. I checked your twitter and you said you were feeling low and blue. I read your tweets and my first instinct is to just call you, message you, hug you, hold you.  I wish there was something, anything, I could say or do, but we’re separated now in more ways than just the odd five thousand kilometers between us. I just want to hold you and hug you. I miss being able to just message you or call you. Everyday this hole in my heart just gets heavier and bigger. Every day I think i’m going to be ok and there’s no way I could be missing you more but every day I prove myself wrong. Today I kept wanting to just call you and I got more and more sad that i just couldn’t do that. I lost my besh fren and you’re not here anymore at all. There was always something so magical about the feeling of sharing our lives together that felt like a huge warm blanket. I was always so secure and safe inside that with you. You felt like home. You are my home.  II know that there is nothing I could say right now to you to make you feel better and you probably don’t even want me to reach out to you right now. It still doesn’t stop me from feeling like I want to reach out to you. I can’t help it. I just need to.  I know that I’m the cause of your pain and I also know that there isn’t really anything i could say right now to make you feel better. I feel sad, angry, helpless, and completely useless thinking about how I put us in this situation. Why did I do this to us? We had it all, I had everything when I had you. Now I can’t even message  you or call you. Yes I do keep up with your Twitter, Tumblr VSCO and now Spotify. At first it was enough, it was like I was getting rationed you. I would check in with your platforms and get just enough of you to get by. But then I tried to push more and I realized that no matter what nothing will ever compare to being in the light of talking with you, holding you, kissing you, living with you. I know what that feels like and I am really just starting to feel what it is I lost when I pushed you away and choose drugs over you. I wish I wish I wish I wish I could throw it all away now and just get you. Nothing no amount of drugs or alcohol will ever fill this void in my heart. It just gnaws at me more day after day after day. I still think of the laughs, the love, the joy but these days as I start to get some more clarity and start to get past the fog in my mind, I can’t help but just hate myself over how I treated you in the end. About how I was so fucked up in my fucking addiction to lose sight of what really mattered. You. Me. Us. All the little dreams we shared. That I wanted too. All the little things we were to each other. All of it. All of it. I just cheated myself and us out of what we both shared. For what? For nothing. For drugs. For fucking drugs. You are the love of my life. I found you. You found me. We found each other. Then I had to go and lose myself again to addiction. I miss all our little talks of how we met, how we dated, how we started, how we used to talk about the future, about how we had so many plans. I miss the story of us. You’ve left such a huge imprint on my soul and now that you’re gone I feel like I’ve lost a huge part of me. I’ll always want you. I’ll always want us. I  will never ever give up on us. I still see us being together in the end. I will wait. If I have to wait forever I will. I just want you. You are the only one that I will always want. Its such a saddening thing to know that you are here and I am here, living on the same planet but not together. 

Last week I wrote so many emails to you and then just before sending I deleted them all. This week I haven’t done that.  I know now that what you need right now is space and time. I can feel your anger, your pain, your sadness and your heartache from all this distance away. Your posts and your tweet still speak to me and I can feel you. I’m going to back off though from trying to directly talk to you. Its just so agonizing I just want to talk to you. I miss you so much its hard to get thru the days without u.  I can feel every little thing that you’re going thru. I’ve stopped messaging you on your blocked WhatApp chat awhile ago becaus it just started to hurt more than it helped. Nowadays I just look at the greyed out avatar, somehow hoping that you will unblock me and we can message each other again, talk to each other, send voice notes to each other. I stare at it for awhile then I close the app. I know that you won’t unblock me deep down, not now at least, maybe not ever. I hope with all my hopes thought that someday we can talk to each other again. I miss your voice, I miss your laugh, I miss your smile, I miss your everything. It doesn’t really matter though because nowadays I see you everywhere I go, I hear your voice, I think about everything that we’ve ever done together, anything and everything. I go on and on and on through my days now doing the same thing over and over again and I see you everywhere. This entire city is full of memories of you and me, things we did together, feelings I had in specific spots, all of it, this entire city is relational to you.  I daydream now all the time throughout the day about you. I actually look forward to remembering every little thing because I never want to forget. Not that I could even if I wanted to, you’ve imprinted on me. I’m here living my life, thinking of when our life was together, thinking of when we shared our life together in this city. My heart and my mind are always with you and I’m not really here right now I’m with you somehow. I often think that maybe you can feel me too . I often wonder if you think about me as much as I think about you. I think about you all the time. I think about the feeling it was like when we both shared the same life, when we were both together, and then I just think of how completely separated I feel from I life that I still desperately want. I want it back. I want you back. I want us back. I focus on the happy moments that we both had, all the hope, all the laughs, all the joy. It seemed so simple in the beginning. I love you. I want to be with you always. I want to take care of you. Then I had to go and make it difficult. My lies, my insecurities, then my self sabotage, and my addictions. They just came and stole away everything that I wanted from us and for us. I’ll never forget in the last days how you said I’m going to finally get what I wanted - to be miserable. Well I didn’t want that at all. What I wanted and what I still want and will always want is us. But I am miserable. I feel like I’m living a shadow life, like someone has robbed me of my happy life with the love of my life. The worst thing is that its just me that did that to me and to us. 

I go through these moments of complete disbelief, like I’m just going to get a message from you, or I’m going to come home and you’ll be here saying hey bb. I’ve been thinking nowadays about how long it has been since I pushed you away and you had to leave. I start to get really desperate at times. Something will just set me off, just a thought or a song and I will get this painful and sharp sadness. If I’m driving I’ll writhe in my chair. If I’m at home, I’ll twist on the couch or the bed. My nails have never been worse. Then I self talk myself, telling myself to take responsibility for my actions and the consequences of those. I tell myself that if there is ever any hope of ever seeing you again I need to do what I am doing now and keep working on myself and getting better.  I really just have this hope that somehow once this is all over we can be together again. I would want nothing else in my life than that. But I also have to be open to the possibility that you do not want that anymore. That thought terrifies me. Absolutely completely scared that you will not love me anymore or you don’t want to give us another chance. I am holding on to the hope with clenched hands. I know that this isn’t about you or even us its about me and my recovery but there is a huge part of me that is completely heartbroken that I did this to us and I just want to be able to be the person I was before. I know we can’t go back to before, nobody ever can, and I know it won’t exactly be a new beginning either. I do know that I love you and I always will and you are the only person I will ever want. I’ll never stop until I’m back to you. I do realize that this choice isn’t really up to me at all and I have no say in it. I have no control over you, not that I ever did, no matter how desperately I want us back, if you do not then there’s nothing I can do about it. I am going to have to be open to that possibility when I contact you again. The only thing that will bring you back is your choice. The only reason for coming back could only be love. I don’t deserve anything from you G but I cannot ever stop loving you.  I am so full of excitement, fear, anxiety, everything over contacting you when I’m a month sober that I don’t even know what I will say. Will you even message me back? Will you be over me and have moved on? Will you not want to talk to me? I am just full of hope but I’m not going to have any expectations. For now you are where you are and I am where I am which is exactly the consequence of my actions for which I will always be sorry for G. 

Yesterday was the anniversary of WHO labelling COVID a pandemic. Remember how you said I told you so. Thought about that yesterday and smiled. Remember when you were so worried about toilet paper? Remember how it felt like it was the end of the world and we were just two souls facing it together. Remember how I woke up to check your breathing when we thought you had it and you probably did? Remember when i came back from Uber and picked u up because I felt really sick then we had passionate sex? Remember all those things? Remember the feeling? You and me. Ride or Die. Us . I still feel it. I feel it so much even now when you’re all that ways away from me and from us.  I’m smiling thinking about it. 

I love you

I only ever want you

If not you nobody

I’ll wait for you

Forever if I have to 

[771lljosephkwesiasemnor]

New post on Longreads

The View From 5-Foot-3 (and a Half)

by Soraya Roberts

Soraya Roberts | Longreads | June 2019 | 9 minutes (2,497 words)

Okay, I’m not even that short, but I just watched Reese Witherspoon get called “untrustworthy” on Big Little Lies for being 5-foot-1 so I have to talk about it. I’m actually 2.5 inches taller than she is — I’m aware that insisting on that half inch makes me sound like a pedantic asshole — but that’s still short enough that when I lost half an inch it felt like a betrayal. I don’t know where that half inch went; all I know is that one day I was 5-foot-4, and the next I was 5-foot-3-and-a-half. Who cares, right? Terry Gross is 4-foot-11 and recently interviewed Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who is 5-foot-9 and asked the Fresh Air host if being short affected her. I could basically hear Gross’s shrug through the microphone. And same. But now that I think about it, that's a heavy shrug.

Witherspoon was disparaged by Meryl Streep, who was playing the mother of a man who abused his wife. In a sense, the former was representing feminism; the latter internalized misogyny — that unpleasant habit we have of acting out sexism despite ourselves. What’s interesting is that most of us don’t actually need a Streep to do it. We're pretty good at hacking away at our own self confidence, conjuring imaginary competitions with other women, isolating ourselves from them, all of which has the self-sabotaging effect of perpetuating the behavior that keeps us down. It’s not really about height, but height is as good a marker as any for how the world sees us and how we see the world (and ourselves in it) — in other words, for how trustworthy 5-foot-3-and-a-half becomes.

* * *

In the Big Little Lies scene in question, Madeline (Witherspoon) is at a coffee shop and notices Mary Louise (Streep), the mother of the guy she saw getting pushed to his death last season (it’s a soap). The way Madeline’s holding her muffin, that blush-pink blouse with the bow and the matching makeup and the black cardigan — she looks like such a lady who lunches. A small lady. While she is phonily consoling the older woman, Mary Louise suddenly exclaims, “You’re very short.” The face Witherspoon makes is perfect. She says, “Excuse me?” but with her head a little down so it looks like her entire face is puckered and she’s time traveled back to eighth grade when she was a 13-year-old girl saying, “What did you say, bitch?” to some bitch. Mary Louise kind of backtracks but not really: “I find” — somehow Streep manages here to look down at Witherspoon while looking up at her — “little people to be” — at this Streep ever so slightly toggles her head back and forth like she’s not tossing off a total insult — “untrustworthy.”

There’s a lot going on here, chiefly the clashing of present and past: Madeline is now, Mary Louise is then. You’ve got this younger woman who watched as her best friend’s abusive husband was killed, then covered it up without losing much sleep because he was a piece of shit and the (fictional) world is better off without him. Then you’ve got this older woman, the mother of the abuser, who believes her son was done wrong, not realizing that he was the one doing all the wrong. So, really, if you want to be Feminism 101 about it, this is the patriarchy confronting feminist progress and trying to subvert it. But it’s a lot easier to fight that when you’ve got Streep right in front of you than when she’s in your head.

I don’t think I’ve ever been reduced to my height like this, but it often defines how I think of myself. As a child I was often one of the smallest in my class, and while I would’ve preferred to be one of the tallest, at least I wasn’t one of the kids you don’t even mention. Like being short meant being original. Like at least I owned one superlative — if not the smartest or prettiest — and it wasn’t one that was obviously bad, like being the dumbest or the meanest (although the latter I kind of liked too). I think that all came less from my actual stature and more from wherever my shoddy self-esteem did. I saw my shortness as a stand-in for the interesting personality I was pretty sure I didn’t have. It was like a flipped Napoleon complex, which isn’t about his height — he was 5-foot-7! — but about being compelled by what you perceive as a disadvantage to overcompensate by being outsize in some other way. My perceived disability was that I was invisible, so I outsized the meaning of my shortness. (By the time I grew out of my height defining my originality, I was memorable for other things. Like my sparkling personality.)

We aren’t a very tall family, but it’s always made sense to me that the men are bigger than the women, like that’s how it’s supposed to be, Darwin-style. The women are dainty and elegant and the men can be whatever the fuck they want — they’re taller, just like they’re smarter. So from the start, height was a moral issue, and if there was a discrepancy between mine and any other girl’s, there was a problem with one of us. Every time I’d see a much taller girl I’d think, Jesus Christ, thank God I’m doing one thing right. As if it were a conscious decision I’d made, as if I had anything to do with how I looked. It’s gone the opposite way in adulthood; whenever I’m in a room with a taller woman, I feel way less visible. Actually, that’s a nice way of saying I feel like shit. I feel like a farmhand from the Middle Ages or like some dumpy nursemaid from *waves absently* that same era — an uneducated unsophisticated plebe. The best women — richer, smarter, prettier ‚ are all tall and thin and long-limbed and I’m a runt.

Knowing that all of this has to do with historic myths about gender and health and beauty — not to mention that I literally cannot find a pair of pants I don’t have to hem — creates the shoe paradox, which is a thing I just made up but which is also very real. It’s the feeling of being very riot grrrl when you wear any sort of flat “unfeminine” shoe like a Converse or a Doc, like you are embracing your deficiency of not performing femininity appropriately (come to think of it, this is kind of an addendum to that short-being-original thing). The paradox comes in when you suddenly decide to wear heels, which don’t make you feel like a traitor but, on the contrary, imbue you with even more power because you are no longer suffering from that nonexistent deficiency. It makes no sense to me either, but then neither do the rules of a patriarchal society.

I’m not sure how much my outspokenness has to do with how I look as opposed to how I feel, but my size appears to affect how people react to it and, sort of, how I do too. Basically, I have this idea of myself as a bulldog-chihuahua, some small, pugnacious cartoon animal — growing up, my aunt called me chooha, or mouse, because I squeaked — like a fightercock with no real power. Scrappy. It seems like a lot of guys see me that way too, as endearingly mouthy but ultimately unthreatening. It has the dual effect of being simultaneously flattering and demeaning. That extends to my perceived helplessness, too. On planes I’ll be reaching for my bag in the overhead compartment and some dude will stretch over me and grab it, then smile like I’m an adorable idiot in a losing battle that he would’ve just as happily laughed at but decided on chivalry instead. I know that’s what some of them think, because it’s sometimes what I think when I’m helping someone smaller than me. When I have to ask for some item in a store that’s on an unreachable shelf, I hear myself invariably flirting with the clerk and it feels triumphant that there’s a reason to allow a (preferably hotter) person to help me. And I hate myself for it.

When I’m alone with a guy who’s bigger than me, regardless of how he looks or even how stupid he might be, I’m instinctually deferential. I thought this was weird until my editor just noted that it’s “a pretty understandable safety mechanism, no?” YES (although now I am actually questioning how stupid I am). (Ed. note: not remotely stupid.) But I think it also has to do with my even more problematic ingrained belief that most men are smarter than me (I know, I know) as well as being stronger than me (generally true). So height, regardless of the other person’s agency, becomes this zone of self-reflection where ultimately the shorter I am the less substantial I am. But then there’s the boyfriend paradox, which is not unlike the shoe paradox. I’m dating a guy right now who’s 5-foot-10, which means that when we hold hands, I can only really comfortably grab his last two fingers — yeah, it’s cute — but that also means that hugging him, because he can envelope me, feels more secure. The paradox here is finding comfort in belittling myself, which, magically, works no matter the height. I dated a guy who was 5-foot-6 and thinner than me — “I’m indie thin!” — and while hugging him felt more equal, the fact that he was thinner than me was more noticeable because we were basically the same size, which was like facing a constant living reminder that I’m unable to not be fat. The point being that internalized misogyny ensures that YOU WILL NEVER WIN.

Being a short woman in a group of women can make me as self-conscious as being a short woman in a group of men. With men I’m always struggling to be heard, although I don’t know how much that has to do with being short and how much that has to do with just being a woman. It’s fucking annoying and either makes me louder than usual or more quiet. Women don’t have to do anything to diminish me, they just have to be standing there. Most of my friends are about the same height as me, but when I’m with one who’s much taller I always feel like Ratso Rizzo from Midnight Cowboy — you know, the con man greaser who wheels and deals. I have no idea why I think I look like Dustin Hoffman. No, I do; it’s because I have this conception of myself as small and savvy and naughty and taller women generally as a bit more, well, Jon Voight as naive gigolo. It’s funny because when I’m with someone the same height as me, I’m less conscious of how I look; I’m not an outlier, so it’s a nonissue.

None of this has literally anything to do with who any of us actually are. It has to do with the false ideas I (we) have of myself in the presence of men and other women and the false ideas I (we) have of men and other women and how those things work together to make me (us) self-destruct.

Ironically, the Ratso Rizzo thing probably also comes from my unwillingness to be overlooked. I’m very much “I’m walkin’ here!” when someone taller stands in front of me at a concert or sits right in front of my face at a movie theater. It’s usually a man and I usually want to stab him for being inconsiderate even if he isn’t aware. BE AWARE! Speaking of stabbing, I’m not actually short enough for my height to determine how safe I feel. I think I would feel as unsafe alone at night with a man walking behind me even if I were 6 feet tall, because I assume men are stronger than me regardless of their size. What I do notice is that I have intense anxiety in a crowd that I might not have if I were able to see over everyone’s head. I remember this psychologist relating my anxiety to my size. She said that she commonly got small women coming in and she compared us to small birds or squirrels — you know, how they’re skittish and their hearts beat really fast? Because they’ll basically be trampled or eaten if they don’t have hyperawareness. Maybe that’s what reads as untrustworthy in shorties, their lack of trust in not being stomped.

* * *

A few scenes after the “untrustworthy” one in Big Little Lies, Madeline bumps into Mary Louise again in her real estate office because this is a soap and everyone’s always bumping into everyone else. Madeline has since exchanged her black flats for a pair of grapefruit stilettos, and Mary Louise notices: “I see you’re wearing heels.” At that Madeline confronts her about being an asshole and Mary Louise apologizes and explains that she had some shitty best friend in boarding school (of course) who made her this way: “She was just an itty-bitty little thing with a big bubbly personality that was designed to hide that she was utterly vapid inside. You remind me so much of her and I suppose I punish you for that.” Witherspoon’s face, again. And Streep, again, does this great thing, where, when Witherspoon basically tells her to eff off and walks away, Streep gives her shoes another look and chuckles, with an “Oh, sweetie” cock of the head. Like the idea that Madeline could transcend who she is is endearingly pathetic.

At the risk of playing into the sexist tradition of pitting women against one another, there’s a frustrating feeling that Mary Louise — who is only five inches taller, by the way — has won. That her misogyny has insinuated itself into Madeline to the point that she has actually changed the way she looks in order to appease it. But it’s only a short (ha) stay. Madeline later comes to the rescue of her best friend, Celeste, who is Mary Louise’s daughter-in-law, who vaguely gestures to some kind of emergency. Mary Louise, distraught, asks, “What kind of an emergency?” To which Madeline shruggingly replies, “The kind short people have?” As Madeline walks away you notice she’s wearing running shoes. I love how the connection between two women — Madeline and Celeste — can act as a shield against sexism (in this case, Mary Louise’s). Would that we could all be that strong. Which makes me think of the poll I tweeted asking how tall everyone thought I was. The majority answered 5-foot-5, almost the same height as Streep. I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t make me feel better, but I’m working on it.

* * *

Soraya Roberts is a culture columnist at Longreads.

Soraya Roberts | June 14, 2019 at 6:00 am | Tags: Big Little Lies, feminism, Height, identity, Internalized misogyny, Meryl Streep, Reese Witherspoon, Soraya Roberts | Categories: Arts & Culture, Essays & Criticism, Story | URL: https://wp.me/p4KhvY-wKE

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[marcusssanderson]

A Guide To Erasing Bad Habits From Your Life

Breaking Bad Habits Once And For All.

Erasing bad habits can be very hard sometimes, especially if you do not know the right way to do so.

I wrote this post from through the lens of addiction because it is so prevalent in our society and it’s one of my primary treatment focuses with my clients.

I’ve seen how many people on the road to success get sabotaged by the false promises of drugs and alcohol. It’s can be tough when managing a high-stress, high-achieving life to not give in to insecurities or emotional struggles that lead to sabotaging behaviors.

When I talk about “bad habits” I focus on an alcoholic example, but this could easily be emotional eating, gaming, compulsive shopping, sexual promiscuity, or any other self-sabotaging behavior.

  Making and Breaking Habits go Hand-in-Hand

Making and breaking habits are often tied together in how our mind works. We often break one habit by initiating another. For instance, quitting smoking is usually replaced by some other stress-reducing behavior like implementing a daily walking routine.

There is varied data on how long it takes to initiate a new habit or break one. There is research demonstrating evidence for it taking a few weeks to almost a year to change habitual behavior. It all depends on how quickly it integrates into our routine and becomes “automatic” – like pouring your first cup of coffee or brushing your teeth in the morning.

Current and popular research on habit formation points to a repetition of the behavior as well as having a cue as the antecedents to change. Looking at the implementation of a walking routine, the cue may be the time of day – i.e. upon waking up, you would get dressed an out the door within 30 minutes. If you practiced that daily, at some point you wouldn’t have to remind yourself; you would just wake and get ready to go for your walk.

How do we know a habit is bad for us?

We’ve known for many decades about the positive and negative reinforcement loops of engaging in behavior repetitively (think Pavlov’s dogs). Lately, a more recent, but still decades-old study is making the rounds on the internet: the Rat Park study of addiction in the 1970’s. In that study, rats were socially isolated and provided a steady stream of opiates to calm their assumed distress at living an isolated life.

At a later point in time, the rats were provided a community of other rats to mingle with. They were also still provided the option of numbing themselves with the opiates, but they found that when the rats were socially supported they did not choose the drug.

That leads to the question at hand: How do we know a habit is bad for us? When something reinforces us positively, we continue to do it.

It has been assumed that when the rats were socially isolated, they engaged in the continued opiate use because it made their rat life more tolerable. Then, when they had other rats to play with, they no longer needed the pharmacological experience since they were now getting other positive benefits from playing with their park pals.

When we explore drug abuse and reinforcement in humans, the early stage of drug and alcohol use indeed does give the user a positive effect.

The initial “positive” effects of using drugs/alcohol are:

The user often becomes more socially outgoing

When one is lonely, the drugs can numb the emotions

Using substances helps one to “forget their troubles”

The user can often get a false boost in self-esteem

  Although these are short-lived “benefits” the person who experienced them will often seek to repeat that feeling or experience, leading to repetitive engagement in that behavior. So we end up with a cue of, say, feeling insecure before a party leading to a repeated behavior of drinking before going to social events.

Because the emotional payoff can be so strong, it becomes easy to overlook the early instances of “negative reinforcement” that occurs (i.e. hangovers, sexual promiscuity) and just continue engaging in the behavior we believe will give us a positive effect.

Of course, as use continues, the positive effects become over-shadowed by the negative effects, but the user becomes both psychologically and physiologically dependent on them so they continue to use.

There is something to be said about the negative effects that keep one in that feedback loop as well. Many addicts start to get comfortable in the role of being the one that can’t be relied upon or needing to be taken care of.

When they start living in that role, their loved ones often stop putting responsibilities on them or see them as helpless due to the addiction. Their loved ones may be frustrated with them, but again, the positives outweigh the negative even when the “positive” is a ‘negative”.

This starts to get convoluted and confusing, but to understand it better think of it this way: Joe began drinking because he was frustrated that he was always working so hard and felt his wife should help out more financially.

Over time, Joe became less functional and his wife ended up having to get a better paying job in order to support the family because Joe was no longer able to do it because of his drinking. You see, Joe got exactly what he wanted, but it was at the expense of his self-worth and his marriage. No one would ever recommend this as a way to get your emotional needs met.

In the end, a habit is bad for us if it affects the quality of our daily life. For as much as Joe got what he wanted, his life was no longer the same and had dramatically taken a turn for the worse, emotionally, physically and financially.

The reinforcement loop needs to be broken so that Joe starts to learn more effective ways to get his emotional needs met (i.e. communicating with his wife instead of drinking to numb his emotions).

  The Role Rewards Play in Breaking Bad Habits

For as much as we need a strong cue and repetition to form new habits, we also need a good dose of positive rewards on the flip side when breaking bad habits. Let’s look at Joe and his alcoholism.

In the early stage of breaking his habit, Joe will need a hefty dose of positive reinforcement to outweigh the alcohol addiction because his addicted mind will be screaming loudly at him to not change his behavior.

Some rewards that might benefit Joe are:

His wife begins to give him some responsibility back, improving his sense of self-worth and importance in the family

His boss gives him some kudos for showing up for work on time consistently,

His kids start spending more time with him.

His wife starts to listen to him when she sees that he wants to participate in the family again.

  These rewards also become automatic and expected. Joe becomes motivated to stay sober because he realizes he has a sense of purpose in his family, his wife listens when he talks about his needs and his kids want to be around him. Joe has a better chance at maintaining his behavior change as long as he can still feel the reward.

5 Ways to Avoid Bad Habits

  1.) Listen to your emotional needs – You may be a high-achieving, driven person who’s always on the go! Go! GO! Even you need a break sometimes.

Listen to your mind and body and know when to take a day (or 2 or 3) off. You and the people you are working for will appreciate that you are the best version of you, rather than a tired, bitter, over-worked one.

2.) Ask for help when you need it – Just like Joe who didn’t tell his wife he needed help because he expected her to “just know” or see that he was distressed, we can’t assume our partners can read our minds. Somewhere along the route to achievement, it seems we get instilled with the idea that asking for help is a sign of weakness and the idea of acting on the impulse gets over-shadowed by shame, guilt or pride.

Don’t make Joe’s mistake and expect your partner to read your mind. No matter how much your partner loves you or how well your business partner knows you, no one is a mind-reader (and you can’t be and at them for not meeting your needs if you don’t tell them what they are).

3.) Don’t listen to that negative voice in your head – I know you know what I’m talking about. You can be on a great path to success or you can already have reached heights you never dreamed of, and yet, that little voice in the back of your mind comes creeping around the corner to tell you “you’re not good enough” or “it’s not going to last” or “everyone’s going to find out you are just faking it”.

CUT. IT. OUT! At the very first inkling of that voice, pull yourself out of your head – engage in something that brings you into focus in your present environment: notice the sounds around you, make eye contact with someone, re-engage in conversation with someone. What if you’re all alone in a silent room (ala bedtime)?

Tell yourself something different – tell yourself the TRUTH! You are competent! You are exactly who others think you are! You don’t have time to let negative thoughts get you down and you definitely don’t have time to have them lead to sabotaging bad habits.

4.) Do something each week that is just for you with no goal attached to it – For me, exercise keeps me sane, for others, it’s drawing, knitting, skating, singing, playing in a band, reading, cooking or any number of other things that just speak to one’s soul and lets you know that no matter how busy you think you are, there is always a few hours to be in touch with what fuels your spirit.

5.) Stay socially engaged – Just like the rats in the Rat Park study, we need connection with others. Staying socially engaged allows us the freedom to express ourselves and be heard by others, gives us a sense of community when our lives might otherwise feel isolated, and, of course, one of the biggest factors in self-sabotaging behavior and bad habits seems to be spurred by a sense of not feeling like we belong.

We need to feel like we belong. Especially in the case of drug and alcohol abuse we know one of the most prevalent factors in achieving and maintaining sobriety is when one has a sense of community. Try it – Next time you’re feeling alone, reach out to someone you haven’t talked to in a while – I bet you’ll both feel better for it.

The post A Guide To Erasing Bad Habits From Your Life appeared first on Everyday Power Blog.

[sarahburness]

How I Stopped Emotional Eating and Started Feeling Better About Life

“Don’t forget you’re human. It’s okay to have a meltdown, just don’t unpack and live there.” ~Unknown

For the longest time, I wanted to lose weight. I wasn’t terribly overweight but it seemed to me that if I could just have the perfect body, life would be amazing.

So, I threw everything but the kitchen sink at my food and exercise habits.

Never one to settle for small wins, I pushed myself to have the perfect diet—I prepped meals at home, didn’t eat out very much, and worked out as often as I could. Yes, the kind where I would run myself ragged and feel exhausted for the next two days.

My day until 7 p.m. would go according to plan. I’d use all of my willpower to eat right. The moment I finished work, though, life would go downhill. I would self-sabotage, stuffing myself at dinner and snacking until midnight to feel better.

I would fall asleep feeling guilty, sick, and ashamed of what I was doing. I would berate myself for not having the self-control and the discipline—this was just a pack of cookies and I couldn’t even say no to it?

I hated myself while I walked to the convenience store at midnight to sneakily buy another pack of chips. It seemed like I was compelled to eat against my will. My life felt out of control and there was nothing I could do about it. More than anything, it was this feeling of helplessness that really hurt.

At the same time, I had a career in Fortune 50—by all outward means a great job at an amazing company—yet I was sad, disenchanted, and felt like I didn’t belong in my first couple of years there.

In hindsight, I can see how I turned to food for comfort; it was why I always overate at night when I was drained out after a long day. It was the time when I needed soothing to make myself feel better, to numb the voices in my head that told me I didn’t belong, and to quieten my mind, which was always searching for answers to existentialist questions of “what is my purpose in life?”

The more and more I ate to soothe myself, the more and more my body craved food. I felt restless if I wasn’t stuffed. Instead of stopping to deal with the pain rationally, I tried to use diet, exercise, and willpower to exert some semblance of control over my otherwise clueless life.

Soon, I realized that I was in a deep hole and that all conventional attempts to get myself out of it weren’t working. I couldn’t go on feeling like this day in and day out, so I began to make a series of mindset and behavioral shifts to start feeling happy again.

As a bonus, I also lost twenty pounds in six months, stopped having cravings, and finally felt in control of my life again.

My biggest mindset shift was being compassionate with myself.

Where previously I judged myself harshly, now I try to do my best without criticism.

Where previously I would look for perfection, now I accept that I am dealing with a difficult period in my life and it’s okay to fail sometimes.

Where previously I would try to numb my emotions, now I accept that I can’t fix them immediately.

Where previously I would expect myself to overcome challenges in a jiffy, now I realize that these things take time.

My biggest behavioral shift was noticing and facing my emotions.

1. I began to notice and realize for the first time when I actually overate.

For me, it was at night after work, and no degree of willpower or keeping trigger foods out of reach seemed to help. Just noticing this pattern, however, helped me anticipate what was coming so I wasn’t caught off guard. Automatically, this made me feel more in control of what was going on with my eating.

2. I started noticing my feelings during the urge.

What was that emotion, raw and murky, that I sub-consciously didn’t want to face? Was it tiredness or sadness? Exhaustion or a pick-me-up? Often, the reality of a purposeless existence hit me hard once I was back home and all alone. The last thing I wanted to do at that point was deal with it, so I ate to forget it instead.

3. I honed it on what I actually wanted to feel—what was it that food would give me?

Did I want to be warm and comforted? In control? Alert? I was always seeking comfort, so I made myself some hot tea and sipped it mindfully, feeling the tea warming my entire body. I always eventually took a deep breath at the end of it and I felt much better.

Sometimes this relief was only temporary; I would be fine for a few hours, but by midnight I would be reaching out for food again. That’s when I realized that I also needed to face my emotions.

4. I had to take the hard step and allow myself to feel my emotions.

For me, it was sadness and hopelessness. I didn’t try to forget it. I didn’t try to distract myself from it. I just accepted the feeling.

Sometimes, it would wash over me like a tide and I’d feel like crying. At other times, I felt numb and empty. All of these feelings were only natural and perfectly normal. My body and mind were just seeking some acknowledgement and I would feel a sense of relief that the knot of emotion that was so tied up inside me was finally out.

5. On some days, allowing myself to feel my emotions was enough. On other days I had to address my feelings head on even if they made me uncomfortable.

I asked myself why I kept feeling this way. Was I just tired and overworked? Was I unhappy at where I was in life? I kept asking myself why again and again until I found a reason that resonated with me, that wasn’t just another justification to myself. I was experiencing a quarter-life crisis, it was affecting me every day and that was okay, because now I could deal with it rationally.

6. Lastly, I always gave myself the choice to eat at the end of this exercise.

If I still wanted to eat, that was fine. If I didn’t, that was fine too. It was important to me that I controlled my actions, and wasn’t a victim to my feelings.

—

In hindsight, I realize that at the end of the day, it’s not our conscious habits or behaviors that determine our happiness. It’s our unconscious desires, fears, and emotions that go unaddressed that eat us up from within, literally in this case.

If you want to stop emotional eating, recognize that it started as a symptom of something much larger—perhaps dissatisfaction with your career, finances, or relationships—something you didn’t want to face head on.

As the eating habit evolves, it gets more and more compulsive so there is a combination of mental, behavioral, and emotional hacks that all need to work together to heal. That is why conventional dieting and fitness advice doesn’t work. That is why relying on willpower doesn’t work. It’s normal that these things don’t help, and you’re normal for feeling this way.

Remember that how you respond to an emotion or a craving is your choice, always.

However hopeless you may be feeling now, know that you have the power to make changes that can transform your life. You just have to start again, even if you fail sometimes—but this time, start differently. Use your emotional awareness to beat comfort eating at its own game.

About Sai Aparajitha Gopalakrishnan

Sai helps ambitious women quit emotional eating and cravings so they can focus on their careers and families instead of fighting food all the time. A childhood psych buff and big-time foodie, Sai blogs at My Spoonful Of Soul. Get her three exclusive free gifts for Tiny Buddha readers that step-by-step guide them on their journey to quit emotional eating.

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The post How I Stopped Emotional Eating and Started Feeling Better About Life appeared first on Tiny Buddha.

from Tiny Buddha https://tinybuddha.com/blog/stopped-emotional-eating-started-feeling-better-about-life/

[marcusssanderson]

A Guide To Erasing Bad Habits From Your Life

Breaking Bad Habits Once And For All.

Erasing bad habits can be very hard sometimes, especially if you do not know the right way to do so.

I wrote this post from through the lens of addiction because it is so prevalent in our society and it’s one of my primary treatment focuses with my clients.

I’ve seen how many people on the road to success get sabotaged by the false promises of drugs and alcohol. It’s can be tough when managing a high-stress, high-achieving life to not give in to insecurities or emotional struggles that lead to sabotaging behaviors.

When I talk about “bad habits” I focus on an alcoholic example, but this could easily be emotional eating, gaming, compulsive shopping, sexual promiscuity, or any other self-sabotaging behavior.

  Making and Breaking Habits go Hand-in-Hand

Making and breaking habits are often tied together in how our mind works. We often break one habit by initiating another. For instance, quitting smoking is usually replaced by some other stress-reducing behavior like implementing a daily walking routine.

There is varied data on how long it takes to initiate a new habit or break one. There is research demonstrating evidence for it taking a few weeks to almost a year to change habitual behavior. It all depends on how quickly it integrates into our routine and becomes “automatic” – like pouring your first cup of coffee or brushing your teeth in the morning.

Current and popular research on habit formation points to a repetition of the behavior as well as having a cue as the antecedents to change. Looking at the implementation of a walking routine, the cue may be the time of day – i.e. upon waking up, you would get dressed an out the door within 30 minutes. If you practiced that daily, at some point you wouldn’t have to remind yourself; you would just wake and get ready to go for your walk.

How do we know a habit is bad for us?

We’ve known for many decades about the positive and negative reinforcement loops of engaging in behavior repetitively (think Pavlov’s dogs). Lately, a more recent, but still decades-old study is making the rounds on the internet: the Rat Park study of addiction in the 1970’s. In that study, rats were socially isolated and provided a steady stream of opiates to calm their assumed distress at living an isolated life.

At a later point in time, the rats were provided a community of other rats to mingle with. They were also still provided the option of numbing themselves with the opiates, but they found that when the rats were socially supported they did not choose the drug.

That leads to the question at hand: How do we know a habit is bad for us? When something reinforces us positively, we continue to do it.

It has been assumed that when the rats were socially isolated, they engaged in the continued opiate use because it made their rat life more tolerable. Then, when they had other rats to play with, they no longer needed the pharmacological experience since they were now getting other positive benefits from playing with their park pals.

When we explore drug abuse and reinforcement in humans, the early stage of drug and alcohol use indeed does give the user a positive effect.

The initial “positive” effects of using drugs/alcohol are:

The user often becomes more socially outgoing

When one is lonely, the drugs can numb the emotions

Using substances helps one to “forget their troubles”

The user can often get a false boost in self-esteem

  Although these are short-lived “benefits” the person who experienced them will often seek to repeat that feeling or experience, leading to repetitive engagement in that behavior. So we end up with a cue of, say, feeling insecure before a party leading to a repeated behavior of drinking before going to social events.

Because the emotional payoff can be so strong, it becomes easy to overlook the early instances of “negative reinforcement” that occurs (i.e. hangovers, sexual promiscuity) and just continue engaging in the behavior we believe will give us a positive effect.

Of course, as use continues, the positive effects become over-shadowed by the negative effects, but the user becomes both psychologically and physiologically dependent on them so they continue to use.

There is something to be said about the negative effects that keep one in that feedback loop as well. Many addicts start to get comfortable in the role of being the one that can’t be relied upon or needing to be taken care of.

When they start living in that role, their loved ones often stop putting responsibilities on them or see them as helpless due to the addiction. Their loved ones may be frustrated with them, but again, the positives outweigh the negative even when the “positive” is a ‘negative”.

This starts to get convoluted and confusing, but to understand it better think of it this way: Joe began drinking because he was frustrated that he was always working so hard and felt his wife should help out more financially.

Over time, Joe became less functional and his wife ended up having to get a better paying job in order to support the family because Joe was no longer able to do it because of his drinking. You see, Joe got exactly what he wanted, but it was at the expense of his self-worth and his marriage. No one would ever recommend this as a way to get your emotional needs met.

In the end, a habit is bad for us if it affects the quality of our daily life. For as much as Joe got what he wanted, his life was no longer the same and had dramatically taken a turn for the worse, emotionally, physically and financially.

The reinforcement loop needs to be broken so that Joe starts to learn more effective ways to get his emotional needs met (i.e. communicating with his wife instead of drinking to numb his emotions).

  The Role Rewards Play in Breaking Bad Habits

For as much as we need a strong cue and repetition to form new habits, we also need a good dose of positive rewards on the flip side when breaking bad habits. Let’s look at Joe and his alcoholism.

In the early stage of breaking his habit, Joe will need a hefty dose of positive reinforcement to outweigh the alcohol addiction because his addicted mind will be screaming loudly at him to not change his behavior.

Some rewards that might benefit Joe are:

His wife begins to give him some responsibility back, improving his sense of self-worth and importance in the family

His boss gives him some kudos for showing up for work on time consistently,

His kids start spending more time with him.

His wife starts to listen to him when she sees that he wants to participate in the family again.

  These rewards also become automatic and expected. Joe becomes motivated to stay sober because he realizes he has a sense of purpose in his family, his wife listens when he talks about his needs and his kids want to be around him. Joe has a better chance at maintaining his behavior change as long as he can still feel the reward.

5 Ways to Avoid Bad Habits

  1.) Listen to your emotional needs – You may be a high-achieving, driven person who’s always on the go! Go! GO! Even you need a break sometimes.

Listen to your mind and body and know when to take a day (or 2 or 3) off. You and the people you are working for will appreciate that you are the best version of you, rather than a tired, bitter, over-worked one.

2.) Ask for help when you need it – Just like Joe who didn’t tell his wife he needed help because he expected her to “just know” or see that he was distressed, we can’t assume our partners can read our minds. Somewhere along the route to achievement, it seems we get instilled with the idea that asking for help is a sign of weakness and the idea of acting on the impulse gets over-shadowed by shame, guilt or pride.

Don’t make Joe’s mistake and expect your partner to read your mind. No matter how much your partner loves you or how well your business partner knows you, no one is a mind-reader (and you can’t be and at them for not meeting your needs if you don’t tell them what they are).

3.) Don’t listen to that negative voice in your head – I know you know what I’m talking about. You can be on a great path to success or you can already have reached heights you never dreamed of, and yet, that little voice in the back of your mind comes creeping around the corner to tell you “you’re not good enough” or “it’s not going to last” or “everyone’s going to find out you are just faking it”.

CUT. IT. OUT! At the very first inkling of that voice, pull yourself out of your head – engage in something that brings you into focus in your present environment: notice the sounds around you, make eye contact with someone, re-engage in conversation with someone. What if you’re all alone in a silent room (ala bedtime)?

Tell yourself something different – tell yourself the TRUTH! You are competent! You are exactly who others think you are! You don’t have time to let negative thoughts get you down and you definitely don’t have time to have them lead to sabotaging bad habits.

4.) Do something each week that is just for you with no goal attached to it – For me, exercise keeps me sane, for others, it’s drawing, knitting, skating, singing, playing in a band, reading, cooking or any number of other things that just speak to one’s soul and lets you know that no matter how busy you think you are, there is always a few hours to be in touch with what fuels your spirit.

5.) Stay socially engaged – Just like the rats in the Rat Park study, we need connection with others. Staying socially engaged allows us the freedom to express ourselves and be heard by others, gives us a sense of community when our lives might otherwise feel isolated, and, of course, one of the biggest factors in self-sabotaging behavior and bad habits seems to be spurred by a sense of not feeling like we belong.

We need to feel like we belong. Especially in the case of drug and alcohol abuse we know one of the most prevalent factors in achieving and maintaining sobriety is when one has a sense of community. Try it – Next time you’re feeling alone, reach out to someone you haven’t talked to in a while – I bet you’ll both feel better for it.

The post A Guide To Erasing Bad Habits From Your Life appeared first on Everyday Power Blog.

[marcusssanderson]

A Guide To Erasing Bad Habits From Your Life

Breaking Bad Habits Once And For All.

Erasing bad habits can be very hard sometimes, especially if you do not know the right way to do so.

I wrote this post from through the lens of addiction because it is so prevalent in our society and it’s one of my primary treatment focuses with my clients.

I’ve seen how many people on the road to success get sabotaged by the false promises of drugs and alcohol. It’s can be tough when managing a high-stress, high-achieving life to not give in to insecurities or emotional struggles that lead to sabotaging behaviors.

When I talk about “bad habits” I focus on an alcoholic example, but this could easily be emotional eating, gaming, compulsive shopping, sexual promiscuity, or any other self-sabotaging behavior.

  Making and Breaking Habits go Hand-in-Hand

Making and breaking habits are often tied together in how our mind works. We often break one habit by initiating another. For instance, quitting smoking is usually replaced by some other stress-reducing behavior like implementing a daily walking routine.

There is varied data on how long it takes to initiate a new habit or break one. There is research demonstrating evidence for it taking a few weeks to almost a year to change habitual behavior. It all depends on how quickly it integrates into our routine and becomes “automatic” – like pouring your first cup of coffee or brushing your teeth in the morning.

Current and popular research on habit formation points to a repetition of the behavior as well as having a cue as the antecedents to change. Looking at the implementation of a walking routine, the cue may be the time of day – i.e. upon waking up, you would get dressed an out the door within 30 minutes. If you practiced that daily, at some point you wouldn’t have to remind yourself; you would just wake and get ready to go for your walk.

How do we know a habit is bad for us?

We’ve known for many decades about the positive and negative reinforcement loops of engaging in behavior repetitively (think Pavlov’s dogs). Lately, a more recent, but still decades-old study is making the rounds on the internet: the Rat Park study of addiction in the 1970’s. In that study, rats were socially isolated and provided a steady stream of opiates to calm their assumed distress at living an isolated life.

At a later point in time, the rats were provided a community of other rats to mingle with. They were also still provided the option of numbing themselves with the opiates, but they found that when the rats were socially supported they did not choose the drug.

That leads to the question at hand: How do we know a habit is bad for us? When something reinforces us positively, we continue to do it.

It has been assumed that when the rats were socially isolated, they engaged in the continued opiate use because it made their rat life more tolerable. Then, when they had other rats to play with, they no longer needed the pharmacological experience since they were now getting other positive benefits from playing with their park pals.

When we explore drug abuse and reinforcement in humans, the early stage of drug and alcohol use indeed does give the user a positive effect.

The initial “positive” effects of using drugs/alcohol are:

The user often becomes more socially outgoing

When one is lonely, the drugs can numb the emotions

Using substances helps one to “forget their troubles”

The user can often get a false boost in self-esteem

  Although these are short-lived “benefits” the person who experienced them will often seek to repeat that feeling or experience, leading to repetitive engagement in that behavior. So we end up with a cue of, say, feeling insecure before a party leading to a repeated behavior of drinking before going to social events.

Because the emotional payoff can be so strong, it becomes easy to overlook the early instances of “negative reinforcement” that occurs (i.e. hangovers, sexual promiscuity) and just continue engaging in the behavior we believe will give us a positive effect.

Of course, as use continues, the positive effects become over-shadowed by the negative effects, but the user becomes both psychologically and physiologically dependent on them so they continue to use.

There is something to be said about the negative effects that keep one in that feedback loop as well. Many addicts start to get comfortable in the role of being the one that can’t be relied upon or needing to be taken care of.

When they start living in that role, their loved ones often stop putting responsibilities on them or see them as helpless due to the addiction. Their loved ones may be frustrated with them, but again, the positives outweigh the negative even when the “positive” is a ‘negative”.

This starts to get convoluted and confusing, but to understand it better think of it this way: Joe began drinking because he was frustrated that he was always working so hard and felt his wife should help out more financially.

Over time, Joe became less functional and his wife ended up having to get a better paying job in order to support the family because Joe was no longer able to do it because of his drinking. You see, Joe got exactly what he wanted, but it was at the expense of his self-worth and his marriage. No one would ever recommend this as a way to get your emotional needs met.

In the end, a habit is bad for us if it affects the quality of our daily life. For as much as Joe got what he wanted, his life was no longer the same and had dramatically taken a turn for the worse, emotionally, physically and financially.

The reinforcement loop needs to be broken so that Joe starts to learn more effective ways to get his emotional needs met (i.e. communicating with his wife instead of drinking to numb his emotions).

  The Role Rewards Play in Breaking Bad Habits

For as much as we need a strong cue and repetition to form new habits, we also need a good dose of positive rewards on the flip side when breaking bad habits. Let’s look at Joe and his alcoholism.

In the early stage of breaking his habit, Joe will need a hefty dose of positive reinforcement to outweigh the alcohol addiction because his addicted mind will be screaming loudly at him to not change his behavior.

Some rewards that might benefit Joe are:

His wife begins to give him some responsibility back, improving his sense of self-worth and importance in the family

His boss gives him some kudos for showing up for work on time consistently,

His kids start spending more time with him.

His wife starts to listen to him when she sees that he wants to participate in the family again.

  These rewards also become automatic and expected. Joe becomes motivated to stay sober because he realizes he has a sense of purpose in his family, his wife listens when he talks about his needs and his kids want to be around him. Joe has a better chance at maintaining his behavior change as long as he can still feel the reward.

5 Ways to Avoid Bad Habits

  1.) Listen to your emotional needs – You may be a high-achieving, driven person who’s always on the go! Go! GO! Even you need a break sometimes.

Listen to your mind and body and know when to take a day (or 2 or 3) off. You and the people you are working for will appreciate that you are the best version of you, rather than a tired, bitter, over-worked one.

2.) Ask for help when you need it – Just like Joe who didn’t tell his wife he needed help because he expected her to “just know” or see that he was distressed, we can’t assume our partners can read our minds. Somewhere along the route to achievement, it seems we get instilled with the idea that asking for help is a sign of weakness and the idea of acting on the impulse gets over-shadowed by shame, guilt or pride.

Don’t make Joe’s mistake and expect your partner to read your mind. No matter how much your partner loves you or how well your business partner knows you, no one is a mind-reader (and you can’t be and at them for not meeting your needs if you don’t tell them what they are).

3.) Don’t listen to that negative voice in your head – I know you know what I’m talking about. You can be on a great path to success or you can already have reached heights you never dreamed of, and yet, that little voice in the back of your mind comes creeping around the corner to tell you “you’re not good enough” or “it’s not going to last” or “everyone’s going to find out you are just faking it”.

CUT. IT. OUT! At the very first inkling of that voice, pull yourself out of your head – engage in something that brings you into focus in your present environment: notice the sounds around you, make eye contact with someone, re-engage in conversation with someone. What if you’re all alone in a silent room (ala bedtime)?

Tell yourself something different – tell yourself the TRUTH! You are competent! You are exactly who others think you are! You don’t have time to let negative thoughts get you down and you definitely don’t have time to have them lead to sabotaging bad habits.

4.) Do something each week that is just for you with no goal attached to it – For me, exercise keeps me sane, for others, it’s drawing, knitting, skating, singing, playing in a band, reading, cooking or any number of other things that just speak to one’s soul and lets you know that no matter how busy you think you are, there is always a few hours to be in touch with what fuels your spirit.

5.) Stay socially engaged – Just like the rats in the Rat Park study, we need connection with others. Staying socially engaged allows us the freedom to express ourselves and be heard by others, gives us a sense of community when our lives might otherwise feel isolated, and, of course, one of the biggest factors in self-sabotaging behavior and bad habits seems to be spurred by a sense of not feeling like we belong.

We need to feel like we belong. Especially in the case of drug and alcohol abuse we know one of the most prevalent factors in achieving and maintaining sobriety is when one has a sense of community. Try it – Next time you’re feeling alone, reach out to someone you haven’t talked to in a while – I bet you’ll both feel better for it.

The post A Guide To Erasing Bad Habits From Your Life appeared first on Everyday Power Blog.