So I was thinking about a few comments from friends that mentioned my blog to their hubbies, to which the guys replied "Grace already looks great". I appreciate that, a lot and I am thankful for the wonderful comments from friends to this effect. It got me ta thinkin though. That we live in a society that encourages extremism. Always wanting to change and improve when what we already have is pretty damn good. I even think it myself when people write about sharing the same feelings "shoot, I think 'so-and-so' is already super hot. They don't need to change or lose weight!" We always look at those super fit thin people and yearn to look like that (or whatever it is you don't have that you wish you had, blonde hair, brown hair, higher butt, longer eyelashes etc.) Truth to be told, I doubt those people are aware that they are the envy of all their friends. Are they still looking, searching, criticizing themselves? It's so rare that when we give one another a compliment we say "hey thanks, you are right I do look awesome!" Instead it's all "ohh no, this old thing?". WHY do we have such a hard time accepting and hearing great things about ourselves? Isn't that why we want to look good anyway?
I was watching True Blood tonight (ya, ya...) and there was a line from the young female vampire to her boyfriend that went something like "you are too good to me". What does that mean anyway? I don't deserve this wonderful treatment, I am undeserving of the things that I want and when they actually are in my experience I'm going to down play them and dismiss compliments regarding them. Is this making sense? Because even as I write it I can't quite figure out where and how we were taught to talk so crappy to ourselves?!? What is it about being mean to ourselves that we think is honourable? How does comparing ourselves to other people even seem valid? When giving someone a compliment and they turn around and say "oh that's not true" it kind of makes you feel stupid for even saying it in the first place, like they don't believe you or you made it up just to be nice. Dismissing compliments is a thing of the past for me, starting now. When someone is treating us nicely, or telling us we look fantastic - SOAK IT UP. Isn't that what we really want? When we want something and then we get it and then we turn around and say "oh, no I don't deserve that" it's likely to stop happening and vanish into thin air.
On those days when I can't seem to get my butt in gear, I think deep down I don't feel like I deserve it. Those thoughts "why bother, who cares, it's too hard, it's too much weight it'll take forever". Self-handicapping, is what they called it in first year psych. Not doing something so that you don't have to fail. I think the example they used was; drinking the night before a really tough exam so that the excuse for failure would be "I was drunk, hungover." Instead of studying all night and then failing. It was beyond you - it was the alcohol.
So when I don't want to go, when I start going through all the things that would be better to do instead of my walk or run, I have to remember that it's an old habit - if I don't try I won't fail. So as I said before, I'm going through all those beliefs and thoughts that stop be from achievement. Everywhere from "I'm not worth it" to "I'm not going to even try so that I can't be disappointed when I miss my mark". True, this might take longer than I want it to, but I'm just going to do my best to start feeling good about how I look now. I remember when I was almost 50 lbs lighter than I am now and I still would sit in the closet and cry about how my clothes didn't fit right. Appreciating what I have now is very important to success, because then I feel successful all the way along. Every time I say the crappy stuff to myself it send a message that I am not worth it and then I want to give up. Feeling successful is now is going to be the key to always feeling that way. Plus that saying "I wanted to learn the piano but it was going to take 10 years...and that was 10 years ago." pretty much sums it up for me.
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