The Beauty of NOT Fixing Things

I had a sweet, yet powerful experience at work on Friday that humbled me and taught me that there is a beautiful freedom in not always fixing things. Because it happened at work, and regarding a patient, I can’t say much due to HIPAA rules, but I think what I can safely say is that this woman, I’ll call her “Regina,” is essentially quadriplegic. (For example, even though she does have some very limited use of her hands/arms, she is unable to feed herself.)

Regina’s been having a rough time. She asked me for a blessing the day previous (Thursday), which I gave her. Then on Friday, I got a message that she wanted to see me. I’m not going to lie here, even though this is going to make me seem like a terrible person, because even though I love Regina, it’s sometimes hard to be around her because it takes a lot of energy to interact with her. I know that sounds horrible, especially when she is clearly not at fault, but it’s important that you know that because it sets the stage for what follows.

In the afternoon I decided it was time for me to go visit with her to see what she needed from me. As I walked to her room, I mentally prepared myself, as I usually do for each patient, in order to ready myself for what I knew would most likely be a draining experience. I gowned up fully, (because, thanks Covid!), and went in.

She started by thanking me for giving her a blessing. She recalled me placing a dab of oil on her head, but didn’t remember much after that. I typically don’t recall much when I give a blessing, but I told her all that I could remember. Then she started talking to me about her fears. These kinds of conversations aren’t new and part of why it takes a lot of energy to be with her, but I always see it as an opportunity to provide a listening ear and to give some words of comfort, if I can. As she was speaking, I remember praying – as I often do – for the guidance/inspiration to know what to say in response and what I can do to “fix” the situation. The feeling that I got in my heart was this, “you don’t need to say anything, just be here.”

Something inside of me became calm and clear. I suddenly felt a great release. I believe it was the feeling of being relieved of a burden. In this case, the burden I felt was that I needed to have the right words or advice in order to make Regina feel better, as in, to fix the situation. I know that my desire to help her is absolutely sincere, which somehow also increases the burden of needing to know what to say in order to help. But when I received the message that I just needed to focus on being there and not worry about what I could say, I felt that burden lift.

I stood next to her bed and reached out and held her hand. And I just listened. She shared how lonely she felt in her trying circumstances, and that she had never said that aloud to anyone and how scary it was to even say it out loud. I continued to listen. I grabbed a tissue and wiped her tears away when she couldn’t hold them back. And I was just there, not trying to fix anything, but just being there. She point blank asked me how much time she had left on this earth. I told her that I couldn’t answer that, but that if she was still here, there’s a reason and that she is not forgotten and that all of her trials, troubles, and fears are known by the Savior who loves her deeply and would compensate for every pain and for every loss, if not in this life, then in the life to come.

She didn’t say much more after that, but did say thank you, and I left.

It struck me profoundly while she was talking to me that she didn’t really need me to fix anything for her. What she needed, more than anything, was just for someone to be there and to listen. I was humbled and grateful for the inspiration to do just that.

When I walked away, I reflected on how many times in my life would I have loved someone to just be there for me in that same way – not to fix anything, but just to let me talk and just to be there. The answer is – often. I would have OFTEN loved just to have someone there to talk to and not try to fix anything, but to just listen and just be there for me. Certainly, there have been times in my life when someone was there for me, and I don’t mean to minimize that. I think it’s just that, however often it did happen, I still would have wanted that more. Maybe that’s just me being selfish. I am deeply grateful for those who have been there for me when I needed someone to talk to.

But for so much of my life, my experience was that people were always trying to fix things. If I came to them with a problem it was just an immediate laundry list of what I needed to do to fix the situation and then just move on. I didn’t know how to say that that isn’t what I really wanted. I didn’t want an immediate fix. Most of the time, I didn’t really need advice anyway. I think I just wanted someone to listen to me and I just wanted to know that someone was there for me.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that because my job is all about “fixing” things. It’s literally my job to rehab people on their cognition, and speech, and swallowing, and whatever. My job is to “fix their problem” and help them be as independent and safe and they can. I also think this can be tough because the desire to fix things is healthy! It’s a reflection of the care and concern that we have for each other; if you come to me with a problem, I want to help you fix it because I care about you and I want you to be happy. But even though the desire to help, i.e., by fixing things, is good, it shouldn’t be underestimated how powerful the desire to help by NOT fixing things – and just being there – can be.

I guess this post is kind of supplement to a previous post about finding value even while broken. Maybe this is just a continuation of that idea. Not only can we have value while being broken, but sometimes there can be great healing in not trying to fix anything.

Maybe this is also an invitation for all of us – myself included. The next time someone comes to you with a problem, maybe you could ask yourself, “does this person really need me to fix anything, or do they just need someone to listen to them and just be there?” Paradoxically, maybe people trying to fix me all the time is what taught me that I was a problem…

What would it be like if we could be a world of just being there for each other, instead of always feeling like we have to fix each other? I think we would find a lot of beauty in not needing to fix everything – and just being there – just like I did with Regina.

 

Photo by Dương Hữu on Unsplash

Broken Value

 

I was speaking with someone recently who, at one point in our conversation, just flat out asked me, “do you feel that you have worth the way you are right now?”

My answer was, “no.” I said it easily, with no hesitation; almost nonchalantly, even. Me? Have worth? Of course not? I thought it went without saying…

I have been thinking a lot about why that answer came so easily to me, virtually automatically. My first thought was, “well, just look at me! I’m fat and overweight! Being fat and overweight makes you worth less, i.e., “worthless,” than thin/skinny people because fat is ugly; in other words, being fat means being ugly and no one wants to be either (we all know it, even if we don’t have the courage to admit it!).

I’ve held these beliefs about being fat and worthless my whole life, it would seem. And on the surface, that would be enough to explain why I have felt worthless my whole life, because I’ve been fat my whole life.

But that’s just the surface. Something else has been there my whole life too, but deep; much, much deeper than even I was able to see. It was a feeling, a belief, a profound knowledge that has evaded being known or seen. It’s like an indescribable leviathan, living so deep in the ocean that it’s never been seen, but every so often, evidenced of its existence emerges. It remains unseen, but deeply sensed. And it is just always there. Relentless, tireless, watchful and aware of all that goes on above it. It never sleeps. It never stops. This thing that is powerful enough to move the currents of my life, my behaviors and actions, and yet, stealthy enough to remain “unknown.”

It’s a treacherous journey to dive so deep, but dive I must. This is my journey, to know myself, to know who I am, and what moves me, to know what makes me the way I am. To know what makes me such a problem.

And there it was – the thing that didn’t want to be seen or known, but that I had to enter the dark places of my mind and heart to find. 

I am a problem.

Not just that I have problems, but that I AM a problem. In my mind there is no difference between having problems and being a problem – it is one and the same: If I have a problem, then I AM a problem.

“But why?” I continued to ask myself. My logical brain knows that having a problem and being a problem are not the same thing. “Then why do I see myself as such a problem?”

The answer is equally simple, yet as deeply profound: “Because I am broken.”

It’s hard for me to move past that sentence. It’s hard because it’s true. I believe I am broken. My heart has been broken, my spirit has been broken, my body has been broken, even my mind, in many ways, has been broken. It is a fact that I almost died at birth (asphyxiation in the womb). It’s a fact that I was molested. It is a fact that I felt neglected, judged, and criticized at a very young age. It is a fact that I gained weight, which resulted in being teased, hazed, rejected, ignored, and minimized – for years. I was traumatized in so many ways and those multiple, repeated traumas broke me.

I have felt broken from birth. Everything in my life that happened after, seemed to confirm that I was broken and that I didn’t deserve to be any other way.

You know what else is a fact? That when something in this world is broken, it becomes worthless. We throw it away, because when something is broken it is no longer useful and no longer has value.

The equation I have in my mind is that all the things I am – such as a problem, broken, fat/ugly, etc., equals being worthless.

It’s why I could answer that question so easily and so quickly. 

And it’s why I have such a hard time changing. I tend to resist change because I haven’t found a reason or an argument that is stronger than “broken = worthless.”

I tend to self-sabotage, whether relationships, diet/exercise plans, work, etc. because deep down, I never feel like I’m worth it.

As an example, here’s a loop I often find myself caught in: I want to lose weight in order to feel like I have worth (i.e., when I lose weight, then I’ll be worth something), so I embark on a fat loss/fitness journey, only to very quickly derail my efforts, because as soon as dieting/exercise gets hard (and it’s always hard!), then I give up, or sabotage my effort, because – deep down – I’m not worth it anyway. But then I desperately want to have worth, so I desperately want to lose weight and the cycle continues. 

I get angry when I see how easy health and fitness is for some people. I get angry that they can diet down for a few weeks and look great. I get angry that there are men who are already genetically prone to good health and fitness and pursue that lifestyle, then get on Instagram and give advice, like, “hey, you just gotta eat less and move more and if I can you do it, so can you,” when they’re clearly genetically gifted, and/or already prone to being healthy and active. As my last trainer kept telling me, “it’s just a choice you decide to make.” I hate how simple that makes it sound. I hate it because he’s not wrong, but there are so many other factors, the biggest one being, “do you think you’re worth it?”

Even when some of my previous trainers have been supportive and said, “I believe in you,” I still sabotaged the diet or exercise plan they gave me as a way of saying, “see, I told you I was broken and that you couldn’t help me.” Doing that helps me live in the safety of being right, but also keeps me in the misery of being broken. They all make it sound so easy, or so simple, because it seems to be that way for them. 

And that’s what really gets my goat! These “fitness gurus” all seem to have an inherent sense of their self-worth. They don’t doubt themselves. They don’t stay awake at night wondering if they’re worth it. They seem to be born with confidence. They seem to be born just knowing that they have worth, and yes, that makes me angry. It makes me angry that I’m not like them. It makes me angry that they are allowed to have confidence in themselves because they’ve never had anything happen to them that made them feel small, weak, …or broken. I hate that they aren’t broken, but that I am.

Dieting, health, fitness, relationships, etc., are all so much harder when you feel worthless.

All of which, brings me to the million dollar question: “Can that be changed?”

On second thought, maybe that’s not the million dollar question, because for most of my life, the answer has been a resounding “no!”

I guess the question I need to ask myself here is, “can something that is broken also still have worth?”

It might be true that in this world we devalue things that are broken. We esteem them as worthless and only good for being tossed out. But while this rule may hold true for “things,” maybe there is a different rule for people, because people are not things.

It seems to be quite a paradox to me – to live in a world that is in a constant state of change and decay – entropy, we call it. And yet, this constantly breaking down world is full of people who are full of worth, no matter how much they break down.

I do believe we are eternal beings. I do believe we are the spirit children of God, and maybe, as a child of God, I just need to embrace the paradox that people are full of worth, no matter how they are broken. Maybe it’s why the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants [D&C 18:10] says, “the worth of souls is great in the sight of God,” and not, “the worth of things…”.

Other paradoxes might be – yes, I have a body, but my body is not ALL of who I am; yes, I’m fat, but being fat is not ALL of who I am – it may be a condition I’m in, but it’s not WHO I AM; yes, I have problems, but that doesn’t mean that I AM a problem, because my problems are not who I am; yes, I have been broken – repeatedly, but being broken is what’s happened TO ME, it’s not WHO I AM. 

Maybe the hardest paradox to accept is: I can be broken and still have value.

Can I accept that? I think so.

I think about all the people I’ve known, especially those who “have been through what I’ve been through,” and I ask myself, “do I see them as having less value because they are broken?” Truthfully, I do not! In fact, maybe even the opposite. I see those people as having a great deal of value because they are broken. To my way of thinking they are people who need even more love and compassion and friendship and I would never deny them that simply because they are broken. The real question is, can I see myself that way? Can I offer myself that same compassion? Can I see myself as someone who is broken, and yet, still full of worth?

I think have to.

I mean, I think that is the challenge for me – now that I have had this realization, what will I do with it? Okay, maybe this inherent sense of self-worth is not something I was born with (or maybe I was and life beat it out of me!), BUT that doesn’t mean it can’t be learned, right?

There’s another paradox about this world we live in: that even despite the inevitable entropy, this life was meant for growth. And growth can only come from resistance. Maybe I don’t automatically think that I have worth, but I can practice resisting that thought and practice growing new thoughts where I DO have worth, even with having been broken. It seems like that process is really what this world was meant for – to use resistance to grow.

And maybe, just maybe, instead of despairing over how broken I am, for the first time in my life I can feel grateful for being broken, because, in yet another paradoxical way, being broken is how I’ll find my value.

Aftershocks

Sometime in 1984 or 1985, there was an earthquake in Salt Lake City, UT, a city that happens to lie on a major fault line. I would have been 6 or 7 at the time. I don’t remember the earthquake at all – it happened while I was sleeping. Here’s what I do remember.

My eyes opened slowly to a blurry world of darkness and light. My vision cleared just in time to see my mother with a blanket in her hands, spread out in front of her. She was coming down the stairs to the basement bedroom that I and my two older sisters were sleeping in. She was coming down so fast that the blanket flew out to her sides and she looked like a bird, with wings spread, descending to its nest. She wrapped me up in her blanket wings and carried me - and subsequently, my sisters – upstairs to my parent’s bedroom.

Once all of us kids were safely deposited to my parents bed, my dad came in and moved the bed away from being directly under a support beam, in case it came crashing down on top of us during the aftershocks. He went back to the kitchen to listen to the radio for updates.

I was scared, but I didn’t know why. “The earthquake is over, but there may be aftershocks,” I was told. I didn’t know what an earthquake was; I had slept right through it after all. But we waited for aftershocks and I didn’t know what those were either. I was scared because everyone else was scared. I was afraid of not knowing what was happening to us or not knowing what was going to happen to us. So we waited for the aftershocks.

Flash forward to today and the fear of aftershocks has come back to me, though not in a way I would have expected.

In my life, trauma has been like a massive earthquake; it shook up everything in my life and rattled me to my core. I felt powerless, weak and useless. It arrived unexpectedly and overwhelmed everything going on inside me. The actual events were brief, yet their impact would affect me for decades, because of aftershocks. And there were aftershocks. Emotional upheavals that weren’t as intense as full on trauma, but felt just as powerful, just as threatening and left me feeling just as helpless.

My aftershocks come in many forms: fear of not being good enough; fear of being inherently “wrong” or worthless; fear of being a failure and/or a disappointment; being ridiculed, pointed at, laughed at, or singled out in some way; fear of loneliness; fear of being weak and powerless; and so on.

When I feel these aftershocks, I do what anyone should do in an earthquake - I hide, I cover (or mask) and retreat. Only my hiding/covering/retreating includes isolating myself, binging on junk food, fantasizing about perfection/control over my body and my life, watching movies/tv to escape and so forth. 

But this is where my analogy differs because aftershocks – the inner/emotional aftershocks I’m talking about – aren’t really real. I mean, they are real in the sense that they feel real, and create an emotional/behavioral response, but they aren’t real because these emotional aftershocks are not the actual trauma itself. They are phantom traumas – they exist, but have no substance. They are reflections of traumas that ripple through my soul, becoming real, only because I expect them; I wait for them; I fearfully anticipate them…

I felt another aftershock recently during a workout. I was attempting to do a kettle bell down and up, which I’ve done before, but this time, I was flooded with fear. I couldn’t recall all the steps, for some reason. And even when I did, nothing felt right. My arms were giving out. I wasn’t able to lower or lift my core without some pain in my lower back. I couldn’t control my descent and felt like a sack of blubber, crashing into the ground.

And then the “aftershocks” began vibrating through me: “You’re weak. You’re not even strong enough to support your own bodyweight. You’re pathetic and never going to get this. You’re never going to make progress and you’re going to stay fat, weak and stupid your whole life. What made you think you could do this? What made you think you could get better at this? You’re only getting worse. You were able to do this with a 14 kilo kettle bell and now you have to go back to un-weighted? What a loser.”

I wanted to leave. I want to run away and say, “this is such bullsh*t.” I wanted to drive to the nearest fast food place and shove as much crap down my throat as I could stand. I wanted to cry. I wanted someone to hold me and say, “I’m sorry this is hard for you right now, but it’s going to be okay; you’re going to be okay.”

But I stayed and finished my workout. I went home and ate healthy food. Not because I wanted to, but because I recognized the aftershocks. I saw the phantoms rearing their ethereal heads again, only this time I knew they weren’t real. I knew that they would stay as long as I continued to believe in them and right now, it’s the hardest thing in the world not to believe in them. Aftershocks can be like that. They can keep coming and bringing a host of fears and doubts with them, but it is my belief that if I can see them for what they are then I can accept them for what they are, and I can gradually minimize their impact on my life. I can brace for them, or I can embrace them.

Counter-intuitive though it may seem, embracing aftershocks (accepting that they appear as remnants of trauma) helps me to dissolve them, because it means I can see them for what they are – fears of uncertainty, or fear of things that only “might” be true. I get to decide what’s real for me. Maybe I am weak, but that doesn’t mean I always will be. Maybe I am just a big loser, but somehow, I’m still here and I have to think that that makes me a winner on some level.

What I have learned is that I’m not worthless; because no one is worthless. I have worth, because we all have worth. Our worth cannot be changed and it cannot be diminished in any way. Not even by “earthquake” trauma and certainly not by aftershocks. Even though I still deal with aftershocks, I know where they come from and to some extent I know why they’re here. My challenge is not to be afraid of them when they do show up and especially not to waste my life waiting in fearful anticipation for when they’ll appear next.

And who knows, maybe one day, they won’t show up at all.

What do you think you're worth?

Every time I go shopping I play a judgment game. When I see an item I judge it first on its appearance – is it desirable or not? If it is desirable, I look at the price tag next and make another judgment. Is it worth the cost? If it is, I consider buying it; if it isn’t, I pass on to the next item. When I’m at the store, I’m constantly doing this because I’m constantly looking at everything.

I just didn’t realize that I also do this to myself.

When I get up in the morning, I look at myself in the mirror and I judge myself by my appearance – am I desirable or not? (I’ll cut to the punch line and tell you the answer is usually “no.”) If, on the off chance, I decide that I look reasonably okay (i.e., “desirable,”), then I look at my “price tag.” What do I mean by “price tag?” The short answer is – how I treat myself.

The long answer is that the way I treat myself is a reflection of what I think I’m worth – the cost of being me, if you will. If I think of myself as being worth a lot, I might go for a walk; I might take time to prepare a healthy breakfast/lunch/dinner; I might reach out to a friend that I admire; I might choose to turn off the TV and go to bed early; etc. If not, the opposite is true and I don't treat myself very well.

Clearly, this isn’t a revolutionary idea; hell, it’s not even very original. But for someone who was a victim and for someone who has lived like a victim for so long – this is a concept that is harder to practice than you might think.

I really think that there are some people who are born with an innate sense of self worth. I know people who just seem to have confidence in themselves and it’s effortless – they know what they’re worth and they treat themselves accordingly and they don’t appear to have any inner turmoil in doing so.

I also think that there are people like me – people who may or may not have had a strong sense of self-worth, but even if they did, the traumas of life quickly beat it out of them.  I don’t think I need to go into any great detail here, but I think it’s hard for anyone who’s been molested to feel like they’re worth much, if anything at all. Add to that family dynamics that made me feel small, weak, inferior, not good enough, a disappointment, etc. and that’s a perfect recipe for someone who doesn’t think he’s worth much.

And, historically speaking, that’s how I’ve treated myself – as someone who wasn’t worth much; someone who didn’t really deserve to be happy, or to be healthy, or to be successful in life. I looked at my “price tags” and decided I wasn’t worth the cost. So I ate junk food and/or binged on junk/processed food; I slept in, instead of going for a walk; I watched TV constantly so that I didn’t have to think about how lonely and unhappy I was; I stayed up way too late and didn’t sleep well; etc.

And I did the worst thing any person could possibly do to themselves – I told myself I was worthless. I chose to believe I was worthless. I thought to myself, “Micah, you are a pathetic and worthless human being. You’re ugly and disgusting and how could anyone ever love you?” (Does that sound harsh? It’s not the worst of what I’ve said to myself and I’ll spare you from hearing more of the poison I fed myself my whole life!) I held myself back from trying new things, from meeting new people, from taking care of myself, and so on… because I truly believed I was worthless. I looked at my price tag and thought, “you aren’t worth the cost…”

Being worthless became my home. Being worthless became what I could count on. Being worthless was a constant that no one could change and that felt like stability; and stability felt like safety. And a victim will do anything to feel safe! Even better, being worthless (at least in my experience) was easy! It was so easy to discount myself; it was so easy to keep my gifts and talents to myself; to NOT put myself out there and risk humiliation or disappointing people (especially me!). And – bonus! – it also feels similar to humility, which is a noble characteristic. So if I’m worthless, I know I’m protected against being prideful, which is like, the worst sin imaginable, right?

But there is a harsh downside to all this “easy safety.”
Unhappiness.
Loneliness.
Depression.
Sadness.
Anxiety.
Fear.
Misery.
Stagnation.

Read each of those words again, slowly. We all experience these unpleasant feelings at times in our lives, but believing that you’re worthless invites these unpleasant feelings to move in, like unwanted house guests.

So I know this all sounds thoroughly depressing and you’re probably asking, “is this going anywhere?” Yes, it is, just hang in there with me!

Why am I even writing about this at all? Especially when I’ve kind of hashed all this out before (i.e., any of my recent blog posts!)? Because I had an email exchange with my personal trainer, whom I’ve been working with once a week for about a month now. He was checking in with me and I was telling him that I’ve been really struggling; struggling with slow fat-loss, struggling with injuries, struggling with mindset/staying positive, etc. He said and asked me the following: “I firmly believe that you deserve better...healthier, happier, stronger, without pain. Do you believe that? Can you believe that?”

Essentially, I felt like he was asking me, “do you think you’re worth this?” and my answer was, “no.”

Honestly, it broke my heart to admit it, because I think it was the first time I really felt the depth of how worthless I have felt. And it hurt. It hurt to reflect on all the bad things that have happened to me that made me feel worthless. It hurt to reflect on all of the ways I’ve inflicted pain and punishment on myself, because I believed I was worthless. It hurt to hear that voice within my own head – my own voice, in fact – spitting out such vehement hatred. No one hurt me as much as I’ve hurt myself. I did this to myself. And that right there is where the cycle starts to turn. That is the exact point that I slide back into self-punishment, beating myself up for feeling worthless, then beating myself up for beating myself up, etc.!

But I see it now. I see the cycle; I see the pattern. I see that moment, where I need to offer myself compassion, but don’t know how. I know how to beat myself up – it’s easy, in fact. I don’t know how to forgive myself; I don’t know how to offer myself compassion. I don’t know how to rip off that f*cking price tag and say, “you can’t place a number on your worth!”

I say I don’t know, but what I really mean, is that I’m just inexperienced with self-compassion. Clearly, choosing to stay local rather than take on other travel assignments, which has meant a great deal of financial strain, so that I can work with a personal trainer on a long-term basis, is a sign that I’m endeavoring to take care of myself. Even just hiring a personal trainer is a sign that I’m committed to taking care of myself; to challenge my poor mindset; to improve my relationship with myself; to accept that I have infinite worth.

But I feel like an infant again. I feel like I’m just beginning to learn how to walk for myself. Changing the way I see myself – changing the way I talk to myself, is hard; so much harder than I would have expected, but I know that it’s possible. It’s jarring, in my head, to hear two voices fighting each other and at times it’s uncomfortable, painful, scary even, and, quite frankly, exhausting; but this is the process of change, of re-wiring my brain. It’s like learning a new instrument – it just takes practice.

A lot of people have advised me to “fake it, ‘til [I] make it,” which I’ve always hated. (To my way of thinking if you have to “fake” something then it’s a lie because it isn’t really you.) But I think I see, conceptually anyway, the principle behind this saying – I’m not trying to “fake” something, I’m trying to create something – someone – new. Just like it takes countless brush strokes to create a painting; countless repetitions to create a jump-shot; countless breaths to create a singer; it takes countless new thoughts to create a new man. Easy? No. Possible? Absolutely.

I’m grateful to my trainer for asking me the questions that opened my eyes to my own thought processes. I’m even more grateful for his professed belief in me, because if he can believe in me, then maybe I can too. Then, maybe, when I look at myself in the mirror, I won’t see a price tag… just a guy who’s worth caring for himself.

Setbacks

I had a big setback last weekend. I'm still trying to analyze what happened.

I went out of town to a convention and I was nervous regarding how I would eat. My trainer gave me permission to not exercise, since I would be doing a lot more walking around the city and convention center. But what really worried me was eating.

I've been eating a ketogenic diet for the last 4-5 weeks. I'm not sure how long it took me to "adapt," but the little ketone testing strips I use indicated that I was in ketosis for roughly 3-4 of those weeks. I didn't want to lose ground as the scale (used infrequently!) was indicating weight loss. My clothes felt about the same and the mirror certainly wasn't reflecting weight loss, but I had faith that I was doing the right things - and I trust my trainer.

But I'm not good with trusting myself. I am definitely a "when in Rome" kind of guy and being on vacation is a chance to let my hair down (figuratively, since I'm bald). Knowing all of this, I decided to plan ahead. I prepped a bunch of food that I could eat and carry some of it around (yes, I was carrying around bacon in my backpack for 3 days!). I knew that I would be going out to eat with friends, so I decided that I needed to look for the best options - salads, meats, etc., and just stick to those. I decided to look at eating out, but choosing healthy options, as my treat - instead of my usual idea of a treat - eat as much of whatever I want while eating out!

And it seemed to work! I was feeling pretty good about everything - feeling good about my preparation, about my execution, about my restraint in restaurants, etc. Looking back, I was probably feeling too good.

I need to interject something here. For most of my life, I haven't felt very good about myself. When I "mess up" or make a mistake, it usually stems from a place of feeling bad about myself, or feeling sorry for myself. The idea is based on shame - I do bad things, because I am a bad thing. But there are times, when I fall victim to a pretty classic "temptational justification," i.e., "just one won't hurt..." And this usually happens when I'm on an upswing. It's usually when things are going great. I'm thinking to myself, "hey, I'm doing pretty great right now. I can handle indulging in just a little bit of (fill in the blank). It's not going to effect me too terribly, I mean, how can it, when I'm doing so well...?"

So when I had a largely successful trip, I was feeling really good about it and I got lulled into a false sense of security. (Those of us who are shame-based/traumatized - ok, maybe just me - aren't great at differentiating pride from confidence. In other words, I won't allow myself to feel good about myself, because that is prideful and pride deserves to be punished...) Well, I decided that since I'd had great success, that I was going to allow myself one treat on my last day. I knew it would kick me out of ketosis for a day or two, but hey, I was doing so well that I was certain I could regain ketosis in a day or two as well, right?

So I sought out the perfect treat and I found it in a little gelato shop. I told myself that I would not be neurotic about it. While I knew it wasn't the right thing to do, I decided that I was just going to enjoy it and then let it go. And boy howdy, did I enjoy it!! I was walking down the street on cloud nine. I ate slowly and savored every bite. It was nearly a transformative experience. I was going to go home the next day feeling like a winner! ...or so I thought.

While I was driving home I kept mentally replaying difficult scenes from my life. I didn't even realize what was happening at first. It was probably two to three hours into my drive when I realized that I didn't "feel right," but couldn't identify why. So I did my best to do some self-talk and tell myself that I was okay and that I was safe and that everything was going to be ok. It should have worked, but it didn't. It seemed that my self-pity and defenses were up pretty high and didn't want to be pulled back down.

One interesting thing that happened was when I stopped in Grand Junction to gas up. I had the last of my prepped food to eat, but I really wanted a hamburger, fries and a shake. I decided to go to Wendy's, but on the way, I realized that I was not making a nutritional decision. I knew that I was making an emotional decision. I knew that my body didn't really want fast food, but my emotions did. In a completely uncharacteristic move, and what I can only attribute to divine intervention, I turned my car around and just continued driving. I ate the last of my healthy food and for a little while, I felt pretty good about making that decision.

But my emotions had not been appeased and it wasn't long before my previous feelings of being unsettled, or not feeling right, intensified and my thoughts turned to self-shaming thoughts. I berated myself for anything and everything. I beat myself up for being me, i.e., weak, pathetic, a loser, fat, ugly, etc.

After eight hours of driving, I made it home just in time for dinner. At this point, I think I had given up. I didn't have the energy to do anything good for myself or the will power to restrain myself. Even though I made it a point to eat healthy food first (e.g., meat, salad, etc.) I then proceeded to go down pretty hard on some pasta salad, baked carrots/potatoes, bread, chips and salsa, pie and ice cream, etc. It felt so good to give up. It felt right to give up on myself. I had blissfully checked out and it seemed that all my bad feelings had finally gone away - as if filling my belly had filled my emotional needs.

You can jam a round peg into a square hole and pretend that "it fits," but it doesn't fit...

I went to bed that night feeling physically satisfied, but emotionally burned out. I'll just summarize the rest of my week: depression, sleeping late, pulling a muscle in my neck that was painful, avoiding people, self-hatred and negative thoughts and round after round of promising to eat healthy and then binging on whatever I could find...

So, it's not been a great week for me. Actually it's been a pretty shitty week. Which is so strange because I was so worried about the time I would be travelling, when it turns out that all of that time actually went pretty great. It was the time immediately following that somehow triggered a shame spiral. I think I have something inside me that won't let me be happy for myself. It's as if I sunk into a shame spiral BECAUSE I had such a good weekend! As if there is some internal sensor that says, "hey, you had a great week, and you were really successful, but you aren't allowed to be successful - or too happy, so we need to re-balance that out with some self-pity..." It's as if I was punishing myself for being happy about having a successful weekend. No, it doesn't make logical sense, but that is because that is shame-logic at work and proof that I have more work to do.

Maybe the worst part is that I know why. I know exactly why I feel this way. I know exactly how this faulty-shame logic started. I have been through some really traumatic experiences in that I was sexually traumatized by two different neighbors in two different neighborhoods about three years apart. But you know what's crazy? As damaging as that was (and it WAS damaging), I suffered a greater trauma by not having my dad's attention. I was neglected by a man who was supposed to love me more than anyone. I was rejected by a man who was always in the next room, but didn't have time for me. Whatever he was involved in was always more important than me.

That is how I learned that I was worthless. That's the only explanation possible for why he didn't spend time with me. I was so bad, so ugly, so fat, so stupid, so broken, so disgusting, that my own father didn't want anything to do with me. I don't deserve to have anything good in my life because I'm not worth it. The adult in me acknowledges how wrong those statements are, but I wasn't an adult when I was neglected. I was a child and I wasn't capable of understanding why my own father wouldn't pay attention to me. The only "logical" explanation was that I wasn't worth it. That child still lives within me. That child is still hurting from not having his dad's attention. And the soul of that child is starving - starving for attention, starving for affection, starving for his father to hold him and tell him that he's important to him and that he's worth his time and attention. Starving to be told that he's okay and that everything is going to be okay.

Is it ironic or completely apparent now why I use those phrases to comfort myself when I'm not feeling right. "You're okay. Everything's going to be okay." The problem is, because it's coming from me, I don't believe it. I feel stuck because these are things I need my dad to say to me, but he's not here to do that. So how do I get that need met when he's not here to meet it?

How am I ever going to move forward with my life, when these missing pieces keep holding me back. It's like my life has been one continuous round of me trying to move forward, but then having a major "setback." But is it really a setback, or me just trying to move beyond my painful past and getting yanked back by a tether that won't seem to break?

Belief in yourself, revisited

First, thank you j for your comments on my previous post. I've been thinking a lot about this and, while I can't say, "A-ha! I've found THE answer," I think I've come to enough of a conclusion to have some resolution on the matter.

What does it mean to believe in yourself? I think it means two things: 1) Believe that you are capable; 2) Believe that you are worth being helped.

The first statement is an abiding faith and trust that you have inherent abilities, talents, and gifts, given by God, to help you succeed in this life. (Perhaps we used our time in the pre-earth life developing these spiritual attributes so that they could carry us through this completely foreign physical experience...)

So many times in my life I've shied away from trying something new or I isolated myself from living life because I was afraid that if I tried I would fail and then I would be hurt, disappointed or I would have hurt/disappointed someone else. It seems I would rather live with myself having failed to try rather than having lived with failures. In any case, fear is the enemy here. Believing you are capable means you have confidence that you are equal to the task, that you have the means to succeed, and at the very least, you don't know until you try.

But what about the reality that I DO have a considerable number of "fails" under my belt? It is a fact that I have "tried" in the past and failed, which must mean that, ultimately, I'm not capable after all, right? Well, no, not really. Believing that you are capable is the impetus to try. It's the foundation necessary to initiate action. But believing you are capable is not the same thing as believing that you will succeed 100% of the time. (It's a paradox! Welcome to the Gospel!) Hence, the second statement - to believe that you are worth being helped.

The truth is, you will fail sometimes. That "sometimes" is key. What do we do when "some" situations feel beyond our capability (because they really are!)? We recognize that we need a strength greater than our own. Which is really just a logical conclusion to make, however, a wrench is thrown into the machinery when we know we need outside help, but we don't feel deserving or worthy of it. (This is me to a "T" by the way!) What it boils down to is this: the belief that you are worthless or undeserving, whether because of, or in spite of, all your sins/errors/mistakes/flaws, etc., is a lie. It's a lie. It just isn't true. You are ALWAYS deserving of help. You are ALWAYS worth it. No matter what has happened to you; no matter what you've done. The belief that you have no worth is nothing more than Satan sowing the seeds of despair. Don't let him lie to you.

It seems like a harsh, cold fact though, doesn't it? To accept that you have to fail sometimes? What's the point? The point is this - that we come to recognize our reliance on the Savior. We can't do everything alone - we weren't meant to. From the very beginning the plan we chose was a plan of partnership. We didn't just agree to Jesus being the Savior we agreed to need him as our Savior. How can we learn to be one with our Father if we can't learn to be one with our Brother? Isn't Zion unity? Isn't the promise of Exaltation and Eternal Life that Heavenly Father would share all he has with us? It is here, in this life, that we learn to partner with the Lord, that we learn to receive from him the help we all need at times. (So much I want to say about what the Lord is willing to share with us, but that will be a topic for another day!)

Yeah, I know I'm rambling on my preachy soapbox again, sorry. I just wanted to share what I think I've learned about what it means to believe in yourself because I think it's so much  more than just being about "what I'm capable of." It's about having a relationship with my Father in Heaven, my Savior, and the Spirit. The sins, mistakes, errors, wrongs, and failures I've committed aren't who I am and they won't be with me forever. Someday I will be perfect, even if only because the Savior shares his perfection with me through repentance and obedience. But in order to achieve that, I will need to spend my time here believing that I'm capable, and when I find myself in circumstances clearly beyond my capability, I'll believe that I am worth being helped and I will better know my Savior, the source of my help.