The Cinnamon Fairy

Sugar and Spice in a Zany-Mundane Life

Tag Archives: self improvement


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My Mind Is a Liar. How ’bout Yours?

I’ve found myself with so much to say that I’ve floundered a bit about where to start. I have lots to process and plenty of insights that may be of dubious worth to anyone else but me, but I guess today I’ll talk about beliefs.

I am a master of negative self talk. People think I’m joking when I say self-loathing is my default state, but I’m not and it is. Now, I’ve learned to deal with myself over the years (that counseling degree ought to be good for something) and I was also gifted with a heaping helping of resilience, but this is a struggle that will probably never completely go away for me. Joy and optimism are deliberate choices that I make on a daily basis. I have to be very careful about the narrative that I allow to run through my head. My mind is a liar. I know my mind is a liar, but it still tricks me sometimes.

What types of things does my lying mind say? Some of you have probably heard these before, too:

  • I’m ugly
  • I’m repulsive
  • No one likes me
  • No one could love me OR No one will ever love me for long
  • I’m a horrible person
  • I’m the worst friend
  • I’m a failure
  • I’ll never be able to do this OR I’ll never be as good as so-and-so

Doesn’t that make you feel bad just reading it? It made me feel bad typing it, and I’m being objective right now rather than all up in my feelings. Of course, you’re going to feel bad if you talk to yourself like you hate yourself!

The worst part isn’t even necessarily when my mind tells me “you can’t.” Far more insidious are the whispers of “so what?” or “what will it matter?” or “nothing I do will make a difference” because those phrases take away hope.

Look, it’s not hopeless. You’re not hopeless. I’m not hopeless. Our minds are LIARS. That type of all-or-nothing, catastrophizing, demanding perfection, personalizing everything, etc., that is irrational thinking. Irrational thinking helps no one. Irrational thinking will sabotage your efforts and damage your relationships.

There’s a type of therapy called Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy or REBT. It helps people learn how to self-manage their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors by deconstructing them and teaches people how to change. REBT says that the way we think about events and the meanings we give them affect how we feel and behave, and if you know you’re doing that, you have the tools to fight. If you know the pattern, you can break the pattern = one of my favorite sayings.

So, how does it work? Break what you’re experiencing down into a few component parts:
A = Activating Event
Some horrible, traumatic, damaging, whatever experience, or even a fairly innocuous one, that triggers you to form an irrational belief.

B = Beliefs (these could be rational or irrational)
The beliefs that you use to cope with the event. How are you explaining the event to yourself? Sometimes having a negative belief, or making up a negative reason that something happened, is easier than having no idea at all why it happened.

C = Consequences (emotional and behavioral)
The consequences of your irrational belief. They could be emotional, behavioral, or both. What are you doing because you believe what you believe? Think hard here: do your reactions and these consequences serve you? Do they help you grow in any kind of meaningful way? Is this what you want? Is this how you want to feel?

D = Disputing
Questioning and arguing against your irrational beliefs and your assumptions. Where’s the evidence that what you believe is true? Keep asking that question. I think it’s a pretty damn powerful question.

E = More Effective Ways to Think, Feel, Behave
Now that you have countered your irrational beliefs, hopefully you will develop new, more positive, and more functional beliefs and consequences based in rational thought. These will help you be more resilient, more hopeful, and they’ll help you act and grow in the ways that you want to.

Accept yourself as you are and move forward from there. My thoughts and feelings are certainly real to me, but they do not always reflect the actual reality of my situation. I’ve learned to confront myself and to ask, “Mind, where’s the evidence that these things you say are true?” Typically, my mind can’t give me that. Not when I break it down and keep asking and keep pushing. The argument falls apart because it’s not true. And even if some piece of the argument is true, well, so what? Flaws aren’t irreversible. People who keep trying aren’t irredeemable. I have to believe that.

Sometimes you will be the only one who’s going to believe in you, and that’s okay. Sometimes you will be incapable of believing in yourself, and you’ll have to rely on others to carry you along and help you dispute your lying mind. That’s also okay. The continued movement is the important part. Momentum broken is momentum that will be a struggle to regain. Been there, done that, bought that t-shirt. Honestly, I’ll probably buy a few more before my time has fully run its course. Like I said, I know this stuff, and I still have trouble sometimes.

But get up. Keep getting up. Keep trying. Fall down seven times, get up eight. Maybe try a different approach or change the goal a bit if what you’re doing just isn’t working, but don’t give up. Fight those inclinations to tell yourself it won’t work or you’re not worth it. You are worth it, and if you push hard enough, something is going to change.


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Admitting I Have a Problem Is the First Step

Well, here we are again. It’s been awhile. I regret that I have not been more diligent in my journaling (both public and private) over the last few years. Now there are precious moments lost to time and fading in memory due to my failure to write them down. I’ve actually been poking at this particular post for several weeks. Some of those old words (since removed) now seem presentient. Things I feared may have come true. It happens, I guess. Nevertheless, we keep going, one foot in front of the other, and try to do better in the future.

So, here’s the deal: I get wrapped up in my head. I like for things to be decided, to be settled in my mind, but it’s the actual implementation into reality that I sometimes have trouble with. I am more thought than action, and I suspect that has backfired against me recently.

Today, I want to talk about action and lack of action specifically as they relate to health, activity, and weight loss. (No, I am not removing the cinnamon roll picture at the top of this journal. Looking at it makes me happy, and I believe a full, well-balanced life can include the occasional dessert.)

I’ve maintained roughly the same weight and clothing size for at least the last 5 or 6 years, but I haven’t been happy with the way I look or the way I feel, especially recently. I’ve lost confidence, not that I had that much to start with (issues and insecurities, I have them), and in some ways I feel like a stranger who’s residing inside my own body. I’ve been disconnected from myself. Nothing has brought that home more clearly than attempting to play on a playground set with children and realizing how little faith I had that my body would perform the feats I wanted it to do.

I’ve made pretenses at action. I’ve made a few actual actions, but I haven’t tended to follow through and keep up with them. To give you some idea of what I’m talking about:

Things I Have Done That Constituted Taking Action in My Mind But Typically Required Very Little or No Real Action on My Part

  • October 2013: Added the Runkeeper app to my phone (as an aside, I’ve been starting and failing to finish various Couch-to-5k programs since at least 2009; I know this because I’ve helpfully saved dated Word documents of my old browser bookmarks)
  • October 2015: Joined Moon Joggers (have since logged 249 miles, not diligently or probably completely)
  • April 2016: Bought the Supreme 90 Day DVD series from Goodwill (it’s like a stripped down P90X knockoff and I actually get results pretty quickly when I use them… but then for some reason I quit)
  • May 2016: Bought a FitBit Charge HR (which I do still wear regularly, and I am tracking food in it again, too)
  • July 2016: Splurged on three pairs of running shoes at one time
  • January 2017: Paid to became an investor in From Fat to Finish Line (the idea being maybe I’d put my body where my money was)
  • March 2017: Started and failed to finish (I dropped it four weeks in; I don’t remember why now) the FFTFL Run Your First Mile Training Plan; also bought several strength training books
  • October 23-25, 2017: Conducted a comparison of local CrossFit boxes’ class times and membership prices
  • November 2, 2017: Paid to join Nerd Fitness Academy (which I have recently requested to cancel because I’m completely uninterested in the whole quest module thing and I really won’t ever use it; I guess I’m not the right kind of nerd)
  • November 25, 2017: Signed up for a free three-month trial of Slimming World (recommended by my boss)
  • Et cetera, ad infinitum.

There’ve been other false starts, of course, probably lots of them, that are not as easily remembered or documented. So, now I’m trying to figure out where and why I become stuck, but unpacking baggage can be hard. There’s parts of myself that I don’t really like facing.

During the three times before in my life that I have lost significant weight, it was for a man, not for me. I didn’t do it because I wanted it for myself. I thought if I was thinner and more traditionally attractive, I would be more loved and more desired. It never worked out that way, of course, and I think part of my struggle recently has been being afraid to fall into that pattern again. I wanted this time to be for me, not for anyone else. I think it has to be for me if there’s to be any hope of sustaining it.

Meanwhile, my mind has always fought against me. It tells me that I will no longer be held in esteem, be liked, be loved, if I am seen to stress, to struggle, to–worst of all–fail. I know that’s not true. I don’t lose affection for other people when I see them struggle and try. If anything, it swells my heart and makes me love them more. But believing the same for myself is difficult. So, in large part, I’ve pretended not to try, let words go unsaid, because that way I haven’t had to admit that I’ve tried, struggled, failed. I’ve set myself up for rejection by being afraid of it, and I haven’t always been authentic and genuine with the people who’ve deserved it most.

But! I have been trying! Ahem, again. As you can sort of tell from the list above. If the scale is to be believed, which I’m not always sure it is, I’ve lost about 10 lbs since the end of October/beginning of November. I don’t think I look like I have, I don’t think I feel like I have (if anything I feel more squishy), but some items of clothing do fit a bit differently. Zippers that once “rode down with wear” now stay where I put them. Of course, how many times have I lost and gained that same 10 lbs over the years? Too many. It’s too soon to trust it yet. Also, I would prefer to talk in terms of health and activity, not just weight, but the scale is certainly the easiest marker of change right now.

This last month and some few days, I’ve been more active, and I’ve been more mindful about what I’m eating. It’s a work in progress. I only started tracking my food intake and exercise activities with anything like dedication this last week. It’s not that I didn’t do anything before. I just didn’t track it or talk about. It seemed personal, something to keep more closely guarded, but that’s how I’ve always end up failing.

I’m tired of failing. I’m tired of being a stranger in my own skin. I’m not quite sure yet who I’m going to be, but I’m stumbling down the road to get there. This is my journey; I have to move at my own pace, but I’m tired of doing it all alone. I can’t keep failing to turn up to my own life out of fear or discomfort. Will I suddenly be magically braver and over all my hangups? Probably not. Probably definitely not, but I’m self aware, I’m looking at the patterns, and I believe patterns that are known can be broken or reworked.

So, let’s say weekly, I get introspective, I get vulnerable, and I get you guys to help keep me accountable. I become responsible and accountable to my own words and thoughts when I share them. This is pretty uncomfortable (read: scary as hell) and in some ways feels like the ultimate in narcissistic, navel-gazing self indulgence, but what the hell? Let’s do it.