When the enemy is within

I recently attended a creative living seminar and am taking an online breakthrough course designed to help me achieve a big goal. The content is incredibly motivating, engaging and relevant.

For the most part, things are going great, but last week, I stayed up too late, binge-watched tv, played a new and very addictive phone game, drank Coke and ate things that were not nourishing in any of the important ways.

Each morning, I woke up tired and cranky with a headache and one question on my mind: Why?

• When everything is going so well, why am I regressing?

• When the new behaviors feel great, why am I rebelling against them?

• When I enjoy writing, why am I procrastinating?

My phone tempted me. It was easier to play that goofy game than it was to write an essay. One level became two, and then I was lost to the world of pretend productivity.

My email box beckoned. It gave a sense of empty accomplishment as I deleted ads and junk.

The news of the day was always just a browser tab away, waiting to distract me from my inner inquiry.

All ready and willing to buffer me from the harder work, the work I wanted deep down to do.

I was self-sabotaging. But this time, instead of berating myself for my lack of discipline, I just noticed what I was doing. I got curious.

It turns out that we all self-sabotage from time to time. The key is not to expect perfection, but to find simple steps to move forward.

I started by writing this to myself. (Forgive the pronouns, they’re tricky when you’re talking to yourself.)

Dear Beth,

I am your fear. I’ve become really good at helping you forget to take care of ourself. The first step? I rob you of sleep. When you’re tired, you have less energy to make good choices, you’re less creative, you’re slower. Once I’ve compromised our sleep, it’s relatively easy to steer you to fast food. Then our body has to sort through all the sugar, animal fat and chemicals to find even a morsel of nutrition. Without fuel, our body needs to conserve energy so instead of a walk, we find the couch. And the remote. We drift along with the storyline, propelling us to just watch one more. And then, we pick up the phone and start playing that new game. It’s nice of the game to reward us with unlimited play for the next hour. And before we know it, it’s late. We tell ourself we can sleep late tomorrow, forgetting the commitment at 9. It’s ok, we can just skip meditating to save some time in the morning.

Repeat.

Now I’ve kept you from doing anything risky. No big successes, no big failures. Status quo, just the way fear likes it. I’m just trying to keep you safe.

Sincerely,

Fear

That then led to writing this, again to myself.

Dear Beth,

I am your self-love and I’m here to tell you that I love you. I know you’re frustrated and tired and just worn down. It’s ok. We know how to fix this. We’ve done it before. We know, deep-down, what it takes to do it again.

First, tonight we will sleep. We will assign a bedtime that allows nine hours before the inevitable 5:30 am wake up call by the pets. We will re-start our sleep routine. We know it works because we were brave enough, determined enough, smart enough to do it before. We will stop eating and drinking and watching tv and using our phone two hours before. We will clean the kitchen, water the plants, take a bath and meditate our way to dreamland.

Tomorrow morning, we will wake up the first time. We will let the pets out, feed them and then feed ourselves.

This means we will go to the grocery store today for protein, fiber, sustenance. Nothing fancy, nothing complex, just easily prepared, repeatable, and preferably green.

We will drink water.

We will write down our dreams from last night. We will do a morning meditation.

Then we will get out of the house and move our body, either by walking the dogs at the dog park or going to water aerobics.

We will drink more water.

We will get dressed for the day ahead, including the under-eye cream. We will put on clothes that feel good on our body. We will smile at ourselves in the mirror, happy that we’re showing up for ourself.

Yep, more water.

Now we’re ready for the writing. We can show up for it when we show up for ourself.

It’s ok that we’re not doing it perfectly. This is part of the process. We are learning important things here, like resetting when we forget to take good care of ourself.

Repeat.

Now, go delete that game off your phone. I know, I know. But it’s designed to help you forget yourself.

You can do this. I’m rooting for you.

Sincerely,

Love

I felt different, more hopeful, more capable.

I took a break from writing. I deleted the game from my phone. I focused on sleeping, eating, moving and being well. It’s amazing how fast it works.

I’m not weak for failing. It’s natural to self-sabotage in various large and small ways. Now I’m learning not to push through weakness, but to interrupt and reset with love.

Unfortunately, I still miss that dumb game. It makes me mad that people intentionally create content to be addictive. (In fact, it’s seen as a positive attribute of a game.) But as Ferris Bueller said,

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while,
you could miss it."

And I’m not ready to miss this moment.

From the garden

I’m up to sixteen delicious, tiny, ripe strawberries as we start to wrap up their season. I savor each one as a rare and precious burst of flavor. I am abundantly grateful that none of my berries have included a protein surprise (bug, worm, etc.) since I’m organically gardening.

The cucumber plant finally started to spread now that I gave it a new neighboring tomato plant. I gave the new basil its own pot out of necessity and optimism. The chives and cilantro are seriously outpacing my consumption so I’m running out of space.

I wish we had scratch and sniff for this oregano. The fresh stuff in the store comes nowhere close to the magical fragrance I have on my hand after saying hello.

When I went to buy the replacement basil, I was tempted by these cute new perennials even though I had nowhere to put them. The dirt in the side yard is too poor to support much without some serious remediation, so I’m relying on the pots for now. This daisy is thriving in the space so I have hope. We had a really hot week so I’m praying they survive until I get to that project.

I have absolutely no idea why the centers look blue in the picture instead of yellow in real life.