We’ve all fucked up and have done things that didn’t align with our true character.
Done things that we have no reasons for.
Sacrificed our morals, ethics and everything that constructs our identities at some point in our life.
Hurt those we love and most importantly we inevitably hurt ourselves in the process.
If you say you haven’t you’re lying to yourself.
You’re not perfect my dear and you never will be. Nor am I.
Casting judgments and looking at someone as ‘less than’ for attempting to escape the pain of life is hypocritical as fuck. We all have our methods. Just because yours are different doesn’t mean they are better.
Some of us become a shell of our true selves attempting to cope with our difficulties. I know I have completely destroyed myself in an attempt to push my pain down. I have destroyed the essence of who I am as a person — in an attempt to not feel the feels.
But the thing is that we need to accept is our problems are not ‘who you are’ and they’re most definitely not your lot in life. It isn’t your final destination.
The coping methods you utilize today usually are tied to something specific from your past.
This issue can be solved forever if you have the strength to look at the problem in detail and untangle it at the roots. Pick apart your thoughts. Your actions. Ask why?
This will be the most ‘worth it’ growth you’ll do in this beautiful life of yours.
You didn’t arrive here in this fucking mess by accident.
Your actions are a manifestation of some deep ass feelings inside: shameful feelings and painful beliefs that don’t fit with who you want to be in your conscious value system.
Your actions are putting these inner subconscious feelings into active context via a coping mechanism.
Your old experiences have molded you and created this loop of self-destructive behaviors in you that I’m positive your conscious mind is attempting to rationalize.
You’re likely trying to give the destructive behavior a logical source:
I’m binge eating because I’m stressed — my family brings trigger foods in the house — or I’m just a weak willed mofo.
I’m using XYZ substance because I like the way it makes me feel and it enables me to connect with other humans.
I’m cheating on my significant other because they aren’t paying attention to me.
These are logical reasons to assign to something that doesn’t make sense to you. But are they true? Most of the time they are beliefs not fully supported by facts.
You’re likely conflicted and confused by your feelings of inner chaos and pain — resulting from polar opposite emotions about your own actions. It feels good — but it isn’t in alignment with my higher goals. That cognitive dissonance that I write about is a bitch to catch and untangle.
No matter what source you assign to this self defeating behavior — it still doesn’t make sense and it seems totally outside of your control.
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The why behind this loop of behavior, is in the denial of a feeling.
A denial of what we are ashamed to feel — don’t want to feel — or are afraid to feel for a variety of reasons.
Because these feels betray us in our minds moral construct.
Because these feels aren’t socially acceptable.
Because these feels are intolerable to our loved ones.
Because these feels are intrinsic and there nothing we can do to shift them.
Because these feels don’t align with what we want at a conscious level.
And so we ignore them, medicate them, bury them under other life busyness — cover them with things that prove we are good and powerful and different than the darkness.
We run even faster and work harder to be better in all the other areas of our life just so we don’t have to feel.
It’s hard to lean in. I get it. We have to be ok feeling uncomfortable in the short term and this is against everything that we are — comfort seeking machines.
•••••••
Bottom line here is no one ever talks about this part.
The part where you don’t know who you are anymore and you sure as fuck don’t know where you’re going. All you know is everything in you wants something different and sees a better future.
You just don’t know how to get there.
I always was so eye rolly when fit pro’s would tell me to trust the process. They don’t even understand what that means — yet they regurgitate it like it’s gospel.
I will break down my thoughts on this:
Trusting the process is knowing that this is messy and accepting it for what it is. We aren’t going to be perfect because hey — we’re human. We don’t like discomfort. We are wired up to self soothe with destructive behaviors. We have been conditioned by people that were doing the best they could with what they had.
None of this is a linear process. It is an undoing that is unpredictable.
All this self destruction is predictable and repatterining of old habits takes time and is the breakdown of what once was effective coping mechanisms.
Hey. I want you to know that you've got this shit. It isn't going to be perfect. But stick with it and keep unraveling. In a few years you'll look back and be happy you didn't give up.
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