"I'd rethink the ankle socks with pumps deal if I were you.
But I mean that in the nicest possible way."
Dorothy: Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?
Glinda: You don't need to be helped any longer. You've always had the power to go back to Kansas.
Dorothy: I have?
Scarecrow: Then why didn't you tell her before?
Glinda: Because she wouldn't have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.
Oh yes, I've been playing Dorothy for most of my life, always looking to someone else for help and the answers. Yes, I have finally learned for myself (refer to last post) that nobody's going to lose this weight for me. And while I know I must have the power within me somewhere, I cannot for the life of me seem to access it.
Okay, so now I'm feeling a lot like Dave from "2001 - A Space Odyssey" - begging HAL to open the pod bay doors for me. I think my pod bay doors are jammed, too, when I engage in this endless cycle of self-sabotage and denying myself the things in life I really truly want. I have figured out the emotional reasons why I am overweight (thanks in large part to Geneen Roth's "Women, Food & God") but feel I'm still missing the part that will ultimately help me get unstuck and moving forward - the stuff behind the pod bay doors. I might also be part HAL - not trusting myself enough to accomplish this important mission.
I hate to say this but I am taking one last stab at a self-help book that seems to address just this issue called "The Tools". The authors claim that their tools will take the reader beyond the "why" of their problems to "how" they can teach themselves to break obsessive habits, like self-sabotage and rumination of past problems. Couldn't hurt - even though I'm kind of going outside myself for the answer. But I think the difference here is that they're directing me back to myself to identify and drop some bad habits, and learn to develop some good ones. Sigh - anyone interested in joining my support group for people who read too many self-help books?
I'm really struggling not to backslide any further. I'm trying to establish some kind of beach head here and it's taking everything I've got. I think I've got most of the bad stuff out of my head but cry almost every night out of sheer frustration at not being able to move forward with the good. To loosely quote another favorite movie,"A League of Their Own": "Crying? There's no crying in hardball." (P.S. yes, my fellow purists, I know the real line refers to "baseball" - please allow me a little blogger's license.)
3 comments:
What i found a long time ago about self help books is that sooner or later, i have to put them down and do the stuff they teach. When i was ready, i did just that.
You will, too. When you get to the right "stage of change."
There are several "Stages of Change" that have been outlined by psychologists.
Some models have more stages than others.
The most commonly listed "stages of change" are:
1) PRECONTEMPLATION
2) CONTEMPLATION
3) PREPARATION
4) ACTION
5) MAINTENANCE
6) TERMINATION
Some models also list "termination" as a sixth stage, indicating that the new behavior one has progressed to ... has become so much a part of one's life, that "maintenance" is automatic. One is then ready to tackle changing something else in one's life.
Wikipedia has an article about it at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transtheoretical_model#Stages_of_Change
And there's a good book on it
"Your Own Worst Enemy: Breaking the Habit of Adult Underachievement"
by Kenneth W. Christian, Ph.D
It took me 30 years to get through the stages and make the change permanent. Don't give up.
I really think the right self-help stuff, well, helps. But as far as weight and fat goes, I think it is helpful to understand that there is a fairly powerful biological component at play, and finding ways to weaken biology's hold on you will reinforce whatever head work has to be done.
When I can disable the sweety/munchy insulin-resistant thing, it is so much easier to eat like a grown up.
Love your writing, glad you're back!
I think self-help books have a place, especially if you are prone to emotional eating, which I am. Also developing and reinforcing good habits is important. It is a very complex process to be sure.
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