today's kangaroo sighting

So, after work today I went on that same hike- the one where I first spotted my (imaginary) kangaroo.

This evening, as I was approaching that same hill I said to myself, "I bet I'll see that kangaroo again!" And, sure enough, there he was.

And he looked just as real as the first time. And I caught myself still continuing to wish he was real so I could have him come live with me.

What was different this time was that I could predict that I'd see him, and that I knew with certainty that although I was going to "see" him, he'd only be a figment of my imagination, a twist of perception.

Why the heck is this important? Well, I'm not telling you this to increase (or confirm) you guys' thoughts that I'm quite odd... I'm telling you to point out that this is the way we can deal with thoughts/perceptions/etc that turn out to be inaccurate- even when they seem SO real.

Here's a non-kangaroo-related example! Say, for instance, you're going to a party. You're general first response to walking through the door to any party is to say to yourself, "I suck. No one's going to like me."

Like my second encounter with my kangaroo friend, you can predict that you'll say this rotten thing to yourself. AND you can remind yourself that it is a figment of your imagination (because it IS a figment of your imagination...of course people at the party will like you, and you don't suck. Ok, maybe not every single person in the world will like you (hello, perfectionist alert!!!) but it's not true that every person at every party you go to will dislike you. That's just not possible! sheesh...plenty of people- WAY ENOUGH people- will like you in this lifetime :)

I know this takes practice. A lot of practice! Predicting my kangaroo sighting and being clear he's fiction is soooo easy. After all, other than wishing he could be real and could come live with me, this isn't a contentious issue for me! There's nothing hard about it. Those rotten, and inaccurate, thoughts you guys have about yourselves feel so real, they seem so believable, and you've been accustomed to accepting them about yourselves for a long time. It's takes awhile to change those horrible thoughts into actual accurate ones. It does happen, though, so keep at it.

Comments

[wendy]

Your Kangaroo sighting reminds me of last years visit with the kids in New Hampshire. We were on a two lane highway and passed a moose...I was so excited to spot my first moose ever that I shouted. Soon we came up on another and when we did I realized it was a wood cutout of a moose that looked very real but was no wider than the ply wood it was made out of. My kids laughed and said the first one was the same but they did not want to tell me cause i was so excited. It is funny how I can feel like I have over come those negative thoughts that are lies, and some little thing will happen and they are right back there again! Some times in a croud I can switch them off my adopting a stance of curiosity about others. As long as I am not behaving like a jerk, I try to adopt the stance that when another person doesn't like somone it says more about him or her than the person that is not liked. I am not yet (J/K, Johanna) perfect at applying these concepts, but I am better at it than before...so I get a perfection deflection award for refusing to believe I fail at recovery for not being perfect at discounting negative thoughts or lies.

[Laura]

A while back we had a conversation going on here about predicting things... That was very helpful for me.

It's cool how we can use the model of changing ED food thoughts into accurate food thoughts and apply that to questioning, and, supposedly, one day changing, other thoughts (about the world, ourselves in the world, ourselves in relationships, etc.) into more accurate thoughts.

In a similar sort of way, we can use the model of how we make improvement with body image and apply that to make improvement towards other destructive self images that we might have....

The other day - I was in a position where there was some tension between people around me. I immediately started feeling responsible for the tension, which led to self-criticism, which led me to feel just pretty bad about myself. As I was feeling so horrible about myself - like I was toxic to humanity or something - I had a thought: "If I have learned/am learning to think that I should restrict food, but question that thought... and if I'm learning, little by little, that actually I shouldn't restrict food.... and that thought was wrong and not accurate...... then MAYBE this thought - the thought that I am the only one who contributed to the tension in the room, that I am a bad person... maybe it's possible that thought isn't 100% accurate either......" And then I got afraid that if I let myself think that I might not be so horrible after all, that I'd start becoming arrogant and self-absorbed.... But then I caught this as black and white thinking, and I thought: "In food... people say eat more... but they don't mean never stop eating. They mean eat more, eat enough. When people say "you shouldn't restrict" they aren't saying "you should binge." So... if I have been able to find the grey area in between restricting and bingeing in the last few months.... then maybe I can realize that there is a grey area in between "I had nothing to do with the tension in the room" and "I am entirely responsible for the tension in the room." So, when I am telling myself that I'm not a bad person and that I didn't cause all of the tension in the room.... I'm not saying that I'm the best person in the world and I had nothing to do with the tension in the room. (similar to how when people say eat more they're not saying eat everything)..... (anyone following this?)" So, I concluded that I probably played a part - and everyone probably played a part. But, playing a part in the tension doesn't make me a horrible person just like it doesn't make any of hte other people a horrible person. If it doesn't make other people "bad people," then it doesn't make me one either. (parallel: if other people can eat cookies on the same day that they eat a sandwich - i can too. .... this was just about applying the same standard to myself as I do to others)....

ok, so I used my successes in food/exercise/behavioral improvement to try to make progress in other ways...
1. I had a thought about myself.
2. I remembered that if not all food thoughts are true, maybe not all thoughts about myself are true.
3. I feared that allowing myself to consider that my thought about myself was false that I'd swing to the other extreme.
4. I recognized that this is a fear i had with food too, but it didn't happen with food.
5. if it didn't happen with food, it might not happen with thoughts abou myself either.
6. the corrective food thought is a "grey thought" not a "black thought" or a "white thought."
7. therefore, the corrective thought about myself would be a "Grey thought" too.
8. in food, the "grey thought" is a thought i already apply to others... and am learning to apply to myself.
9. the "Grey thought" about myself I definitely apply to others.... so maybe I can apply it to myself too.

did that make ANY sense?

[wendy]

very cool Laura!!!!!!!!!! It is interesting to hear that someone else has thought they were a toxic person. I like how you applied what you learned in one area to another....shades of gray...gray is turning out to be a prety color after all...:) Good work and thanks for sharing it...it was helpful!

[Laura]

Thanks, Wendy!

[Laura]

Ok, I wanted to share another thing that has been changing for me lately:

Sometimes... not all of the time... but sometimes...I'm having this new feeling where I don't need other people's approval to make my own decisions. (My pattern is to wait for praise or encouragement before am secure in my life choices) I'm coming to realize that I can decide what is best for me and be okay with that. I don't need other people's praise or other people's blessing in order for me to to accept myself and my actions. I'm allowed to be the director of my own life. This is a very empowering new feeling I'm having. When I think about jobs, (even though I'm in my mid-twenties) I always feel like I need my parents to enthusiastically support the job decision I make. Now, I'm realizing that this isn't true. My parents don't think this is true either. My parents fully support me making my own decisions... it's just that I haven't had a strong enough sense of self to be secure in trusting my own thoughts/feelings/wants/desires/likes/dislikes as valid. Even when I have a thought about what I want to do, I feel too unsure of myself to communicate it... so I wait and hope for other people to suggest it (This even goes for careers... I hope other people will suggest the careers that I want as opposed to me confidently stating what I want to do with my life) I've always needed or sought other approval from others as a sign that my thoughts/feelings/wants/desires/likes/dislikes are valid. Lately, that stable/strong sense of self - of a valid self - is noticeably starting to develop. EX: I keep thinking of jobs to apply for, and they're not the *perfect* job, and my dad keeps telling me he thinks I should take my time and really not settle for a job I don't truly want. My dad thinks I should prioritize finding the exact career path and allowing that to dictate my time-frame for moving out on my own again (I've recently moved back in with my parents for the first time since high school for financial reasons, job loss, and also ED reasons). It's not that he thinks this is definitely the right way to live life - it's just that suggesting this is his way of trying to help me make decisions about my life. Problem is... this is freezing me up. I feel like I can't apply for jobs because I don't know if my dad will think it's a "perfect job" for me. I want to know what he'll think of me saying "I'm going to apply for this job" before I even say that out loud. And not being able to control and perfectly predict his reactions leaves me paralyzed, doing nothing productive. I'm getting way too unnecessarily caught up in others' approval simply because I don't have a clear sense of what I want. (For the record, my dad could care less .. he just wants me to do what makes me happy). But I'm starting to carve out a clearer sense of what I want. So, I'm making a decision. I'm CHOOSING to prioritize getting back to independently livign and having a job that pays enough for the lifestyle I want to live (and a job that, you know, is in alignment enough of the type of stuff I might want to do long term... not a job I expect to hate or anything). I'm not prioritizing "pefectly figuring out my life." I'm prioritizing "get moving forward, get a pay check, live where I want to live, get back to being independent." So, I told my dad today, "I'm making the choice to prioritize getting back up to the Area where I was living. This means that I'm applying for lots of jobs. Not all jobs will be the ideal job - most won't. But my priority right now is to make enough money to be able to pay rent on my own again. So, I might end up taking a job that isn't *perfect,* but I'll take a job that's *good enough,* and that's okay with me." And I stated it clearly and comfortably calmly - and he was like "okay, cool." And that was that. Done. And, as I did that, I felt a rising sense of inner power. This isn't to say that I won't ask for his feedback or ask for his opinion on things. This isn't to say I'm closing my ears to hearing that I might be doing things that aren't in my best self-interest. But it is to say that I'm coming to understand that I have a right to an opinion, to choices, to decision making - and I can articulate those opinions, make those choices, and trust my decisions. Conclusion: I'm starting to get better at identifying what I want - I'm starting to get a clearer sense of self - and I'm starting to realize it's perfectly fine to communicate this self, articulate this self, etc. Maybe this is really about starting to trust my own self?

[wendy]

That is really cool Laura! I don't know when I quit caring so much about what people think...it just sorta happeneed over time...but it does feel very good.