I don’t love lying to my coworkers (and friends), but it seems the less hurtful option, as the truth is insulting to people excited about corporate cupcakes. So a greater-good thing.
March 21: great workout. It’s time for me to move from a beginner lifting program to intermediate, or else join a gym and pay for a trainer.
Neck was sore yesterday, wondering if I’m tensing when I run. The chiro told me a year (two?) ago to stop doing shoulder work, but I’ve been doing OHPs and raises without any problem. So. Will focus attention on that next run.
Spent 10 minutes on the TM for a relaxed walk, felt nice.
Weight still up after a rest day - bitter but accepting. I know my calories are in line, so it’ll budge when it does.
I have much more flexibility around this since my social circle are much more health conscious. They’re usually more than happy to go with my alternative suggestions (e.g., go for a walk, go for coffee) and are understanding if I only order a salad with no dressing and high calorie toppings
Many of my professors offer walking meetings without me prompting and my advisor is probably more neurotic about her diet than me
The biggest struggle for me is honestly dealing with the cost of invitations to eat out. I find it incredibly painful to have to pay for food/drinks at restaurants
I have zero problem with restaurant-type social…wait, that’s not actually true, it really depends where we’re going. So for example two weeks ago we went out to Mexican for one of my kids’ birthdays and there was no way to happily restrict calories. It’s a New England Mexican place and so focused on tacos and burritos. I’d have loved a plate of fish, rice, and refrieds piled with pico and salsa, but no, nothing like that. The fajitas I ordered were difficult to form into something resembling meat and veggies. LOTS of sour cream and cheese, and like three tiny pcs of diced tomato on a bed of shredded lettuce - maybe a tablespoon’s worth. The chicken was suspiciously goopy, like a coating of grease-holding seasoning. Pico de gallo? Oh, no, we don’t have that.
So I ate and enjoyed to the extent I could.
Work luncheons are catered bullshit, typically either something like Panera sandwiches and salad which = iceberg and very limited tomato and giant cookies, or Italian bad-buffet food. This time it was the latter, with cupcakes the head of the hospital social work department (very generously) made. And then everyone got a teeny-tiny plant because we were being feted. Except me, because they forgot to grab me one. One less thing to kill, I guess.
Which reminds me that I need to go fight my way through CPR recertification this weekend.
Weight is still up. Husband agrees that it’s muscle.
I went out to dinner with my best friend last night and didn’t finish my salmon and fingerling potatoes. She was staggered that there was food left on my plate. It wasn’t a ton and I could certainly have finished it, but I did that weird thing where I recognized I was full and stopped.
11 degrees this morning, which means inside LISS. Tonight into tomorrow we’re scheduled for a snow storm. Hopefully that’ll be big fun, maybe snowshoeing, definitely shoveling. No plans this weekend, so it should be very pro-cut in terms of diet.
@The_Myth I’m bringing this back in here because I worry that my response may seem dismissive, and I don’t want to bring negativity into a thread about something many people value.
So I think there’s a lot of projection in your assumptions about my motivation. I’m not after a runner’s high as much as I like the efficiency of running for me. If doing it regularly, I can knock out 3 mi in 30 minutes, 6 in an hour, during which my outfit for work is planned and maybe I’ve done some brainstorming over a tough patient I have scheduled for the day. I’ve remembered that I never responded to a friend’s text and need to do that over breakfast.
I can do these things walking as well but mo’ miles = mo’ conditioning, and I don’t have an hour for walking in the morning before work. I experience joy while walking also, which I attribute to a combination of movement and music along with the elevated heart rate and breathing. I feel similarly joyous dancing with the dog while I’m cleaning house, or even better, two drinks in on vacation. Riding my bike to the beach on Martha’s Vineyard is a joy thing, unless it’s too hot, then it’s not. Athletic sex = joy. Snowshoeing or hiking. Breathing in the smell of fall. Sometimes breathing in the smell of the dog or my husband. My drive to work after a good workout; coffee and music and a pretty day.
My point is that bubbles of joy, or “the high” come easily to me. I like drinks and I like cannabis, but they aren’t needed for me to lift into an expansive state. Sometimes a paragraph in a book will require that I stop for a moment and let the expansion in my chest lessen while I process whatever idea has caused…maybe not joy, but something very like it.
When I came from Texas to my current hippy-heavy home, I encountered more vegetarians than I was used to. More often than not I found them wan and sort of stooped. Initially I thought it was strange they continued to eat this way when it was so apparent that it was depleting them. Then one day it occurred to me that they weren’t wan and stooped because they were vegetarian, they were vegetarian (sub in organic, vitamin-loading, whatever) because they didn’t feel well. They were looking for an external source of vitality, or blamed an external source for their lack of it.
I’m very familiar with Grof’s work. One of my kids was very close to a Grof-trained practitioner’s kid. I find it analogous to the diet thing. Something is missing, so one seeks. (Vegetarians, BTW.)
I felt joy this morning when I woke up. I have the day off and I can work out at leisure (long walk or I’ll do a video workout) (during which I’m very likely to find myself smiling). Husband is home, dog is sleeping beside me. After I finish lounging around and working out, I’ll do some housework and shower. After lunch we’ll organize our tax stuff and drop it off, then hit the grocery store. It’s not going to be as bitter as I thought this morning, so we’re planning a hike with hang-arounding in the woods. Maybe steak for dinner - been a lot of fish this week. But even if I didn’t have these awesome plans (lol) there would be stuff to look forward to. Everything I need and want is right here inside me.
So yoga is appealing as a means to stretch, but for peace or joy there’s simply no motivation to woo for me. Why burn sage when I’m comfortable with my processing of the trauma I’m exposed to?
I don’t think it’s that for me - my parents rarely pushed food, then my mom left altogether when I was 12. It’s probably more that - if I have food issues, they’re scarcity related.
But I think it’s more that my metabolism just churned along so well for so long (@jshaving despite having half of my thyroid removed at age 28 due to thyroid cancer) and I prefer lean food generally (don’t like goop like alfredo and don’t like heavy condiments), I was habituated to volume eating. And also am a glutton.
Oh no, you didn’t! And I didn’t mean to come back with “I have abundance unending,” but rather to talk about internal vs external sources of bliss or peace, and under what conditions woo serves. There’s a difference between needing to learn to sit still through agitation (an agitated mind or spirit) and not needing to sit still because it’s a waste of energy to use energy to still energy (lol).
I got fired by two different patients this week (called the clinic and asked for transfer to another provider). This is very unusual, generally it’s more like two a year, but we’ve lost a therapist, so some of his people have come to me and don’t like the change. I’m never surprised by the rejection - they are of a type, as I am. And that type is…not looking for change. They’re unhappy, but comfortable there, and very blocking when it comes to suggestions for improvement. They’re looking for sympathy, maybe acceptance that it’s okay to be unhappy, and I am an agent of change. It’s very difficult for me to understand why someone would want to dwell in miserable (“I have no friends and my spouse and I are not close and I carry anger and I don’t sleep well and I hate my job”). I saw one of them only once, and the message asking for callback was that I’d asked her to think about what “happy” might look like, and she didn’t feel she wanted “to unpack that” with me.
It took me a long time to make peace with these spurnings because my projection is that everyone wants to find a cheerful, fulfilling acceptance of life, but which requires willingness to change the things we cannot cheerfully accept. But not so!
When I fall into celebrity envy, it’s almost always of their personal trainers and time to dedicate to physical wellness. It’s difficult for me (and you, I’m sure) to imagine someone getting all sour-faced over a trainer saying “one more! you can do it! looking good!” but I know these people are out there. People who actually get angry at people who push them to be well and feel good.
My point, which I didn’t articulate, was that you should know that some people have factory-installed pathways to expansion/bliss/joy (not sure I know exactly what bliss is, TBH) or contentment, so you can seek to develop that as an aftermarket thing along with the stillness. The ability to produce this internally is, I believe, strongly related to the eschewing of externalized unhappiness (the bitterness). Addicts are, by definition, people seeking their feel-good externally.
@SkyzykS did you have to develop the capacity for internally generated happiness, or was it there waiting when you stopped drinking?
March 23: 151.8 still/again. Did mixed cardio yesterday for 30 minutes, hiked for 2.5 slow (Buttons) miles, so a couple of hours altogether of pleasant LISS. We had errands to run in the valley, so did our hike there. No snow! It was nice. Today we’re scheduled for 10-20" of snow and ice. I’m loving the windows full of snowstorm. We’ll go out in it later, I’m sure. This winter has been a lot of fun in that all of the storms have been weekend things.
So I bought, and opened today, this bluetooth tape measure Bluetooth Body Tape Measure by Arboleaf. Husband was all “???” and for a minute I felt a little confused myself as to its benefit. But then I used it and now have DATA nicely tucked away in an app. So I bought a smart scale to go with it. It should be here Tuesday. I wish I’d gotten these things at the beginning of the T-ransformation challenge.
I’m sure you know, thats a complicated one, but your question to the patient
Is very relevant to how I went about it.
Which, now that we’re unpacking it, answers itself.
In many ways I’m still afraid to be happy, because I don’t want anybody, myself included, to ruin it.
But a lot of people recommended I don’t go chasing tail to find a temporary fix, and to just get to know myself and find ways to be happy. Thats how I discovered mycology, fly fishing, meditation in motion, and sometimes just sitting and being ok with myself. ← Heart attack/failure and the limits it has placed has brought emphasis on this to the fore. Sometimes thats the only option.
In my case, I think that was the only place it was to be found (of course I did!)
There was never any messaging or acknowledgement that I could be ok or that happiness could be internally generated or experienced.
Instead of a bunch of infuriating edits popping in, I’ll just elaborate.
At the time, there was a thing called 13th stepping. Thats when you bang a newcomer, or as a newcomer just jump right in to the candy bowl. There are only 12, so that isn’t part of the program.
The rule of thumb was to take 1 year and figure out who you actually are, what you like & dislike unadulterated by substances. Being a very literal person, thats what I did.
I ended up finding out that in a lot of ways I was not who I thought I was, in some good and bad ways.
I hate to cut this short, but I have 1 more day of work left before I take a few off (whether I want to or not) and I gotta go do it. Im going to have a good time doing it though. Me & my big ole tree buddy always have a good time, especially when the going gets tough. .
It’s hard. I have trouble with trust, which is to say that I may trust you as much as I trust anyone, which of course isn’t a good thing as you’re someone I’ve never met, lol. I’ve landed on something maybe just a little stronger than provisional trust, which seems to be enough. I trust my husband more than I’ve ever trusted anyone, but it’s still, I know, not what people experience whose parents were able to want them. My kids are getting older and I’ve begun to feel trust in that direction, but that’s recent and a function of them growing past self-centeredness and the assumption that they and I both revolve around them.
So I leave room for things being ruined. Husband dumps me and I’m completely devastated is the main worry. But I know I’d recover from that, and I know how. (Because when I feel threatened I start self-soothing by making plans…job hunting and apartment hunting and looking for a gym and a book club in whatever coastal town I think I’d like to live in, currently Providence, RI, riding my bike to and from work.) (I’d buy dinner on the way home and carry it in my bike’s basket, maybe a baguette sticking up, very French.)
Which is to say that in an emotional emergency, this ^^^.
Yes. I’m very self-disclosing at work, same as here. It’s not everyone’s style. But it’s easier to tell people with family bitterness that my brother was a violent and thieving kid and that ultimately finding empathy and forgiveness was for ME, not for him. Although once you find empathy you sort of want the people who ruined your life to have something better than their own constant self-generated pain. I don’t know/care if living well is the best revenge (against whom?), living well is just a really nice way to live. Most of the people who’ve hurt me seemed pretty comfortable with me living poorly. But I have more important concerns that that or them, which are the things I do to create “living well” by my measure.
I did! Everything went really good. Not only did nothing get broken and no one got hurt, but we fixed a few things that will make it a lot easier for (hopefully) a good while to come.
I’ll respond more when I’m not feeling as beat. I ran it to empty this week, but now I can rest much better.
I have a tendency to go school marm which is interpreted as mansplaining. Maybe it is mansplaining, I don’t know. I am glad that you did not take it as such.
I have only ever had female therapists and I can’t imagine someone having a problem with you. You create a great container and hold nice space. I guess you can’t please everyone. In my past life, as a teacher, I had several parents that disliked me. My brother did the math for me - twenty years of teaching, 125 kids each year, four parents disliked me. “You’re not trying hard enough.”
I have been fired by two therapists in my life. Both times for not being committed to therapy. I have also had one fight for me to continue when I was worn out - “But you are doing such great work!”
It was great work, IFS, and I did make progress. Eventually I came to the same conclusion Abigail Shrier came to - talking about my problems just made them bigger. It was a turning point for me. Prior to that, I needed to do the talk therapy work. But I was ready to graduate.
I am not sure these pathways are factory installed unless you consider childhood experiences the factory. But I agree. The pathways to misery and victimhood are installed - whether by the genetics (factory) or the culture in which one grows up.
Uninstalling, or rerouting these pathways is very difficult. The longer these pathways are in use, the more they become used. Specifically, the meso-limbic reward system in addicts. I haven’t been in rehab for a while, but as I recall, my counselors described this pathway as a one lane road in “Normies,” but a four lane highway in addicts.
This is where mushrooms help - not just psilocybin. Mushrooms help create new neuro pathways that help facilitate changes in habits.
Am I mansplaining again - my apologies. You are most likely very familiar with altered states of consciousness and psychedelics.
I humbly disagree. As a Normie, it is likely difficult for you to understand the addiction. It is not about seeking feel-good. It is about escaping pain. Addicts often mistake a lack of pain for feeling good. To addicts, feeling normal is feeling good. Feeling no pain is feeling good.
But your premise is correct. Addicts seek feeling no pain externally rather than internally. Learning to feel even level without drugs or alcohol is a challenge.
@SkyzykS and I have become kindred spirits. Our first interaction wasn’t great - I was offensive. His responses resonate with me.
This is what sobriety does to you. I am nowhere near the person I was two years ago - a conditioned people pleaser with no boundaries. Finding out that who I thought I was is not who I am is jarring. The question presents itself, “So, who are you?”
It’s difficult to try to figure out who you are when you finally wake up. I’m sixty years old and am slowly figuring out who I am. A heroic mushroom experience woke me up to my sense of entitlement and predisposition to being a victim.
Now what?
A whole lot of me in that response, my apologies.
In summary, I think we are mostly on the same page, I greatly appreciate your feedback/contributions, I apologize for clogging up your thread.
You remind me of a friend of mine. His love language is sharing knowledge. He goes out and gets it, then brings it back to share with his tribe. Also, not coincidentally- one of the most broadly and well educated people I’ve ever met. I hung in there as his crash test dummy through ART training, accupuncture, his S & C certs, and sports medicine specialty (Md). He even put my spine back when I dislocated it lifting at his house!
My love language is throwing down. If somebody backs down, wimpers off or is otherwise occupied I just leave them be. They’re good people, but not My people.
Thats why I like Emily so much too. She doesn’t back down, and just when someone thinks they got her, she hits them from where they weren’t looking (thinking).
Yes, this is me. I also believe knowledge without experience is useless. With experience, knowledge becomes wisdom.
I am a seeker. I am not sure that is good or bad, but it is true.
I am also a fan of throwing down. It was survival for me. A lot of guys get that, some don’t. I have had my ass kicked quite a bit, both verbally and physically. I have a high tolerance for pain - especially when medicating.
I respect people that stand up for themselves. People like @EmilyQ teach me how to do it with more grace.
March 26, Tuesday: great workout this morning. I was up 15 minutes early and I think it makes all the difference. I’m loathe to set the alarm earlier, but think that’s probably my next step. Did weights, KB swings, 10 minute walk. Just felt really good and happy. (“The high.”)
I was thinking about a conversation I was having with @unicornsandrainbows about slow weight loss during the workout, and realized (again) that there really is more difference than the scale is showing. I do look less lumpy, and my clothes fit better all around. My smart scale arrived today, so I look forward to messing with that. Whether it’s accurate or not in terms of body fat percentage and etc, it’ll be another way to track change. So I’m psyched.
March 27, Tuesday. Weight 151.2, so 8lbs down altogether.
25 minutes TM sprints
40 KB swings…stopped when something twinged mid-back. Stretched and popped an Aleve, feels fine now.
Traded out the smoked salmon I’d been having with eggs (2 whole, 1.5 white) for breakfast for Greek yogurt and blueberries (w/eggs) a couple of weeks ago, then today decided to sub that out for a protein shake. Result seems to be greater satiety and looks like I’ll easily hit my protein goal for the day. I don’t love eating just the eggs…I really love the salmon, but it’s high cal for the protein it provides. So. I’ll try this for a bit.
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