DANGER: EXPECTATIONS

I used to think that hating my body and guilting it into exercise was the shortest path to getting it to look the way that I wanted and feel more confident in my skin as a result. Grueling workouts and extreme dieting was par for the course. Now, thanks to regular introspection, a curated self-care practice and mindfulness exercises, I no longer believe that my self worth depends on what or how much I eat on any given day, nor do I believe that my value as a person is determined by my physique. I've had much more success at building a body that is strong, capable, healthy, and looks good in and out of clothes since I adopted a more moderate and loving approach to exercise and nutrition. #Noextremesplease! Kthxbye!!!

That being said, my biggest struggle as I enter my thirties remains the intersection of my self-worth, abundance v. scarcity mindset, and how those two things affect how I feel and think about food. I realize that I've come a very long way in my battle with emotional eating but I've not conquered it entirely. What I have done is become more adept at recognizing my triggers, and identifying these is necessary in order to subdue them...

It just takes diligent and deliberate practice. 

With such practice, I've identified what environmental factors trigger me and initiate the habit loop. One is trying to control situations and the people in them, an impossible for task for anyone. These situations often cause an anxious feeling that more often than not compels me to eat. A perfect example is my recent 30th-birthday bash to which I'd invited four of my close girlfriends. I didn't realize it at the time, but bringing four women together, most of whom don't hang out on a regular basis, put my anxiety into overdrive. 

For days leading up to the celebration, I recall my levels of anxiety slowly building up. I was nervous about the fact that not all the people I invited knew one another very well and how that would manifest itself. I spent a lot of time thinking about whether everyone would vibe, or if there would be any personality conflicts. I put the pressure on myself to be the "massager of egos" should things go awry, completely ignoring the fact that these four ladies are mature adults who think, speak and act for themselves. 

Part of my effort to control the weekend was characterized by the idea that we all had to "get our money's worth." For me, "getting my money's worth" refers not solely to the experience, but the food and drink as well: I get overwhelmed to the point of anxiety trying to reconcile the idea that I "have-to-eat-and-drink-it-all-now-or-it-will-be-too-late," with my deeper belief in #moderation365. In my (irrational) mind, the impermanence of the experience, that everything will go back to normal and I will be left feeling bereft, reinforces this belief that I better "strike while the iron is hot" or lose out. 

In the moment, I cannot think clearly about the fact that this is scarcity mindset overtaking my rational mind. Once the feeling takes hold, it's very hard to talk myself out of it. But once it has a grip on me, I've given over control of my choices and that leaves me feeling helpless. What's ironic about these games that my mind plays with me is that when scarcity mindset wins over, I never get to experience whether or not my fears would in fact play out: I don't experience the lesson that might come proving my fears wrong. I've always just preempted these feelings by making sure that I eat and drink to my heart's content, and I end up feeling crappy 100% of the time. How crazy is that?!?

For me, scarcity mindset plays into my tendency towards resentment. Resentment facilitates the decision to "cut loose" because of what I'll call "The Normal Narrative": I feel resentful that I can't "just be like everyone else" when it comes to my nutrition. This convincing story tells me that I cannot relate to or connect with anyone when I am super-rigid and on-plan, and that doing so is selfish and will only alienate my friends. It convinces me that I'm a stick-in-the-mud, boring person who is always mindful and moderate around food, and my friends hate that...

But this is a fiction. I know so because if I did listen to my rational, sensible mind, I would hear that 1) my friends don't care what I do as long as it makes me happy; and 2) what I want is to be the Hilary who embraces moderation and abundance mindset, not some other version who capitulates whenever the mental game gets a little tough.

When they creep up, it's hard to deafen the mind to these crazy thoughts; trust me, I know! I know all too well the effort it takes to quiet the onslaught of questions, like: What will my friends say? How will I justify my choices to them? What is my explanation? Won't my choice affect others and inhibit them from enjoying the experience? Isn't it my job to toe the line so others are more comfortable? Nope, it's not! It's never my job to control other people, even if I think I have their best interests in mind. I would argue in fact that I am doing my friends a disservice by acting inauthentically: by projecting my thoughts, feelings and emotions on them, I rob them of the freedom to be their true selves. I also rob them of an authentic experience when my measure of success for the weekend (how well my friends get along with each other; whether or not we "get our money's worth," etc.) is the only one. It's insanity to buy into the belief that we can control anything external to ourselves: we can only control our choices and our reactions. And if my choice makes someone else uncomfortable, does that have anything to do with me? No. How liberating is that?!?!

1) Have certain expectations at your own risk: Having rigid expectations of an experience is form of control, and as we learned above, trying to control what's not within your control is a direct route to disappointment. Does that mean you should have zero expectations and therefore zero investment? No, of course not. But there is a happy medium between having super-rigid expectations and none at all, and it starts with identifying your intention. Staying true to your intention allows you to let go of rigidity, focus all your effort and attention on that intention, and then letting go of the outcome (because you never had any control over that to begin with!) For me, staying aligned with my intention (to be a person who upholds the practices of #moderation365, abundance, mindfulness in all situations, showing up authentically, etc.) would have helped me avoid all the unnecessary anxiety leading up to my celebration, and helped me to make healthier choices for me. 

What is your intention????

2) You will never really know what other people think, and so it's in your best interests to pay attention to what you're doing. Plus, what they think is none of your business: Hello, #toughlove! This is super-hard, right?!? Especially when it comes to our family and friends: we want to please them and make sure they're comfortable and happy. However...when we are not showing our loved ones who we really are or who we strive to be, aren't we giving them the short end of the stick? Sure, when we establish certain boundaries and give up trying to appease-appease-appease and protect-protect-protect, there may be some uncomfortable blowback, but that comes from a place of lack of understanding. All we can do as individuals is take a stance, explain why, and move on. It's not our job to makes our loved ones "get" us. Either they do, and they still love us; they don't, and they still love us; or they don't, and they have some internal work to do. Knowing what they're thinking does not put us more in control of the situation, and in fact it just takes us out of our own business. When I let myself get seduced by "The Normal Narrative," I'm wayyy out of my own business because I am making assumptions about how others think, feel, and make sense of the world. Heck, I'm transforming my friends into people I would not like IF THEY ACTUALLY FULFILLED THE ROLES I'VE SET UP FOR THEM IN MY HEAD! That's not a very nice things for a friend to do!!!!!!

Whose business do you really want to be in more? Theirs or yours?!?!? Just some food for thought, ya'll. Have a great weekend!!!!!