STUCK
I admit it. I'm stuck. Stuck and unhappy and down right pissed off at myself, my job, my family. Everything and everybody around me has conspired with the universe to make my life a living hell. They all hate me and are out to get me. As a CBT therapist, if I had a client come in to my office (and they have) spouting this nonsense, my first question would be, "humm, okay, the world is out to get you, that is possible, I mean, karma is a bitch after all, but what else what might be going on?
I don't know
If you did know
Still don't know
Take a guess...no matter how silly it seems
I suck
Okay, what else?
Life is a bitch and then you die
What else?
It is really all my fault.
(Now we are getting somewhere.)
So your biggest fear is that things are not going the way you want them to in your life and it is all your fault. Why?
Because I suck
AND?
I don't deserve any better.
So, it is easier to blame others than to think that possibly you aren't worthy.
Yes
So the real fear isn't that the world is out to get you, it that you aren't worthy of the things you want. Why aren't you worthy? Where is the evidence you aren't worthy?
I hate you
that is okay...
I'm so close and yet so far. So close and yet something keeps holding me back. Namely, myself and this never ending feeling that I'm never going to be successful (define success??) and the rage that comes with it. Yes, rage. Red, blinding, all consuming rage that radiates off me like a heat. So where do I go from here? Why do I keep failing? Why do I keep getting so close and then lose it? What is that wall I need to climb over made of? How do you push through something when you have no idea what it is you are pushing against? All I know that on the other side, over the wall, over the mountain that I have created for myself is success, fulfillment, and peace. Acceptance. Acceptance of myself, of my career, my weight. Acceptance from others around me, instead of this lingering feeling of being out of place of not fitting in. I just want to be good at something. I just want somebody to think I'm good at something. For once I want to finish what I've started. To succeed. But how do define or create success when all you have ever known is failure? Speaking of failure...
Devastated, by my -walk of shame- Jenny Craig weigh-in last week I came home and angrily went for a run. As I ran, a voice inside my head raged at me, and I was struck by the truth that we say things to ourselves that 1. we would never say to anyone else 2. We talk to ourselves and say things to and about ourselves that we would never let anyone else say. So I let this voice rage and call me every horrible thing under the sun and was brought to tears by the truths I believe about myself. One name kept being repeated: Fatass. Until finally, and for the first time, a small timid voice said "I am not."
Oh yes, you are. Fatass...
No!
Yup! Fatass! Fatty, Fatty two by four...
Until, with a force that shocked me some small part of me that had had enough pushed up and yelled, "I am NOT A FATASS!" I am still here. I am still running. I'm still pushing. I am still going. I AM NOT A FATASS SO SHUT THE FUCK UP!" I'd love to say that was the end of it, but old tapes die hard, but the volume of the inner critic's insults was greatly diminished and I was left to finish my run in relative peace.
Where is the evidence that I am not worthy? In my own head and in the words of that voice that hurls insults at me on a continuous basis. Since our little altercation I have become aware of just how ugly that critic is. The bitch needs to shut the fuck up. Seriously. And telling her that whenever she rears her nasty head is one small thing I can do today to keep moving forward.
I am angry and frightened, and I am left to wander in the darkness and yet I keep fighting. I keep showing up. I keep pushing, digging deep, going... knowing that without darkness, there is no light and that if you have never been lost, how do you know when you are found?
