Internal Combustion

As I said, last night I managed to speak to my expert friend. She was very interested in my Route to Management experiences and she said that she had been thinking how a VLCD is like an anorexic's regime (ie not eating very much at all) and, therefore, getting back to food will be hard.

Anyway, I talked about bingeing on cottage cheese (and my anxiety about it) and she laughed - not in a horrible way, just in an ironic way. Anyway, I continued whining about just HOW HARD it all is. The diet, the build, the B&B, my jobs. And I have also sent Porkchop emails saying THIS IS SO HARRRDDDD (sub-text - you don't understand, poor me).

This morning I was emailing my expert friend and this is what I wrote:

"I think the fact that you laughed (in an ironic way) when I said I had binged on cottage cheese made me see how I had had a serious, really serious sense of humour failure! And a loss of perspective.

"I think I am beginning to understand that failure really doesn't need to be "my story" anymore and that revelation (for me) is quite phenomenal, as in jaw-droppingly different. Does that make sense?"

And I've also had a couple of BIG moments when I have challenged my own thinking this morning.

I woke up, jumped on the scales and I am half a pound up. In the past (as in before and during RtM) I would have used that as an excuse to say "f**k it, I can't do this, I can't lose weight" and this morning that same train of thought started. That "oh well, what's the point, it's not going to work" train of thought. You know the one. And then I thought, "no", I don't need to sabotage my efforts - ok the scales aren't going down in spite of eating very few calories but my body knows what it is doing, I will get to the weight I want to be and I don't need to freak out about the WHOLE future NOW. RtM can wait. I want to finish this job. I want closure and I can get closure. I can DO closure. Because I am in charge (of me)!!! Bl**dy hell!!! I don't think I have felt that before.

For all sorts of reasons, I might not be able to pick up my packs until the weekend and I have LOADS of mushroom and Thai chilli but only two chocolate packs left and no nut crunch. Oh no!! Major catastrophe! I have at least two chocolate every day. I could feel the alarm bells go off, I could sense a train of thought that went "panic-no packs equals being forced to eat- failure-can't get to goal-sabotage-god, i am so crap" blah, blah, blah - you get the picture. Blimey, I've written about it enough times!!! And, add to this the undercurrent of not having the support of the weekly meeting (which equals, in my mind, NOT being able to do it on my own, not trusting myself) and it's got freak out potential written all over it.

And then I stood back and looked at the pack situation and rationalised that the vanilla packs will be good substitutes until the weekend when I can get to London. And I don't need to freak out, I don't need to panic - I can do this.

These are major shifts but, to the outsider, they may be so subtle, that they might not notice, if that makes sense. One thing is for sure, being calm is critical to this new way of thinking/being. Yesterday, my friend with the baby asked me how I relax (she suggested reading and losing myself in a book) and I said, "I don't". Massage is the only way I can relax because it is enforced. I think she was gobsmacked. Truth is, I LOVE reading but the chatterbox goes absolutely bonkers if I switch off. In fact, if I sit down for five minutes, it's like an explosion in my brain. And the words aren't pretty!

So, I'm determined to have another good day and will ensure that I put in place all the essential back ups and back ups for the back ups and try to access more of this calm persona. It's going to be a long day - finishing off with babysitting - and I am going to NAIL the database. But I want to have another good day. I really do.

And when this is done, I want to look back and smile.

Comments

[Peridot]

If it doesn't sound too patronising I am so proud of you. You DO have a tough time but you're so clever at working your way through your own internal conundrums and finding your own answers - and it really sounds like you've had a big break through over the last few days. Calmness is a difficult state to get into for some of us - and you have more constraints to getting there than most. Good for you that you're being so zen in the face of it all.

love
Peridot x

[Lesley]

You definitely sound like a different woman from a few months ago - then your writing "tone" was much less upbeat and you sounded down a lot of the time. now, it's busier, more purposeful, a bit panicky at times but generally so much more content and determined. You've come a long way chuck and I couldn't be more pleased for you.

I need some back-ups myself because I've been slack this week. I do nearly everything right then allow in some extras for no apparent reason. Need to cut down on those and get back on track. Think it's been an up and down week and starting RTM too - I'm not beating myself up but don't want it to carry on into the weekend because I'm a long way from cracking this management business.

Keep it up.

Lesley xx