Why So Hard On Ourselves?

Originally Posted by Pam Turner on 07/18/11:

This is a message posted on my support board that I wrote today. You can visit the board at: http://members5.boardhost.com/pam140/

In the 10 years I have been running this board I have met some amazing people. I am continually impressed by the level of compassion and empathy that total strangers extend to each other. So much love and kindness comes from each one of you here and always has. Board members have come and gone...and often come back, but the atmosphere remains positive and welcoming thanks to all of you here. 

So my question is, when we are so ready to encourage others when they are feeling like they've failed or let others down or themselves down...why don't we automatically extend the same grace to ourselves? Why are we so hard and unforgiving when we may trip and fall? 

So often we will have friends here that get off to a good start, maybe even lose a good chunk of their weight, only to have something knock them off track like a wedding or a vacation. They fade away from the board because they feel shame and defeat. Right when they need support and an understanding shoulder to lean on, they disappear and hide letting the negative emotions take over as they have in the past with other dieting efforts. That same love, compassion, fforgivenessand empathy that they extended to others should be turned inward to themselves. Unfortunately what most of us tend to do is revert to the same old negative self loathing dialog. 

The perfectionist in all of us causes us to have an all or nothing way of thinking. The conditioning from years and years of attempted weight loss efforts encourages this and is the main reason for serial dieting. If we slip, we don't just stumble, we dive in to a full on face plant! It's almost a self sabotaging kind of behavior. We commit to 100% on our plan which right off the bat sets us up for failure. NO ONE CAN EVER BE PERFECT ON THIS OR ANY DIET! If you aim for perfection you will surely fail. It's that simple. 

Here's an example to give you an idea of how unrealistic this is. You have your first child. You hold that baby in your arms and you pledge to be the best parent there ever was. Certainly you will be better then your own parents were. Your goals are lofty but you know you want this more then anything. There may be doubts, but you tuck them away. At first everything goes smoothly. Then around 3 months maybe you feed your baby something that he has a bad reaction to. Oh no! You made a mistake! Suddenly your 3 month old baby is whisked away and a newborn takes his place. You must start all over again. This happens several more times over the months and maybe even a year or two goes by. Each mistake takes away all that time and effort and replaces it with a new born.You must begin again. Will you ever reach your goal of perfect parenthood? Will you ever get that child to adulthood? Probably not. No matter what you learn or how much progress you make with each individual effort, you will always make mistakes and then you are back to square one over and over again. 

I'm sure you can see the nonsense in this. It makes so much more sense that we learn from our mistakes and continue on. Nothing in life requires perfection. Not parenting, not your job, not in marriage, not even in the medical profession or there would be no such thing as malpractice insurance and certainly not dieting. Yet, we go in to weight loss demanding perfection from ourselves and anything less then that causes a spiraling down into defeat and shame. Once we get over beating ourselves up we rally and try again, but because of the all or nothing thinking we begin again with Day #1. After all, it only counts if we're perfect, right? We screwed up and completely ruined our previous efforts so in to the garbage they go and we face another beginning. How depressing. Instead of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" how about we just change out the water and continue on with the bath? The little guy will get just as clean in the long run. You will lose just as much weight if you realize and learn from your mistake and continue on as if nothing happened. In fact you will be far more likely to lose your weight if you do. Stop counting the days and just let the time pass. Good or bad choices, learn from them and continue on. I often tell my parents who are in the frustrating period of potty training that they really have nothing to be stressed out about. All kids are potty trained by the time they go to college! If they keep slapping on a diaper every time the child has an accident they will never learn and it will drag on forever. If they just make up their minds to mop up the occasional puddle their child will know success in a much shorter time. You don't berate them for it, you encourage them..keep it positive..and pretend it never happened. Same thing when you have an "accident". You dust off the crumbs, make yourself a shake, tell yourself you are still on your diet act as if it never happened. You continue on to your goal. 

Remember to extend the same positive energy towards yourself that you do to others. You are just as worthy of love as anyone else. You are a work of art in progress. Like a block of marble in the hands of a great artist, it takes time to chip away the bits that will eventually reveal the masterpiece that you are!