It is so hard to make the healthy choices! Why is it so darned hard??

I want to stop smoking, yet it's hard not to light up that cigarette that is right there. I am trying to reduce and am usually at around 5-10 cigarettes a day now.

My addictions seem to be rigidly tied to shame (among other things) though. Like, today I realized I'd made a mistake in something my boyfriend needed from me. And he's not up yet, so I can't go fix it right away, since I need him for it. So the shame is just eating at me for making a mistake. It's not a big deal, we just have to send an email to someone ... but I made a mistake and I am trying to breathe through the shame and as I do so, I grab a cigarette, AND an energy drink while I'm already at it ... ugh.

Why is the shame so intense about something small? I don't even think my boyfriend will make a big deal out of it - but *I* am!

I am reading Brené Brown's book The Gifts of Imperfection right now. Brené Brown is a shame researcher - I have seen her TED talk and read two other books of hers and also listen to her podcast occasionally while on the train. Which is why I even noticed it was shame that was eating at me and shame that made me reach for the cig. I have become more attuned to the bodily signals of shame. A burning in my stomach and head, a feeling of falling. It's helpful to notice the bodily signals for emotions. I have learned to do that in various therapies I've been in.

But anyway. Shame. Shame - so much of it! I have so so much of it about so many things and some of them are quite ... I wanted to write "ridiculous" but that's even more shaming, isn't it?

So how do I get out of the shame spiral. First probably by accepting that it's there - that seems to always be a good first step. So I feel shame. Okay. And then reacting compassionately towards myself. I have made a mistake. It is fixable and I am not a bad/inattentive/terrible girlfriend for having made that mistake. I am still lovable, I am still loving, I am still a worthy person. A worthwhile person. I am still okay. I am enough.

It's interesting how just writing those words can soothe some of that shame - like applying a soothing gel to a burn.

But I still feel it burning so the next step would probably to start believing those things. I AM enough! I am enough and worthwhile RIGHT NOW. In this moment. Even when I make mistakes, I am enough and worthwhile. It doesn't say a single thing about my worthiness as a PERSON to have made a mistake.

ugh. I really struggle with this one. I have been trying so hard to be loving towards all of myself. And I realize while writing this I haven't turned to soothe the part that is causing this shame spiral! She's a child, still. She's afraid of making mistakes because the mistakes meant she would be shamed by scolding or ridicule. And whenever that happened she felt a loss of trust, love, and belonging. Yikes! Ouch!

Okay, before I log off and try to go more deeply into this, let me just tell you how helpful reading and listening to certain podcasts has been for me! I have felt so validated, so seen, and gotten some really really awesome instructions on how to live a better life for myself and all my parts/headmates. The only thing is that one needs to pick them apart - like, I'll take some from Brené Brown's research that fits me, and then a bit from Janina Fisher's book that rings true, as well as what I learned in therapy, as WELL as some things I have learned in my life from various people that were or are a part of it.

I am hoping what I write here will be helpful to someone else out there, provide a kind of manual about how you could go about resolving those unhappy habits for yourself. If you don't love yourself right now, that is okay, just know that you can get there. I thought I'd never get out of the self-hate and the self-abandonment. There seemed to be just no exit. But you can find your way out of the constant self-berating and self-hating. You can find your way back to yourself and your selves. Trauma might have made you think the only way forward was through this, the self-hate, the self-berating, the constant putting yourself down. But there is a different way. And I believe you can find it, too. Struggling along the way, like we do. Sometimes it's easier, sometimes it's harder and sometimes we just aren't very good and kind to ourselves. But life is a journey. And so is loving yourself.

I guess in a way it's like my addictions. If there's a relapse, brush the dust of that relapse off of yourself, straighten your shoulders and smile at yourself. Pick up where you left off before the relapse. It's okay. You'll be okay.

❤

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