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252 Core Beliefs

08 Wednesday Mar 2017

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I wanted to check-in. It has been a really rough few months for me and I have been stress-eating, emotional-eating and exhausted-eating far more than I would have liked.

And, while I did gain some weight, I also want to acknowledge that I have managed to maintain my weight within a 5 lbs range fairly well.

Despite the setbacks and many, many, many poor decisions, I still found myself making good choices as well. Sure, I just ate half a pizza…but, I’m going to get up and get all 10,000 steps in plus an extra 500 just to prove to myself that all is not lost. Yes, I had nothing but peanut butter chocolate chip cookies for breakfast, but I will have my green smoothie for lunch.

One thing that continues to be a working point for me is how I tell myself: ‘Life is tough. You’ve been through a lot. This week has been hell. You deserve_________’ and then fill-in the blank with whatever nasty food item is in my mind at the moment: Chocolate, chips, pizza, French fries…

So, I “treat” myself and then I feel even worse.

What?

Wasn’t that supposed to make me feel better?

I am still in the process of learning what a real “treat” is and trying to change my way of thinking about this. This idea of “taking care of myself” is something that I’m really trying to comprehend. What does it mean to take care of myself?

How do I take care of myself when the flood of thoughts and emotions that they bring with them, leave me feeling unworthy?

This is all wrapped-up in the idea of ‘self-worth’ to me. I should want the best for myself, so why do I continually, do the opposite?

When I was doing my trauma counselling, one of the things I learned was about “core beliefs”. Here is a great article about them:

http://rosspsychology.com/1/post/2011/06/cognitive-therapy-101-core-beliefs.html

I have a core belief system that is made-up of, pretty much, every negative belief listed on that website. This means that the following lists are things I believe about myself and am telling myself, pretty much, every second of the day:

I’m not good enough
·         I can’t get anything right
·         I’m stupid
·         I’m inferior
·         I’m nothing
·         I’m worthless
·         I’m insignificant
·         I’m a bad person
·         I’m unattractive (ugly, fat, etc.)
·         I’m useless
·         I’m a failure
·         I don’t deserve anything good
·         There’s something wrong with me
·         I’ve done things wrong
·         I’m abnormal

I’m not lovable
·         I’m unacceptable
·         I’m always left out
·         I don’t matter
·         I’m not wanted
·         I’m alone
·         I’m unwelcome
·         I don’t fit in anywhere
·         I’m uninteresting
·         Nobody loves me
·         Nobody wants me
·         I’m unlikeable
·         I’m bound to be rejected

People I love will leave me
·         I will be abandoned if I love or care for something/someone
·         I am uninteresting (and people will leave me because of it)
·         I’m unimportant
·         If I assert myself, people will leave me
·         I’m not as good as other people
·         My partner is no longer interested in me
·         I’m bound to be rejected/abandoned/alone

I’m helpless/powerless
·         I’m out of control
·         I must have control to be okay
·         I’m weak
·         I’m vulnerable
·         I’m trapped
·         I’m needy
·         I do not measure up to others
·         I’m unsuccessful
·         I can’t achieve
·         I can’t change
·         I can’t handle anything
·         There’s no way out
·          I am trapped and can’t escape
·         If I experience emotions, I will lose control
·         I can’t do it
·         I’m always number two
·         I finish last
·         I can’t stand up for myself
·         I’m a loser
·         I can’t say ‘no’

I have to do everything perfectly
·         If I make a mistake, it means I’m careless/a failure/etc.
·         I’ve done something wrong
·         It’s not okay to ask for help
·         I have to do everything myself
·         If I don’t do it, no one will
·         I’m responsible for everyone and everything
·         If I care enough, I can fix him/her/this
·         I can’t trust or rely on another person
·         If I trust people, they may hurt me (and I won’t survive)
·         People will betray me
·         People are untrustworthy
·         My needs are not important
·         I shouldn’t spend time taking care of myself
·         When I see that others need help, I have to help them
·         I’m not a worthwhile person
·         I’m only worthwhile if I’m helping other people
·         If I express negative feelings in a relationship, terrible things will happen
·         I have to make people happy
·         It’s my fault

To those who do not experience these for themselves, these might seem like a list of someone who sounds like “Eeyore” and just feels sorry for themselves. But, if these lists resonate with you the way they do for me, please know that you are not being unreasonable, and you are not being ridiculous.

These are core beliefs I learned as the result of multiple childhood traumas, as well as trauma experienced throughout my adolescence, as a teenager, a young adult and finally with the birth of my son.

As my counsellor and I were trying to figure-out what my main “core belief” was, she asked me: “What is it that’s beneath all of this that makes you have the negative thought?” and I was surprised at my answer: “That I’m not worthy.”

For most of my life I have operated under a core belief that I am not worthy. I am not worthy of love, respect, friendship, hope, support…I am not worthy of anything good. It is why I have, genuinely, been surprised when I do well at job interviews, pass a test or someone gives me a gift (I still cry at the thought of what my sister-in-law gave me for Christmas 2 years ago). I am not worthy.

This negative core belief has been the biggest barrier to weight loss, the ability to form and maintain healthy habits and is fundamental in understanding why it is so difficult for me to make positive, healthy changes even when I know what’s good for me and what is not.

Negative thoughts fit into the negative core belief, so they keep feeding it and affirming its validity. Positive thoughts or interactions do not fit into the negative core belief, so kind of bounce-off and are lost. My counsellor explained to me the need to create a new core belief and to be mindful of feeding all those positives to it so that, eventually, the negative core belief is starved and disappears and the positive, healthy, core belief remains as the one that provides the foundation for my life and my daily, moment-by-moment, interactions.

She drew a cool diagram for me on the whiteboard in her office—I’ve tried to duplicate it, in case that helps get the idea across (but I’m a horrible diagram drawer):

IMG_20170308_100159347

 

How does this all fit in with the idea of “treats”?

Here is an example of one of many mental exchanges that take place in my brain on a daily basis:

‘I’d like a treat—I know something like an apple would be a really good thing to have. It will be sweet, provide nutrition, give me a pick-me-up, and keep me within my health and wellness goals. But, that’s too much work, I’m not really worth that effort. I may as well just have this chocolate because nobody really cares about me anyway. It doesn’t really matter how I do, nobody is going to notice. If I’m not here, nobody would mind. I’m just not worthy of that effort. I may as well just eat that chocolate and forget about it.’

Here is an example of the mental shift I am attempting to make- the mental exchange I’d like to have happen in my head:

‘I’d like a treat. An apple would be an excellent treat. It will be sweet, provide nutrition, give me a pick-me-up and keep me within my health and wellness goals. It’s the best option for me and I deserve the best.’

I deserve to eat better than pizza, French fries, chocolate and chips. These are “junk” foods and I am not “junk”.

So, as I pick myself up and dust myself off for what feels like the umpteenth time, this is mantra for the moment:

I deserve better.

This positive thought is something I will keep repeating and using to fill that new core belief that “I am worthwhile” or “I am worthy”. And, as I keep filling-up the new belief, I hope that the old belief gets smaller and those thoughts become less in quantity as well as frequency until they, eventually, become a dull buzz in the background and perhaps even disappear forever.

Until then, I will just keep reminding myself that I DESERVE BETTER!

Confessions of a Facebook “Creeper”

04 Wednesday Jan 2017

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I admit it. I search for people all the time who aren’t my friends on Facebook. Usually, this happens during bouts of nostalgia when I find myself thinking about the people with whom I grew-up and wondering where they are, what they are doing, what they look like and how happy they appear.

I want to compare where I am, what I’m doing, what I look like and how happy I am with my childhood friends. I am always relieved and slightly joyous when I see that there has been weight gain, wrinkles, weariness…good. It’s not just me.

There are many people with whom I wish I had kept more regular contact. People with whom I am no longer “friends” – not even on Facebook. Sometimes I creep these people to see what life is like for them. I did this yesterday and spent a considerable amount of time looking at a few childhood friends and I was genuinely glad to see how happy they appeared. I was pleased that they had experienced adventures, travel, fun, love and beauty.

I considered sending a few friend requests, but got lost in thoughts of how it would be perceived by these people. I suffered from depression for most of my time in high school. This was before depression was really understood, talked about or treated. But, the biggest casualty of my depression was my social life. I withdrew from all of my friends and lost most of those relationships. One of the biggest hangers-on of this time period is embarrassment. I feel embarrassed all the time about how I was and I assume that people remember me in a negative light.

I was moody, judgmental, shy, confused, lonely and lost.

During these years my FB posts would have be the kind that you just get tired of seeing so you block the person so you don’t get the constant drone of negative status updates in your feed.

When I think about these years I am always overwhelmed with sadness for the many memories I have about stupid things I did as a result of my state of mind. I’ve been working on forgiving myself, and giving that girl a chance to heal and find acceptance; strangely, creeping on Facebook kind of helps with this. I’ve managed to ‘rekindle’ a few of these lost relationships and they have been extremely meaningful to me. Every time I send a request to a long, lost, friend and then we message back and forth a bit, and eventually just start to share life through the regular news feed, it helps normalize what feels like an extremely polarizing time for me.

I wish I could sit down with all of my old friends and have an open discussion about those years, explain what was going on in my world, express my regret for how I may have treated them, share my sorrow for all the lost time and then make-up for some of that time and move-forward as friends again.

My mind is full of many happy memories with them. I remember hours and hours of time spent together, laughing, talking about boys, playing stupid games, sleepovers, doing makeup, playing sports, passing notes in school…I see snapshots in my mind of us together on hammocks, acting cool at school dances, playing flag football, flirting and silly things like stuffing our shirts with balloons. The memories are full and rich.

But, then there are years where the memories are filled with pictures of school dances, football games, pep rallies and lunches filled with all these faces growing and enjoying life—but mine is not with them. These memories haunt me like shadows. Life was happening all around me, but I wasn’t in it.

So, I creep on facebook. I try to fill-in some of the gaps. I reach-out. I rekindle. I make progress.

I am so thankful for those friends with whom I’ve managed to reconnect because, the truth is, the folks with whom I grew-up really do mean a lot to me. They were the people that helped shape me into who I am today. They were my original cheerleaders, challengers and role-models. They were my squad, my family, my community. They exist in my memory as a deep and vast resource of life, joy, sorrow, lessons-learned, new experiences, comfort and friendship and I am so thankful for the ability to creep into their lives now and get a little piece of what once was.

Drowning

05 Friday Aug 2016

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My clothes are heavy and dragging me down as they dance in the water. My hair is thrashing around, wildly, like it’s moving to an African drum beat. When my hair finally breaks apart, I am able to look up and see the sun above the water, hot and heavy, and becoming increasingly distant as it seems to be pushing me down into the depths of the sea. I take a deep, inner, breath and propel my arm upwards in an attempt to pull my head to the surface, but instead of doing so, I find myself gripping my newborn baby’s ankle and pulling him beneath the water with me. Suddenly, it’s as though a mountain has attached itself to my legs and as the sun continues to push me down, I am plummeted to the belly of the sea, dragging my child with me.

We are gone.

This was the nightmare that haunted me for months after my son’s birth. I would wake-up gasping for air, soaking wet and sobbing.

To this day, I can’t think about this without the surge of an upcoming panic attack. I stop as I write, close my eyes, practice my box breathing. I become aware of the sensations around me. I hear people talking in the hallway. I can feel my fingers resting on the keyboard in front of me. I smell a mixture of my morning mocha and my perfume. The aftertaste of my last mouthful of mocha is bitter on my tongue.

When I first mentioned the struggles I was having to my doctor, and told her about the nightmares, she said ‘It sounds like you might have some PTSD from birth trauma’ and that was that.

The first 4 months of my son’s life were a living hell for me. I felt like I was constantly in a war zone, battling for not only my survival, but his as well. This was made worse by the fact that I often felt like I was the biggest threat to my son’s safety, which meant that I was also fighting a war against myself all the time. I used to say: ‘It’s you and me, kid. You and me against the world.’ I felt like nobody got it. Nobody understood, or cared, about how dark it was for us. How much we had to fight to survive.

This added trauma on-top of trauma. I’ve started therapy to help me work through this. The other day my therapist asked ‘What things remind you of the event?’

What things remind me of the event?

Pretty much every aspect of my life is a reminder of the event, because ‘the event’ (my son’s birth), literally changed everything in my world. Everywhere I look there are reminders of him, every thought inside my head circles back to him, every emotion finds itself linked to him…I am surrounded by triggers.

But, I’m learning that there are certain environmental factors that bring me right back to the trauma and leave me swirling quickly out of control. Feeling trapped and feeling hot are major triggers for me.

I have identified a few, regular, times when this happens which means I am able to prepare and plan for them and when I am in the situation, can practice calming techniques to stave-off a full-blown panic attack.

But, there are still moments when I am caught by surprise.

This happened while camping last weekend. My son was exhausted, and so was I. We both like routine. He has always, naturally, been a ‘routine’ child and has always loved daytime naps. While camping, we were both thrown out of routine, and neither of us had slept well the previous night – I had, about, 2.5 hours sleep and while he slept longer, it was very disturbed. So, we needed a nap.

We were lying in our tent and it was HOT. I lay there, sweating bullets, trying to calm him and soothe him to sleep, despite the fact that he was also drenched in sweat. He kept looking-up at me with these pleading eyes to help him feel better. I felt helpless. Powerless.

I could feel the surge of a panic attack approaching.

Box breathing. Box breathing.

What can you feel? What can you hear? What can you see?

What can you see?

I looked above me to the top of the tent and saw that the sun was directly over us and I suddenly felt like an ant under a magnifying glass.

The panic was rising.

I looked up again and I saw the sun above the water, pushing me downwards.

I couldn’t breathe.

I’m trapped. We’re trapped. We’re going to die. I can’t breathe. I’m going to lose it. We’re being tortured to death. I have to get out of here. We’re under attack.

I grabbed my car keys, my son, and said to those around me “We’re going for a drive…” I’m sure I said some other things, not even sure what, or what was happening, or who heard me, or where anyone else even was.

All I could see was that my son and I were being tortured and I was getting us the hell out of there before we drowned to death.

It was everything that I had felt for the first 4 months of his life compressed into a few minutes. I have had experiences and moments like this every day since my son was born. Sometimes they are super intense, like it was that day camping. At other times, it is a small surge that I am able to overcome with grounding techniques.

But, every time it happens, it brings the trauma back to the surface and seems to add another layer on to it.

I am reminded of the line from the West Wing where the trauma specialist explains to Josh that the goal is to allow him to remember the event without reliving it.

I cannot wait for the moment when I can think about the day my son was born and smile at how incredible it was to hold him for the very first time, without feeling like I’m under attack and that I’m going to drown and bring him down with me.

To remember the beauty without reliving the trauma.

I Hate to See You Go

03 Friday Jun 2016

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I had the joy of being able to drop my child at day care today. At least, it started out as a joy. It soon became one of the toughest, saddest, most horrible moments I’ve ever had as a mother.

We were early leaving today which meant I was so excited at the opportunity to be able to go with my husband to bring my son to day care. “T” was so excited that Mommy was coming with him for a change. The 3 of us strolled along, chatting, in a perfect reverie. As we arrived at daycare, I smiled as I watched my child run down the path towards the front door, skipping and hopping with excitement.

When the door was opened for us, he did a little skip-hop and he was off like a bullet towards the elevator. Arriving on the floor where the toddler room was, he burst out of the elevator.

This is where our joyous morning started to turn sour.

There was a man fixing something in the toddler bathroom with an electric drill. T is nervous when it comes to loud and unfamiliar sounds. He started whimpering, rushed back to where I was and clung to my leg.

“Look, buddy, he’s fixing something in the bathroom with an electric drill.” As he began to whimper more loudly and tightened his grip on my leg, I added, “It’s just like Daddy’s.” Hoping that bringing some familiarity to the situation would ease his anxiety. It didn’t work. When the man pulled out a hammer, his tension eased, as T has 2 hammers he uses at home all the time. So, this was more familiar to him.

He eventually went up the stairs and into the room. Once there, he met one of his teachers who was adding water into a little pool filled with plastic fish. There were 2 fishing rods sitting on the side of the pool and T and I began to try to catch us some of the magnetic fish. We laughed and shared a little bit of fun before he was off and grabbing one of the shopping carts.

Now it is time for Mommy and Daddy to go. Daddy gives a hug and says goodbye and then T comes to Mommy and starts crying : “Mommy, don’t go!” I give him a big hug and kiss, say “I love you” and put him down. He immediately starts crying. “NO! Don’t go. Don’t leave!” and he’s gripping at my legs and trying to pull himself back up into my arms.

Now, he is wailing. And our child doesn’t often cry. My heart is breaking and I just want to swoop him up and tell him I’m never going to leave. Instead, I try to calmly say “What’s going on, Buddy?” He just continues to wail “Don’t go! Don’t leave me!” and now, I am broken.

I try to distract him with all the fun things he has to look-forward to during the day: “You can go fishing. You can play with the cars. You can tell everyone about soccer. ..” Nothing is working.

The teacher says “Ok, one more hug and then time to go”. Now, I’m feeling heartbroken, judged and anxious. I give him a few big squeezes, a bunch of kisses and tell him I love him.

I put him down, but he clings to my legs as though he were falling off a cliff.

And then I do something I wish to never have to do again. I push him away from me. “I love you, Buddy! But, I have to go.”

“Nooooo!” he wails, face beat red, tears streaming down his face.

The instant I release my hand, ‘thawump’, he’s suctioned against my legs again. I take a deep breath and push him away a second time. I can still feel his beating chest against my fingers as they attempt to release myself from his grasp.

“Buddy, I love you. But, I have to go.”

This goes on for, what feels like, an eternity. I push him away, he returns. I push him away, he returns.

I push him away.

It’s all I can remember. It’s all I feel. It’s all I can think about.

I pushed him away.

This goes against every fibre of my being. This goes against the deep, raging, maternal instincts within me. And, although I’m sure he had moved on before I even hit the end of the street and then, probably, never thought of it again, I have.

It left a deep wound on my Mothers heart.

And so, tonight I made the absolute most of my time with him. I listened to him closely, held him tightly, sang songs, played games, told stories and then we had some special cuddle time in Mommy and Daddy’s bed before heading to his.

And, as he cupped my face in his little hands, saying “I yuv you, Mommy” before planting a kiss on my forehead, he pulled me close.

He pulled me close.

He pulled me close, he pulled me close.

He brought me home – back to where I belong.

We were together again.

He pulled me close.

 

The Lost Girl

04 Wednesday May 2016

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The other day I was in the bathroom washing my hands and when I looked-up at myself in the mirror I got a surprise. I looked like myself again.

For years now I have looked in a mirror, searching for me and failing to find the person that once looked back at me. I would see someone with a puffy, tired, drawn face looking back at me like I was a stranger and I would say to her ‘who are you?’

I would stare at this person, intently, gazing into her eyes, trying to find the person I used to know.

Then, all of a sudden, she just showed-up.

The person looking back at me had the mischievous twinkle in her eye that was so familiar. She looked happy, refreshed and full of life.

I didn’t realize how much I had been missing her until she showed up again.

She took my breath away.

There was great relief to find that she still existed. I had been feeling as though she would be lost forever.

This girl and I were close once. We used to explore, create, love, laugh and live a wondrous life full of energy. She was brave and enjoyed exploring and trying new things.

I guess I first started losing touch with her when I was pregnant-the first time. After the miscarriage, she began to distance herself a little bit more. After moving country and finding herself more alone than ever, she would disappear for weeks at a time. She was never really the same after that.

After she gave birth to her little boy she disappeared, almost, entirely. There were brief moments of pure joy when she would show her face, but for the most part, she was lost.

I couldn’t find her. I would call out to her ‘where are you?’ and hear nothing in response. I missed the excitement she brought to the world, I missed the energy, the love for life, the hunger for experience.

I missed the love of art, the desire to create music and write thoughts, the joy that she would have when she watched a breeze rustling the leaves of a tree.

And, all of a sudden, here she was. A cheeky grin on her face, her eyes glowing like an andalusite gem, ready to take on the world.

Like Bastian in “The Neverending Story”, I have traversed through sadness, fear, loss, overcome great obstacles and battled “the Nothing” only to discover that I was the one all along.

The rediscovery of this girl has been a huge part of this journey that I call “seeking life now”. It hasn’t happened by accident. I have had to work at it. My lost self didn’t just appear of her own volition, I have been working on creating a safe space for her so that she felt confident in returning.

And, although she’s not 100%, fully back, the glimpse I have seen of her has given me new hope and renewed energy to keep working on the things I have been doing so that she has space to thrive once again.

*

In Such a Little Hand

21 Monday Mar 2016

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I sat down to write a couple posts, was listening to some good music, cuppa tea by my side and I got inspired. I pulled-out my guitar and wrote a little number. Here are the lyrics.

In Such a Little Hand

In such a little hand
There was so much love to find
The universe exposed
All brokenness made whole
In such a little hand

In such a little face
So much to explore
The day you formed the world
Beauty did restore
In such a little face

There were days we were soaring
There were days when we began to drown
Falling tears all felt more heavy
And laughter weightless as a cloud

Sunlight touched the skin more warmly
And the clouds were darker grey
The whole world opened up
In such a little hand.

In such a little foot
All the places it will go
To follow all your dreams
A million paths to take
In such a little foot

In such a little heart
A world where life is made
Where purest love exists
And no one is afraid
In such a little heart

I’ve finally found my place
In such a little hand