"Why Are We So Destructive To Ourselves?" (Day 14)

I, as usual, have many thoughts to share today! Actually, full disclosure, I write almost all of my posts the day before, save them, check them the next morning and then I put them up.  It gives me time to look for pictures, decide what's most interesting/important and  decide where the line is as far as sharing. Sometimes I type something in my draft, then decide it's just on this side of personal and it doesn't get published. So really, I'm sharing these thoughts yesterday-- ooo! Time warp!

Sometimes I have this creepifying feeling that I'm reading my diary out loud.

That's where we are today, folks. It's getting personal. Actually, it's getting to be more person-y. Yesterday I got an email from my dad about our healthiness-progress. He told me that my mom told him about a quote my friend Amanda K. wrote on my face book a week ago-- and guess what? It made a big difference for him. Know that you're not the only person reading this, and your comment could change someone's life who you've never met (or met a long time ago, or are friends with now, or whatever!) If that's not enough motivation to keep people commenting, I don't know what is!

It's an 80% chance you now have this song in your head!

I wanted to talk about something else my dad said in his email-- the eponymous quote of the post-- "Why Are We So Destructive To Ourselves?" Awesome question, Dad. I have some ideas, at least for me.

1. We're so destructive because we don't realize we're being destructive. There was no one day when I said, "I know! How about I become fat and unhealthy! Amazing idea, self!" Destructive behavior is also subversive behavior. Destructive forces don't come up and wave their arms at you. It's sneaky. There's no warning light that goes on when you've taken in more calories than you've burned. Most things are so mysterious calorie-wise that it's really really difficult to tell. It's a slow, awful, easy hill to roll down. Eating a chocolate bar might be seen as excellent self-care. Eating one every single day if you eat a perfectly balanced diet otherwise, (considering a 300-calorie chocolate bar) means that you gain THIRTY pounds in one year.

This isn't the optometrist, at no point does anyone ask
What's better? One... or two? One... or two?

2. We're so destructive because being productive feels like really hard work. Getting healthy can feel self-defeating. It's arguably one of the most difficult things to do. You exercise every single day, watch your calories, take your vitamins, force yourself to eat icky vegetables and 7 days later you weigh the exact same and no one says a damn thing about how you look. It's hard work, it doesn't show immediate results, it's often painful and totally stressful. Life feels simpler when you aren't tracking calories in and out. That's what we're supposed to do, right? Simplify, Less Stress, Zen are all buzzwords we're really familiar with in this day and age. Exercising does help you feel better, but going to the gym is stress-inducing! Reading nutrition information? Like the least Zen activity evar. Again, this trickery. I am always healthier when I am exercising and eating well-- exercise and proper diet actually LOWER stress levels. But we still trick ourselves into believing that we can't exercise or eat well because we're too stressed.

You can do both. I always have Ke$ha on when I maintain my zen garden.
I like to keep my pace up. Get all my zens in early.

3. We're so destructive because we don't know what direction we really should go in. We do this to ourselves because of our very, very, very weird backward culture. If you are big, your friends and family will always tell  you that you are beautiful (or at least mine always have). If you are big, culture will always tell you that you are the scum of the earth. I like to keep my pictures upbeat but here's a recent poster PETA put up that really hurt my feelings:

One of the least mean of many mean mean things people say about big ladies.

So you're getting two messages all the time, "You're beautiful exactly how you are! You beautiful person, you!" and "You are the ugliest, most horrible being. You aren't even a person; you're a fatty, a whale. You should feel ashamed to go out in public." Every day. Then, it seems like there's no in-between. Either you accept yourself the way you are (fatass) or you try to lose some weight (low-self esteem).   Feeling sad for myself, stuck in the middle of this nonsense was part of what kept me unhealthy for a loooong time.

What does this all mean? It means we're self-destructive because we actually think we're helping ourselves. But we're not.  Psychologically, we Lurrve homeostasis. We like things to stay the way they are because they are less stressful. That's how our bodies work, that's how human relationships work, that't how our ecosystems work. We totally love homeostasis. It's basically evolutionary. 

I actually had to learn what this means to be a therapist. Seriously.

So when we attempt to make a change-- especially one that means both rebalancing our physical bodies and our socioemotional lives, the pull for homeostasis is pretty harsh. But that doesn't mean it's not worth it-- it just means it's worth going slowly.

Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment if you have something to say and answer my poll!