Promises, promises

Yesterday I read this post at Fierce and Mighty. In it, Kevin talked about being upset with himself for not being as organized as he felt he should have been and missing out on something as a consequence. True to my nature, my knee-jerk reaction was to tell him he was being too hard on himself and I said as much in the comments. But then I thought about it last night and I realized that my reaction had very little to do with him and everything to do with me.

There are times when I am clearly too hard on myself - fatalistic, even. It goes something like this - "I forgot to pay that bill on time and I have to pay a late fee. I am the biggest flake in the entire universe and I'll never be good at anything. Ever." In other words, I engage in a total waste of mental energy that leads me nowhere. Having been in an emotionally abusive marriage, it's not surprising that I would get to that place sometimes. But I'm not making excuses. I'm an adult and I know how silly and over-dramatic it is to say those kinds of things to myself.

But more often, I cut myself a hell of a lot of slack. When I flake out on something, I tell myself it's ok. Tomorrow is another day. You'll do better next time. Blah, blah, blah. It's true that I've been through some hard times over the past couple of years. And there were times when - for the sake of my mental health - it was necessary to cut myself slack. But I'm at the point now where it's time to buck up a little (or a lot). It's time for me to really and truly stop thinking (and acting) like a victim of my circumstances and get a move on.

As I've written about recently, I'm participating in The Complete Flake's 2500 word challenge. I've committed to write 2500 words a day, every day, for at least a month. Yesterday was the seventh day for me and I hadn't written anything as of 11:30 pm. And I was falling-asleep-at-the-computer exhausted. So I started telling myself it was ok to skip it. It had been a long day. The girls had friends over early in the day and we went to the movies. Then I spent the afternoon and evening at a Memorial Day party at my Dad's. By the time I got the girls into bed, it was very late. No one would have blamed me if I didn't write my 2500 words. The other challengers would have been very supportive. It would have been so easy to slack off and just not do it. That's what I've done a lot of times in my life. In a lot of different scenarios. But last night I decided it was time to do something different.

Living with integrity involves keeping the promises we make - not just to others but to ourselves. It's important that we be mindful when making promises so that we're not over-burdening ourselves or doing things that aren't in line with our values or goals. But once we make a promise, we need to keep it - even when (maybe especially when) it's difficult or inconvenient to do so. I'm not saying that there aren't times when keeping a promise is impossible or is so difficult or inconvenient that it might as well be impossible. And I'm not suggesting that we beat ourselves mercilessly if we fail to keep a promise. But what I'm saying is that we (I) should be as mindful about breaking promises as we should be about making them.

All this is to say that I wrote 2500 words last night. It was complete and utter crap - mostly things like "I am never going to be able to write 2500 words tonight because I am falling asleep" and "why the hell didn't I start this writing crap earlier so I wouldn't be doing this in the middle of the freaking night." So it wasn't great literature or even great blog post material. The point was that I made a promise to myself and I kept it. And I feel pretty good about that. (Oh, and you can bet your sweet boopie that every one of the 889 words I've written here will count towards my 2500 words for tonight.)

What I'm hoping is that I'll be able to apply this in other situations. I'd like to be eating better but sometimes when I get tired and cranky, I turn to Hint of Lime Tostitos for comfort (those things are awesome, by the way) instead of doing something healthy. Like getting enough sleep. Or taking a walk. All that means is that there are times (when I'm tired and cranky) that keeping my promise to myself (eating better) becomes hard and inconvenient. If I can write 2500 words when I'm exhausted simply because I promised that I would, then I can turn away from the chips for the same reason. Now, if I can apply this to getting my files organized, I will officially be in love with myself.

What about you? What promises have you made yourself and how are you about keeping them? Do tell.

I love a good challenge

Here's a secret about me - I have a really hard time not taking a dare. It probably won't come as a surprise to anyone why I've kept that close to the vest. Maybe someday I'll write about the trouble that particular personality quirk has gotten me into. A similar and somewhat less troublesome quirk of mine is that I love a challenge. So when LaVonne over at The Complete Flake tossed out a challenge to me the other day, I took it.

I was whining about not writing as much as I wanted to and she told me to write 2500 words a day. It had worked for her in the past so I figured it was worth a shot. So I did it last night and managed to finish a post I had wanted to write for a few days. When I told her that I had taken her challenge, she was inspired to take her own challenge. So tonight we were twittering about it and she decided to issue her challenge to all her readers - write 2500 words a day. About anything. About nothing. About whatever comes to mind. Trick your inner perfectionist into letting you write without editing. I've done it two days in a row and so far so good. (I already did my 2500 words tonight and this post is IN ADDITION. I am a writing rock star right now.)

If you want to jump start your writing or take it to a higher level, feel free to join us. Comment here or over at Complete Flake or tweet using #2500 and let us know you're in. And then tell us how it's going. I can't wait to see what happens!

Dealing with fear

Before you read this post, I want to say that I have been agonizing over how much to write here about my marriage and the reasons for my divorce. My ex is a private person and has always asked me not to talk about our relationship with anyone - family and close friends included. Although this blog is somewhat anonymous, it probably won't be in the near future. We're trying to make this an amicable divorce and I don't want to jeopardize that. I also don't want my kids to read this someday and be disappointed in me for being vindictive or disclosing too much.

But I've decided that, for me, healing requires complete honesty. Writing is my outlet. I'm not a private journal kind of person. For reasons I don't know, I need to write publicly. In order to successfully work through my current crisis, I need to write about my experiences in my marriage - good and bad. I will try to be fair and not use this space to vent my anger willy nilly. Everything I write is obviously from my point of view. If I've learned anything in my relationship it's that different people have different views of the exact same event or conversation. This is my truth and my truth only - his version of events will be much different and that's ok. I also need to say that in our 15 or so years together, we had some really, really good times. There were times when he was my best friend. He helped me in many ways. But he was also my worst enemy and hurt me deeply. Healing will require me to come to terms with those different sides of our relationship.

I'm hoping that by bringing my dark experiences into the light, I can rid myself of some demons. And maybe help other people get rid of their own demons in the process.

So, on to the post . . .

I've been reading lots of great stuff over at The Fluent Self which is this incredible blog written by Havi Brooks (who I wish I could meet in person because she seems like the coolest person to hang out with). Anyway, I was just reading this post about why some of us have a problem with the traditional advice that, to move past fear, you need to "face" it. I'm not sure what it means to "face your fear" because, ok, let's say I turn around to face my fear and say "Hello, fear." What do I do next? Do I push it down and run away? Do a roundhouse kick to its face? Do I plead with it? Use logic? Throw water on it and make it melt like the Wicked Witch? Facing it clearly isn't enough to move on and deal with it. You have to somehow make it go away or make your peace with it and move on in spite of it. That post got me thinking about my own fears, how I've dealt with them (or not) and how my ex often tried to "help" me deal with them.

One of the things Havi stresses is that we can't bully our fears and make them go away. She also stresses the need for loving compassion when we're trying to work past the things that keep us stuck in unhealthy patterns. This is the kind of advice I need. Mostly I try ignore my fears but sometimes I try to bully them, make fun of them and push past them. But none of that works for me. And the way my ex treated me often made things worse rather than better.

Throughout our relationship, my ex tried to get me to face certain of my fears. I think the goal was a good one - I have way too many fears that hold me back and I need to deal with that. Sometimes he was supportive but more often he was a bully. I called him Bobby Knight (the basketball coach known for his belligerence and violent outbursts both on the court and off). He took it as a compliment. After all, Knight got results - he has a great win/loss record. And lots of his former players would lay down their lives for the man because he provided the kind of tough love and motivation that those men needed at that point in their lives. But that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of former players and others out there that have been damaged by his behavior.

My ex would yell at me, call me names, tell me I was incompetent and later he would explain that did those things to help me improve. He said I better develop a thicker skin because he wasn't going to "coddle" me the way my parents did (at least in his eyes). This was the way he tried to get me to (among other things) exercise more, be a more effective parent, eat right, face my fear of dealing with certain childhood issues, and, my favorite, to get me to stop making so many "stupid" mistakes. Again, to be fair, there were many times when he was nice, gentle, kind, loving, logical and helpful - but he was a bully often enough that sometimes when I think about dealing with some of those issues (like right now), I feel pressure in my chest, I have trouble breathing and I just want to curl up and cry. I hear his words, the derision and anger in his voice. I see his face distorted by rage. I feel the fear. And it consumes me.

I tried and tried for years to be the kind of person that could be motivated by that kind of coaching. I believed, up until I started reading Havi's blog, that I was lazy, stupid and incompetent. That a smart person, a person who cared about her family, would have made the changes he requested. After all, shouldn't I set a good example for my daughters by exercising more and eating right? It's a reasonable request. Shouldn't I deal with my childhood issues by talking to my mother about events in our past? Sure - that conversation was long overdue by the time we had it. Shouldn't I improve my communication skills and my common sense so that I don't make stupid mistakes? Of course. But one of the big problems I've had in dealing with my own issues is that his behavior and the way he treated me became the focus of my energy. In a way, he did the opposite of what he wanted - he helped me avoid taking responsibility for dealing with my issues.

I realize now that what I really need - from myself more than from anyone else - is kindness and compassion. We all need to deal with our issues at our own pace, in our own time. And there may be some things that we never deal with. And that's ok. I need to respect myself and respect my fears. Each fear is there for a reason. It's my job now to figure out what those reasons are and decide what to do about them. Instead of treating fears like monsters to run away from, I'm going to try to treat them like my babies. I created them, says Havi, so I need to be nice to them. Every once in awhile, I'm going to sit still so that I can hear what they have been trying to say to me all this time. And I'm going to listen, for once.

Motivation from an unexpected place

This morning I was flipping through TV channels trying to find something to watch while I ate breakfast. I stumbled on a reality show called Made which is on MTV. I don't think I've watched MTV since college when we would all gather around the TV set in the sorority to watch Michael Jackson's Thriller (yeah, we needed to get lives).

This show is about teenagers who want to accomplish something - run a triathlon, become a rapper or a skateboarder - and MTV helps them achieve that goal. This episode was about an unpopular, heavyset girl named Alicia who wanted to be a cheerleader. She was an oddball at school, quiet and not confident in herself - pretty much the opposite of the cheerleader type. So MTV got her cheerleading and tumbling coaches and entered her in a cheer competition occurring 4 weeks from the beginning of her training.

Watching her at the beginning, I couldn't imagine that she'd be able to compete in just 4 weeks. She was uncoordinated, out of shape and didn't seem to have the determination to see things through. She cried all the time and whined that she couldn't do it. In the end, she not only competed, but she came in 6th out of 8 girls in the competition. She was confident, smiled more and projected a much better image in her day to day life. She didn't lose a lot of weight - they didn't talk about diet at all which was great. (Girls don't need another message about dieting and being thin). This wasn't about looking the part, it was about putting in the hard work to achieve a goal. However unlikely that goal may be.

If this was an afterschool special, I would have been downright angry about what would seem to be an unrealistic happy ending. Children's programming often does kids a disservice by implying that they can do anything but not showing the hard work that must accompany the achievement of a goal. This show tells them that they can achieve their goals but they have to be prepared to work hard and overcome many obstacles.

Alicia really put herself out there in pursuit of her cheerleading goal. Maybe you think that becoming a cheerleading isn't a worthy goal. That's what I thought at first. But watching this girl overcome her fears, come out of her shell and do something she really wanted to do was more motivating than a bookshelf full of self-help books. Sure, she had coaches that she might not have been able to afford without MTV. And being on TV can be a huge motivator when times get tough. But she did the work. She achieved the goal. And no one can take that away from her. It will benefit her through her entire life and that's what made me cry.

Watching that show got me off the couch this morning. I wrote. My daughter and I worked out. Then I wrote some more. I'm rededicating myself to my personal reinvention. If Alicia can become a cheerleader, I can reinvent myself and become the person I always wanted to be. And I have the rest of my life to do it.