Last week, I was telling my therapist that I was getting ready to start another detox, and was met with silence. I know that it may seem funny that I use my time in therapy to discuss my eating habits, but what I have recently come to realize is that I am always looking for external solutions to my internal problems.
In other words, I remove and add things from my life to try to create internal comfort. And I do not do it in a way that resembles balance, or even sanity. At all.
Last year alone, I quit smoking, started smoking, started boxing, stopped boxing, gave up sugar, picked up sugar, gave up flour, picked up flour...the list goes on and on. And I do not do these things with any sort of leeway. When I give something up, I GIVE IT UP...with a vengeance. Not that is any different when I start something...boxing is a perfect example of that. I went from never putting on wraps before to boxing 3 hours a day and sparring on weekends, and as quickly as I started boxing I stopped in favor of something that would make me feel EVEN BETTER.
I am not as concerned with what is happening on the outside as I am with why I am doing it and how harshly I treat and judge myself. I always seem to make these decisions when I am in some sort of emotional discontent, and rather than explore the source of my emotions, I change things on my exterior to try to make them disappear. Oddly enough, that is never a conscious thought, it is only in retrospect that I can see my own motives. This new discussion with my therapist was my attempt at making a change in the process.
The problem is, as I see it, that having balance is more work than living in absolutes. Black and white, Yin and Yen, good and bad, on and off...those are my comfort zones. Trying to have balance is WORK. It actually takes more than double the energy for me to not live in a "disciplined" way. By disciplined, I mean rigid. By rigid, I mean comfortable.
I was told once that you "have to experience the extremes to find the balance"...I wonder if I will even recognize it when it gets here...
No comments:
Post a Comment