58. Self-Destruction 101

"There is hardly anything worse than fatigue. It will insult you, berate your performance, cast false comparisons and sneer. Even your worst enemy is not as cruel as a tired mind." - Jennifer Gresham, Everyday Bright

Confession: I have officially over-extended myself... And all the tasks that I'm usually able to juggle in the air are dropping like bombs. 

The day-job is kicking my ASS right now. I am freakin' exhausted and have not been able to make time do any of my 5 daily practices that lead to happiness in more days than I'd care to admit. I haven't been sleeping enough. I haven't been writing my morning pages. I haven't been exercising or eating well. I haven't even been doing the dishes!!!

Life feels super sucky and stressful right now. Bleh!!!

I mean, it's not like I'm performing brain surgery at work or anything. It's just that I really want to be spending more time working on my monologues and my grad school applications and I JUST DON'T HAVE TIME right now. UGHHHHHH! It's frustrating. 

I just gotta take it moment-by-moment and breathe and get to the end of November and things will all turn out fine. I am hoping that December will be filled with me doing less and getting more of the IMPORTANT things accomplished... Not all this November busy-work that's driving me to insanity.

But in the meantime, I am noticing a reoccurring theme that happens when I hit my exhaustion threshold... I get blatantly, unabashedly, passionately SELF-DESTRUCTIVE.

You may be thinking.... "Ha! Virginia? NO WAY. She's like the QUEEN of self-care."

Yeah, right.

Well, get this... I was craving a cigarette last night... and I don't smoke. I KNOW. SCANDAL, right?

Oh, no... people... it gets worse... way worse. This is a deep, dark secret I am about to share with you...

We've all got our "go-to" self-destructive activities or whatever... those not-good-for-us things we do that help reinforce our already bad feelings about life/self/the world... And this is mine... 

~ Gulp. ~ Here goes...

I've got an email from my ex-boyfriend that I have saved in my phone that I allllllllways have the urge to read when I am really feeling self-destructive. 

DON'T JUDGE... You know you've got something that's your self-destructive equivalent... Maybe it's not an email... Maybe it's eating a full pint of Ben & Jerry's in one sitting or biting your cuticles (okay, I do those ones too), but there's SOMETHING...

Anyway, you KNOW it's not good for you, but you do it ANYWAY... Because you don't want to do something GOOD for you... You WANT to self-destruct! There's something soooo self-destructively satisfying about it. 

;-p

The ex-boyfriend email one of the nastiest emails I have EVER received. Oh, it is a self-torturer's dream come true!!!...

Put yourself in this scenario:

The person that you love more than anyone you've loved in your life and that you shared your heart/body/soul with for yeeeeears and yeeeeears and the person you thought had some unique insight into your soul and knew you better that anyone else in this whole-wide-world... He is telling you in WRITING that you are.... disloyal, duplicitous, competitive, a narcissist, a coward... that you lied to him, that you used him, that you never expressed remorse for what you "did to him." He goes on....You are a talker and a taker. You can't stand to be alone. You blame others for things to make yourself feel better. You were only interested in him because you weren't otherwise occupied with another guy. He'll never trust you. He doesn't want to be the "back-up-sucker you lean on when you're not feeling good about yourself." And he wraps it all up in a nice bow by ending with...I still love you and I wish you happiness.

#epiclovefail

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Kill me now!!! Why do I keep reading this over-and-over? 

Help! I need my quote of a lifetime!

Wait... Self-Destruction-Fest-2011 does not end here... Ohhhhh, noooooo...

The scorned-woman Facebook message is a close second to the ex-boyfriend email... but I never have the urge to go back and READ that one. Don't need to... I have the most hurtful section MEMORIZED. 

She called me a "second-rate cruise-ship actress." OUCH!!! 

But, seriously, that REALLY hit me hard at the time. She said a lot of other mean things about my character, but none of those really resonated with me, because she didn't really know me... but the second-rate-cruise-ship-actress thing... Yikes! That HURT. 

But it was motivating too... because I felt like I resembled that remark... and I KNEW I could do better than second-rate. 

#getyourshittogether

Anyhoo... I stopped falling for cute boys who had "open relationships" and started focusing on my own life and how to move myself in the direction of "first-rate."

Sloooowly, but surely...

"It's often from a sense of discontent, feelings of incompleteness, or even a twinge of true unhappiness that the seeds of great accomplishment are sown." - Mike Dooley, Tut's Universe

Should I really let these emails go? YES. Yes, I should. But then what would I do in my self-destructive moments? Huh? Love myself? That's not the POINT!!!

I know, I know, I know... I seriously need to go get some sleep. That solves WORLDS of problems in my own head. It's true.

H.A.LT.

Hungry. Angry. Lonely. Tired. 

I know the self-destructive starts to happen when I am hungry, angry, lonely or tired. (Mostly it's TIRED that's the issue for me.) I am getting better at learning to pay attention to these inner signals and practice more appropriate ways to meet my needs and resolve issues in a healthy manner... and not resorting to reading mean emails that will continue to break my heart over and over and over again.

"Being scared doesn't mean you can't make a difference, broken hearts can still love just fine, and feeling lonely doesn't mean you're actually alone." - Mike Dooley, Tut's Universe

Imperfectly,

Virginia

"Forgive me, first love, but I'm tired. I need to get away to feel again. Try to understand why. Don't get so close to change my mind."

- Adele, First Love

35. Post-It Note Wisdom

“You should never sacrifice yourself in an attempt to save someone else. You cannot save anyone but yourself. When you make a strong commitment for something important that represents the next step in your evolution, you need to put boundaries around it and protect it from all the energies that are not compatible. This may require some hard choices of cutting off certain relationships, practices, habits and influences. If it does not feel good, say no and don’t do it. If it feels good, say yes and go for it. You don’t need to know how or why.” – Lena Stevens, The Power Path

Ya know when you’re happily moving along in your life, thinking everthing is normal and then you get a phone call… and the universe throws you a curve ball that starts you spinning into total chaos? 

Yeah. Well, welcome to my Saturday. 

I know we’ve all been there. Sooo in the interest of being self-loving and giving myself some much-needed encouragement at this moment… I decided to pull out the above quote for sustenance.

In fact, I think I’m going to write it on a Post-it note and carry it around in my pocket today. It’ll be a good moment-to-moment reminder and hopefully help me maintain my sanity.

Me brain is struggling right now to juggle a lot of deep-emotion-triggering new information. Gotta pull out some major inspiration to counter-act the crazy.

This one’s a goodie too…

“Remember that you cannot please everyone and you certainly cannot fix or heal anyone else but yourself. In the area of boundaries, be responsible for what is yours and not for what isn’t. It is very simple even though we try and make it complicated.” – Lena Stevens, The Power Path

Complicated? Yeah. How about PAINFUL?! Bleh. Emotions are so annoying sometimes. I mean, I’m glad to have empathy… otherwise I’d be some kind of sociopath, but at a certain point... some boundaries need to be set. Truly.

Breathe. It’s all going to work out fine, Wilcox. No need to freak out. Take comfort in your Post-it note. Go do one or two of your 5 daily practices that lead to happiness. 

Let it be.

Wishing you all a sane Saturday, devoid of curve-balls… or if not… maybe you can join me in some Post-it-note-carrying-wisdom!

Loves,

V

“We can throw stones, complain about them, stumble on them, climb over them, or build with them.” – William Arthur Ward