Feeling a bit twisted up?

 "I'll hit the gym tomorrow extra hard and nothing but celery tomorrow..." Ever heard yourself say something like that? It was right after  that queezy feeling in your gut because you know you had to buy a new belt because your old one no longer fits.  Yeah, you KNOW you bought that new belt so you didn't have to keep being reminded that your little excuse factory can put out as many new justifications and theories as it likes but at the end of the day, what you have been doing is not working.  If your like the entire population of the planet, you invariably have moments of cognitive dissonance.  "Cognitive dissonance relates to the concept of being exposed to information or having experiences that conflict with our existing base of “what we know.” The theory holds that our minds are not always flexible or rational when it comes to evaluating uncomfortable information or questioning our own beliefs." -- http://www.truthmove.org/content/cognitive-dissonance/

In the above example, CD will occur and feelings of guilt will arise if for example the person in question at one time became used to doing an insane amount of training to keep their over-consumption of certain foods that make them feel good at bay.  So for a time, they actually did make up for their night binging by doing extra hrs at the gym and/or combining that with starving themselves for a few days afterwards.  This is still avoidance behavior disguised as something that looks to most as "healthy" and can also be justified as healthy by the person doing it as well!   Then, one day they woke up and looked in the mirror and realised that what they have been doing for years (and maybe telling others they were proud of their "work ethic" etc.)  is obviously not working.  But because it used to work so well in the past they will start to make up "extra stuff" in their head to help explain away the current situation and continue to repeat the same cycle over and over again while adding even more unhealthy behaviors like purging to the mix.  Justifying your behavior to yourself or others will do nothing to end the pain.  I could go on for donkey's years with examples from everyday life but I know I tend to run on:)

You may begin to notice if you follow this blog for any amount of time that I many times use diet folly as an example piece for human behavior as eating is a necessity that nobody can go without and is something that has a lot of baloney surrounding  it (yes, yes, pun intended) due to the fact that a large proportion of the population experience a huge amount of CD around the fact that they have no control over their food intake even though they profess to all that they "eat healthy" etc. etc. AND they truly do believe that they do.  The mental discomfort is caused by the fact that what is actually happening visibly as well as internally is not consistent with what they are telling themselves and others. "I portion all my food, I'll just have half of that piece of cake" --meanwhile, back at home in the safety of the basement they scarf down a gallon of ice cream--  Justification, running away, sticking your head in the sand and saying "lalalala", xbox, binge watching tv, sleeping all day, taking a pill/drink (prescribed or otherwise) --and sleeping all day-- cell phone glued to hand --wait, selfie stick glued to hand?-- this is potentially longer than santa's naughty list!  I think you are starting to get the picture.  There are an unlimited amount of ways to distract or numb ourselves from the pain of CD instead of changing the behavior causing the pain.  The majority may seem innocuous at first but they all start chasing each others tails. Why not just change what we believe by arming ourselves with new knowledge backed up by new behaviors so that we can begin to have congruence between what we do and what we say.

Stop living in Denial!

If I seem like I'm picking on "dieters" and "exerholics" I won't be avoiding the fact that my own personal journey has been full of CD that I found a myriad of ways of quelling.  So I'm no spring chicken to this whole avoidance thing. 

I think it went something like this:
 Feel uncomfortable about how you think others see you? Start living in your basement gym and getting some muscles; great you can lift more than everyone else pretty much now so going to the weight room at the high school was awesome! Positive reinforcement.  Ok,  that helped a LOT, lets step it up to working at a commercial gym and taking a few fat burners, hold on, your taking drugs now which you have told people up to that point were wrong and you would never do!  You never even took tylenol!  Meh, well, those ephedrine/caffeine/aspirin stacks you made up with your own mortar and pestle were not so bad and heck they give you a great buzz and tons of energy to run around and not sit still enough to be introspective.  well, I've done enough research now to show that its ok to do a couple of moderate cycles of steroids per year (this was before the internet and most people thought the gym was some weird place that you only wore spandex too).  Ok, avoid family and people from childhood as much as possible, check--that's uncomfortable enough as it is!  Better than having to explain that to them as well.  Have a cap of "G" and pop some E and hit a rave or two or three...  restless and need some more distraction?  Just develop a series of co-dependent relationships with people that have no problem hanging out with you exclusively and spending most of your time isolating as much as possible unless your high and you just don't care; be sure they either do the stuff you already do so you don't have to justify yourself or are happy to participate.   Not happy with University and the current GF? Go for a 30 day holiday in Europe and then stay for 3 years --YES, it was fun a lot of the time  (I may eventually publish that book I keep on planning) -- but running and hiding won't save you from the pain of change, it just prolongs how long it takes for you to go through the fire.

It is just now that I am acknowledging fully that it takes a huge amount of courage for anyone that is going through change and without an amazing support system and good friends it would be all that more difficult.  In a way, my addiction pattern through the years has ended up being a blessing in disguise, anything less would not have been enough to bring me to my knees.  I'm the one that helps others, remember? :)

Using this format which I enjoy immensely to help inform others while at the same time solidifying my own understanding and helping myself to go through the pain of this positive change is one of the most refreshing and energizing things I have done in my life.  No wonder I spent last week sleeping during the day.  I think I unconsciously knew that this blog was inevitable and once I started I couldn't go back so that was my Ego's way of trying one more time to get me not to take that final plunge  (I repeat: old behaviors WILL keep on resurfacing disguised as something else).  Heck I even took up smoking full time around 2009 after I quit bodybuilding and taking GHB for 15 years. I didn't have to justify that..just hung out with people that smoked or did not care.  I even drove truck for 3 yrs so I could be in the smoking gang!  Its one thing to check into a detox because nobody has to know...its another to start opening up about it. 

Don't worry, your not alone:)

Well,  this must be the reason I picked that old pair of shoes as the logo for my blog--old shoes are comfortable but at a certain point, they are no longer cool--and if you keep rolling your ankle when you do more than shuffle--it may just be time to throw those old "tenners" on the proverbial telephone line and walk away proudly in your new kicks!
The new shoes will give you some blisters at first, but after a while, you can run faster, jump higher and look cooler than you ever did in the old ones!  Heck, even buy another cheap pair of tenners, its better than the old ones at least. (yep, that ol' harm reduction model does have its merits.)

Take away for today:  Change (especially positive change) of any kind is going to cause a person to experience the pain of CD in some form or another.  This can make people give up on ever being able to become the person they know deep down inside that they can be...that better version of themselves that can step up and challenge their own belief systems and put them to the test rather than making up some new mental construct that explains away their personally detrimental behavior and. . .dare I say it, behaviors that hurt others in their lives more than themselves? 

I'll leave you with this quote from an out of print book :)  Yes, I did copy it by hand JUST FOR YOU from that old scanned pdf I found in a deeply buried google chrome bookmark that has been following my around for years!

Have a better and better day in every way.
EJM

"To every transaction between individuals -- whether it be between friends, lovers, parent/child, patient/therapist -- each person brings with him/her a set of belief systems, or inner maps. I believe that most of these belief systems are effective and enable individuals to obtain their desired goals. However, some of these belief systems may be less than effective, and may lead to painful destinations. The individuals who come into a therapists office seeking help, also bring with them a whole history, a whole background, a whole set of belief systems. Most of these belief systems are constructive and useful -- otherwise those individuals would not have survived long enough to seek help. But, in areas in which they are evidencing pain and dysfunction, their belief system, is either "the problem" or prevents them from finding the solution. It is as if...once upon a time they were given a map that indicated that San Diego, California was really San Francisco, California. They have spent a great deal of their life trying to prove to everyone that San Diego is San Francisco, and sneaking up to San Francisco and moving it brick by brick to San Diego to prove that their map was really right. I believe it would be much more helpful to them to help them make a new map." Steven Heller, Ph.D. - Monsters and Magical sticks.