Finding Love for Myself Tuesday, Jul 1 2008

When you read the title of this post “finding love for myself,” you might assume that I’ve been out searching for a new soul mate, that I’m seeking a loving companion for my life journey.

And you’d be wrong.

I have already found my soul mate. He’s not glamorous, he sometimes snores and often wakes me up muttering expletives as he sleeps, but my husband is definitely my permanent lifelong companion.

I love him and he loves me, and we really try to be good to one another despite the fact that we spend almost every single day together. We both work at home on the internet, and though most days we work less than 10 feet apart, we never seems to get sick of each other (at least not sick enough to go get another job).

But all this is beside the point.

If I wasn’t searching for a new life partner, what the hell am I talking about?!

I’ve been searching for the love within myself, the love for myself. I don’t need someone else to love me, plenty of people already do. I have a glorious number of loving people in my life that fill my heart with joy to think about.

But for a long time I had very little love for myself.

It hurts very much to realize that you may be popular, nice, talented, and fun, but that it doesn’t mean anything because the person that really matters, that you’re really wanting to impress, is absolutely not interested in falling in love with you.

Of course this sounds pretty weird when you try to write it down, but if you suffer from this affliction, I’m sure you’ll get my meaning.

For the longest time, I lived under the torment of my own mind. New ideas, risks, and interests were all subject to the impartial judge of my negative voice. Do you hear these thoughts too?

“This will fail.”

“You are so stupid!”

“How could you make this mistake AGAIN?”

“You should never have even tried. This was just a waste of time from the beginning.”

It took a long time, and the experience of having my son, to realized that that negative voice wasn’t real. It was a separate, chattering entity created by my mind at some point of my childhood. It doesn’t matter why it was created or how, but what does matter is that it wasn’t me.

I was able to realize that these thoughts were not mine.

Even after eradicating this negative voice, I still find myself struggling to love myself. To freely and openly love and cherish my body, mind, and abilities without judgment or scorn. It is like searching for a soul mate in a way because each day I learn new and interesting things about myself, each day the love grows just a little big bigger. Each day it’s easier to love myself a little bit more.

Find love for yourself,

Leah Day

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Family Dynamics Sunday, Dec 9 2007

How long does it take to make friends with your siblings?

How long does it take for the old grudges and immature behavior to wear off?

When will I be able to go home and not fight with my family?

This weekend was an uggh! weekend.  It was the first time I’d seen my sister in months and we fought like children once again.

I find it amazing that what I am: a wife, mother, and all around responsible person can completely disintegrate the moment I step into my old family home.

It’s not that I want to fight with my family.  Absolutely not. I would love for us to get together like a normal family: eat, watch a movie, hug, and go home.  Instead we get together and drink, then eat, then drink some more, and after hours of boozing it up on the back porch we do something to piss one another off and get into a fight.

I think a lot of this has to do with me.  As a child I was a peacemaker, as most youngest children are.  I tried my best to avoid confrontation.  I even hid in the closet when people raised their voices.

My fear of being yelled at and abused continued until I was about 22, and then I just got angry.  I was mad at myself for being weak and defenseless, angry at my parents for not protecting me, and totally pissed at my sisters for being monstrous bullies while growing up.

It was during this time that I read the book “Enders Game” by Orson Scott Card.  The child in the book is incredibly intelligent and deals with bullies in a very pragmatic way – he fights back and makes sure they’ll never come back for more.

After reading this book I began to see my life in a different way, a logical, pragmatic way.  I began to see that because I was always running from the fight, or doing anything to avoid it, I was destroying my self esteem.  What was important was not getting hurt, and the mental pain of running was far worse than any physical pain from staying and fighting it out.

So I’ve changed.  But my families dynamic hasn’t.  My expected role is still that of a peacemaker, but I cannot and will not fill that role anymore.  When something happens to make me feel threatened, I fight back instead of shrinking away.  It’s taken intense bravery and courage to do this, but every time I feel stronger, more in control, and far better about myself than ever before.

I don’t like to fight.  I hate it in fact.  My sisters are still stuck in their childhood roles and they start fights. I fight back and defend myself.  I guess the leftover “uggh!” feeling is that of sorrow. I feel sorry that my sisters have yet to grow up.  I feel bad that we can’t just be together without pissing each other off. I don’t regret the fight or defending myself, but I do regret having such a dysfunctional family dynamic.

Merry Christmas and all that,

Leah

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The Break-up Saturday, Jun 16 2007

Okay, so I watched this movie last week, ‘The Break Up’ with the lovely Jennifer Aniston. I thought I would share my review and opinion of it here.

Now I’m a sucker for chick flicks. I love a good tear-jerking, heart throbbing romance or comedy that leaves me feeling spent yet resolved. I don’t necessarily want to feel all gooey inside, I just want a general feeling when I leave the theater or turn off the TV that I haven’t wasted two hours of my life.

Unfortunately, I can’t say that the two hours spent watching “The Break Up” was time well spent. Firstly, I must disagree with just the general portrayal of the lead male character played by Vince Vaughn. The guy is an asshole from the word ‘go’. Not only would no girl in her right mind go out with this guy, she would have to be insane to even consider crossing the street next to him. He’s obnoxious, rude, overbearing, loud, obviously insensitive. and just a plain, dumb jerk.

And this is where I take offense to this movie. Suddenly our men have become the laughing stock of America. No longer do we uphold their place as the bread winner or hard worker, we just cut them down to shit by portraying them as worthless, lazy oafs that have nothing better to do than drag us poor, working women down.

And here again is another beef I have with this movie. Jennifer Aniston plays a totally normal female. She works, she cooks, she cleans, she dresses up, and even tries to create a lovely twelve lemon centerpiece for the table. Who gives a shit?! Is any of this necessary for survival? Is any of it necessary for even casual day-to-day life? NO! You don’t get points for being ridiculous in my book.

But this movie only shows that the woman is in the right and then man in the wrong. He is wrong to not remember her lemons, he is wrong to want to chill out after having a hard day at work, and he is wrong to take the easier road when a woman is available to pave it for him.

So here’s my point, we women would have a much easier time of it if we just stopped trying. If we asked for help when we needed it, and if we didn’t get that help, we just didn’t do the task. How many of us ask for help, but then slug along to finish the task even though it’s too much? How many of us take it personally that our men do not value housework or center pieces or just clean toilets as much as we do?

We were not born to pave the way. We were not born to be walked over. But we were also not born to be bitches, making every second of another persons life hell just to make ourselves feel better.

The chick is portrayed as the heroine of the relationship in that movie, even though she instigates the fight that brings on the break up, she maliciously attacks the male character, and acts like a slut in order to make him ‘jealous’. Meanwhile the guy just floats through the movie looking dazed and confused. Understandable, as they have only written the male character to have the IQ of a turnip. It just makes me want to throw up.

Yes, I believe that we should all strive for relationships that make us happy and even encourage us to grow. What I do not condone is the blatant acceptance that it is okay for a woman to be a slut because she has “worked so hard” but it is not okay for a man to want a break for five minutes for just the same reason.

Cheers,
Leah

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Controling Your Negative Inner Voice Friday, Jan 12 2007

In my opinion there is no better way of knowing how you feel about yourself than from your inner voice. What is the inner voice? Quite simply it is the voice you talk to yourself with. The words that seem to come from nowhere but can affect your actions, mood, decisions, and feelings.

For most of my life I struggled with a very negative inner voice. It told me I was stupid, worthless, and ugly. When something bad would happen to me, my inner voice would tell me I deserved it, that I should expect such treatment because I was so stupid. This negative voice was entirely my invention. It was my mind saying these horrible things. Why would I think so badly of myself? Did I in fact believe that I was stupid, worthless, or ugly. Yes, I did.

My negative inner voice was actually a vocalization of my low self-esteem. I believed those things about myself and reinforced those beliefs by internalizing them and turning them into an actual negative entity within my brain. It might not seem like it, but I was in control the whole time. I chose to start berrating myself. I chose to cut myself down when I was feeling low. I was my own worst enemy. No one could cut me down more effectively than my own mind could.

It is very sad to think about. Even now, years later, I wonder how I could have hated myself so much. That is truly what low self-esteem stems from – self hate. When we live wishing we were more like someone else, despising the characteristics that make us special, we are living in self hate. Psychologists like to put fancy words on it like “low self-esteem” that can’t really impart true understanding of the condition. We all understand hate though. Happy, sad, afraid, hate, love – they are the words we can truly comprehend and apply to ourselves and our mental state.

So how do we combat this negative inner voice? How do we reverse the effects of self hate? Well, loving ourselves is a good first step. Once I realized just how much I hated myself, I was honestly repelled. How can you function hating the body you live in, the mind you think with, the hands you create with? You can’t. You cannot function to your ultimate potential if you are constantly criticising and hating yourself. So we must learn to love ourselves. This shouldn’t be too difficult. We were born loving ourselves but somewhere along the line for whatever reason we stopped.

To love yourself again you must accept yourself. You must embrace all the shortcomings, failures, and mistakes you have made. You need to turn inward now and find those things about yourself that make you special, different, and worthwhile. When your negative voice rears up, name it, put it in its place, and start to battle its control of your mind. You are in control now, it is scary, but you are the boss and you call the shots.

Our mind is a complex and powerful thing. It has more control over our lives than we ever give it credit for. We can eliminate our negative inner voices. We can learn to love ourselves. Once we are willing to let go of the hate, let go of our fear, anger, and resentment, we can then begin to heal and love again. It saddens me to remember how much I hated myself, but I did and I hurt myself everyday because of it. Live to love yourself and your life will love you back.

In Love,
Leah Day

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Working with Criticism Wednesday, Dec 27 2006

Being criticized is absolutely no fun. I would hazard a guess that most people don’t like it and go to great lengths to avoid it. The problem is, criticism is very good for us. It helps us become more effective, mindful, and efficient. The trick is learning how to work with criticism positively to make a change if any alteration is necessary. As women we can have the unfortunate tendency to internalize criticism, to make it mean much more than it did. We must learn to turn off these emotional reactions in order to work with criticism effectively.

Criticism is the act of analyzing and evaluating the quality of something or someone. Most of the time when we receive a critique, it is meant to be taken as constructive criticism. This means that the judgment was meant to be useful and intended to help or improve our situation. Unfortunately, constructive criticism is often confused with a personal attack. Even when the person providing the criticism attempts to do so in a positive and non-threatening way, our gut reaction is to take their words emotionally.

In order for criticism to be constructive we must learn to turn off this initial emotional response. The first step is reading the situation. Is this person really attacking you or not? Most of the time the answer is obvious. If a person approaches you in a normal way and proceeds to make conversation before providing their criticism, then they are probably not attacking you. Body language can say a lot as well. Is the person leaning toward you or away? Is their body tense or relaxed? Reading these subtle signs correctly can really help you gauge your reaction.

Another part of the criticism that should be analyzed is the persons real words. Here is where most women get in trouble. We have the uncanny ability to exaggerate a neutral statement by simply rolling it around in our heads for awhile. As we focus on the persons words, personal biases work their way to the surface: “how dare Jim say I don’t work hard enough when he is always wandering around talking to people!” These opinions we have made of our coworkers may indeed be true, but in order to work positively with the criticism these people may provide we really need to approach everyone in an nonjudgmental way. Who cares what Jim or Sara or Robin do? What does it really have to do with you?

In order to achieve this blank slate mindset for your colleagues you must learn to leave your opinions at the door. As you walk into work, concentrate on how much work you are going to do and how you will go about accomplishing it. Focus on working efficiently with the people you are immediately involved with at work. At the door say to yourself:

“It is not for me to judge anyone. We all want to work together efficiently with respect and compassion. I am leaving my baggage at the door, it will not help me work today.”

If it helps, find a small object the signifies your biases of yourself and others. Actively drop this object on your way into work and then pick it back up as you leave. This may seem silly, but focusing our negative energy into an object, rather than just letting it all buzz over our heads like a thundercloud, is much more healthy.

So now that you are leaving your biases and judgments at the door, what now? Now is the time to listen. If someone approaches you with a complaint or critique, spend your time really listening to their words. Repeat their words back to them just to make sure you have their point taken correctly. End the situation with a positive phrase like “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I’ll see to it immediately.” and smile reassuringly to make sure the person knows you are not taking their criticism personally.

Once you are alone, write down exactly what the person said. Try to use the same words they used if possible. Once you have done this, read the note several times to yourself while detaching all emotion from your mind. Ask yourself the following questions:

- Does this criticism have some level of truth to it?
- What action led this person to say this to me?
- What can I do differently that will improve the situation?

Answer these questions honestly and if need be, write them down and post the note somewhere you will see it. When you look at it, smile and say to yourself or aloud:

“I am working on this aspect of my job in a healthy and positive way. (Persons name) provided helpful, constructive criticism that will enable me to grow and change for the better.”

The most important thing is to not internalize the situation. A critique about your work does not imply you are stupid or lazy. Those thoughts are your own personal judgments being reflected back at you and they are neither positive nor healthy. Work to rid your mind of personal biases, against yourself and others, and you will find that many areas of your life will improve, not just your ability to work with criticism.

Good Luck!
Leah Day

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