I'm in a place in my life right now that is very different for me. I like that.
I've lived most of my life with a strong inner desire to fulfill other people's expectations of me. Or at least, what I BELIEVED were other people's expectations of me. I have a firm intention for this current point in my life to unlearn that habit. So I am deliberately setting up my life right now in such a way as to shield myself from setting people up to create, or setting myself up to believe other people have created, expectations of me.
For the record, permit me to include a disclaimer to cover the fact that this lack of expectation doesn't apply to, say, my daughter. My previously made, ongoing commitment to her is exempt from this "free-wheeling" stage of my life. It also doesn't apply to what I tell people I will do. If I say, for example, that I will meet someone at a certain time and place, then I will be there.
Where it does apply is in my great caution about what I will and will not tell people I will do at this time. So if people should experience my drawing some boundaries with them, perhaps even ones they may not like and/or that keep them somewhat distanced from me, I sincerely hope they won't take it personally and will understand that it's not about them--it's about me and my learning of a new pattern of discovering what I do and do not want and standing for it, no matter what anyone else thinks. Even people who have good suggestions may get a "no" or a "not now" from me right now, because I'm not done learning and mastering this skill and I want more time to practice. It's not that I want to continue systematically disappointing people for the rest of my life. Rather it's that I want to learn how to deal with inevitably disappointing people from time to time without caving in to things I don't want to do and without heaping shame and negative judgments on myself--which I use to send myself hurling into a spiral of depression--when I don't cave in.
A related goal for this place in my life is to learn to focus on taking care of myself--physically, emotionally, mentally, etc. To fulfill that goal will require self-discipline: something else that is challenging for me at which I want to get better. However, right now the "free-wheeling" aspect has me being very permissive with myself about these things. My eating is okay but not great, I haven't been to the gym in quite a while, my sleep pattern is slowly improving at best, but I'm hardly progressing by leaps and bounds. And for now, that's been okay. I don't want anyone else heaping "shoulds" on me (or to create the belief for myself that they're heaping "shoulds" on me), and I'm not heaping "shoulds" on myself either. I've been okay with that because I trust that my over-permissivness with myself around the self-discipline required for better self-care will fade as the pendulum swings back toward a proper balance point between self-discipline and self-permissiveness. I think I can feel that starting to happen already.
It's also true that I lived most of my life in my head, focused solely on intellectual pursuits and ignoring my body and my emotions. I only learned how to connect with the parts of me below my neck within the last few years (feel free to ask me to elaborate on how, if you want). I've unconsciously been creeping back out of my body and up into my head. I'm not sure right now whether it's because I'm afraid of something in particular or because living up there is simply an old habit that's dying hard. Either way, back up there I've gone. Not entirely, but significantly.
In light of all this, I have had an interesting insight: I think many of the behaviors I do that get in the way of my goals come from using the wrong part of me to solve the problem. For example, if I get hungry at night, I could have a small, healthy snack. Typically, though, I don't. I end up eating too much of the wrong things. Why is that? I think it could be because I'm trying to solve a head problem (I feel bad emotionally and crave pleasant feeling) with a body solution (my body needs something, yes, but not that and not that much). I'm overindulging in the short-term pleasure of the good taste and the comforting feelings rather than either dealing with the unpleasant emotions or listening to what my body actually needs and wants. I'm stifling both the physical need and the emotional want with short-term pleasure that does long-term damage.
Why don't I exercise more? When I actually listen to my body it WANTS to move and to be active. Instead, though, I distract myself with TV or the Internet and "veg out" to reduce my physical and emotional stress of the day--again, attempting a head solution to a body problem.
Why have I spent the last year-plus struggling with getting behavioral traction for my desire for better self-care? I think it may be because I've been treating it as a head-space "should" rather than an integrated, whole-self "want to."
My body really wants to be lighter, stronger, faster, and healthier, and to get more and better sleep. It has wanted these things all along. I think I'd just forgotten how to listen to it. My head really wants to be less stressed, happier, more at peace, and more intellectually stimulated. It has wanted these things all along, too. I think I'd just forgotten how to really listen to it, too.
I have begun to reduce the "static," the artificial clutter in my life that I've used to keep myself too "busy" to pay attention to myself and to my loved ones around me. I want to continue that process, and I want to clear the actual, physical clutter too. I want to re-learn how to think and feel and act with my whole, integrated self.
I think this re-integration could be the key to getting my positive feedback loop (better care --> feel better --> better care --> feel better, etc.) going again. I think it could be the key to fulfilling my intention--it's not a resolution, I don't do those--to have a 2012 free of major depressive episodes. I spent, in my judgment, WAY too much of 2011 depressed (granted, it was a very challenging year on many levels). I don't want to do that again.
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