Thought track twists: Watch the boats go...but don't let them affect your flow
Hello family! :)
Just a little reminder for me and you on a terrific Thursday. I was recently reflecting on how feelings of happiness differed between my illness and recovered days. I realized that while the happiness I experience now is more profound and stable, the happiness I felt during my illness - when I would achieve the “challenges” set out by my disordered voice - was very much real as well. So what is it about the happiness that I feel today that feels so much more grounded?
My brain likes to work its way out using analogies, so here goes. My self is a river. My feelings are the passing boats. Depending on what others say or what happens around me, there can be different boats that float on my river, and they can affect the flow of the river in some way. But they never stay on my surface for long - they pass by after a while. The same goes for the effects of any body shape comment. I undeniably feel a very real sense of happiness of satisfaction when someone compliments my body, or when I reach a certain weight. I cannot deny that I still feel these feelings, even if it has been 5 years into recovery. The strength of these feelings have dampened as I have worked to actively unlearn them over the years, but the response is still very much automatic.
My self is the river. The flow of my river can change based on the boats that are floating on it, but fundamentally, the nature of the river is always the same, no matter what boats happen to float by.
There are people out there who easily understand this concept - that feelings about any given event will pass eventually, and that there is no need to automatically correlate them with who you are - to desperately try to identify exactly which personality trait allowed you to deserve a certain positive feeling because you are terrified that you’ll never experience this feeling again, or to immediately attribute negative events to personal flaws.
But it is much more difficult for me - in fact, the tendency to get too caught up in momentary emotions was one of the reasons that my illness deteriorated so quickly. If someone mentioned that I had gained weight, I would immediately translate that terrible feeling to believing that I was a terrible person. If someone complimented my body, I would grasp on desperately to the transient feeling of success I felt, watching it fade away too quickly, and feel terrified that I would never experience it again. I didn’t realize that I was fundamentally the same person, before and after those comments - I was still the person who was loved by my friends and family, who had accomplished what I had in life...still that same river.
Without further ado, here are some takeaways and action steps:
Don’t blame yourself for less-than-optimal thought patterns: Acknowledge the fact that your feelings, whether they are optimal or not (as in whether they contribute to your long-term wellbeing), inevitably occur. I have found that blaming myself for thinking in certain ways only causes me to ignore these thought patterns and to keep pushing them to the back of my mind, making them more ingrained.
Feel it, then move on: Say to yourself, “I totally understand why you feel this way!” In my case, I cannot undo my past of battling an eating disorder. These thoughts will always come more naturally to me than to the average person. I will let myself feel these feelings, and then continue on with my day. I will let myself feel the hurt of receiving a body shape comment, and then realize that I am still the same person that I was, before that comment.
Find your flow: Always remember that no event, no momentary emotion has the power to change the self that you have built for YEARS. The feelings are boats. Whether it’s a yacht or a cruise ship, it too shall pass. And after it does, you will be left with the same body of water, flowing as it always has :)