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January 18, 2010
Other Things Your Mother Should Have Told You
I have often thought of writing a book entitled, "Things My Mother Taught Me That You Sure Wish Yours Had Taught You." Or some more clever variation of that.
One piece of advice that I don't think she ever gave me, but that I wish she had, goes as follows.
Hang out with people who make you feel good about yourself.
and, equally important:
Don't spend time with people who don't.
This seems so obvious, doesn't it, yet think back to times in your life when you were blissfully happy, and note who was around you. Then think back to times in your life when you were less than content, and look around you. Clearly, if we all had this figured out, we'd all have been much more cheerful during those down times.
I discovered this by accident, almost the exact same way I discovered that full-caff coffee gives me anxiety attacks. With the coffee, I started drinking decaf when we ran out of regular and I didn't have time to go by Starbucks for a few days. Then I noticed that my traditional 9 am anxiety wasn't there anymore. After testing a few times, I realized that the anxiety was a direct result of caffeine. I don't have anxiety, or at least I don't anymore: I have a very bad reaction to large doses of caffeine, and the same to sugar.
I think this concept is extremely important when it comes to any attempt to change your diet or improve your health, because in order to succeed, you have to believe that you can succeed. If the voices in your head (I mean that metaphorically, I assure you) are telling you you're fat and ugly, you're much less likely to make the right decision when it comes to what to put in your mouth. You know the drill: the scale is up a quarter of a pound in the morning and you think, "Damn it, I'll never lose weight, I'm going to eat a bagel." Or, my personal favorite, when I eat something I didn't plan to that's less than healthy I'm tempted to say, "Forget it, I'll start tomorrow." I'll-start-tomorrow is the arch-nemesis of positive change.
That's why it's extremely important to surround yourself with people who are a positive influence. This is so mind-numbingly obvious that you may not need to read this entry at all, but like many things that are best hidden when in plain view, I think it deserves to be picked up and and given the credit it deserves.
Once I stopped giving so much time to negative self-talk, I noticed that extremely positive people started appearing, as though by magic. Or, rather, I was more open to positive influences, and also more confident and therefore more likely to reach out to potential new friends.
When I look back at the toxic people I've had in my life, some of them downright radioactive (I'm thinking of someone from long ago, who anyone who knows me now except my mother and Emma would not remember, so don't start trying to guess) I notice that in many subtle ways, they sent me the message that I should give up on my dreams. There's something secure and comforting about those messages, at times, because if you give up on your dreams, then there's a lot less to work for. The bizarre flip side of having had a lot of career success very young was, for me, that it would be very easy to rest on what I've already accomplished and not explore other things in life that make me happy and that I find exciting, like yoga, nutrition and public health stuff, writing, etc. I am not just a happier person when I'm exploring other interests in addition to my job, I'm actually a better organizer. And I'm a better influence on everyone around me. I can be a toxic friend when I'm feeling less than healthy and happy myself -- we all can -- and when we pursue whatever it is that makes us light up like a Christmas tree, then we're more likely to encourage others to do the same.
If you're starting out on a new plan re: diet, exercise, or whatever, try this: list everyone who is an influence in your daily life. Then put a little line through the name of every person on that list whom you think expects you to fail. If even looking at the name fills you with a sense of negativity, put one tiny line through it. Don't worry, you won't kill the person or remove him or her from your life -- this isn't voodoo! But you will send a subtle message to your subconscious that this person's influence or perceived influence is weakened.
Even if you can't weed all the naysayers out of your life, you can minimize their psychic toxicity. Here's the trick: don't think about them. Most of the time, the people who we turn into critics in our heads aren't even thinking about us. Even if they are, we are under no obligation to think about them. Replace the negative voices with positive ones, even if you have to find them outside of your immediate circle.
I did this incredibly well during early CR. I was surrounded by people who had no interest in healthy eating (except for my mom and VLC, which back then stood for Very Little Co-Worker, though now of course it means something else) but I immersed myself in the CR Society list and its archives to the extent that it became almost an imaginary friend. Sure enough, several list friends became real friends: Kenton, Lin, Dean. And of course, the alpha male of the CR Society in its glory days, the one I dragged home to my country, even though it was at the time the land of George Bush and no national health care. His work was the single most powerful factor in my initial conversion to CR and 40 pound weight loss, and led to the development of a host of healthier habits. I had no work/life balance at all before I met MR... now I have something I can quite credibly call a "life" outside of work, and that has even improved my work.
Of course it's not all sunshine and bunnies. Over the winter of my CR discontent... a rather long winter indeed... even the positive voice of MR couldn't seem to break through the haze. The stranglehold of negative voices seemed unbreakable: the horrible harping from the media that seemed to go on for two years straight -- during which I don't know how I would have survived were it not for the positive voices of my CR girlfriends, most notably the ever-supportive Robin and the avenging angel journalist goddess writer, Allswellinhell, and the long term sister from the UK who has been there through good times and bad for both of us.
"You can't talk to the press if you care what they write," says RDF. I wish somebody had told me that *before* I agreed to do the first article! Could have saved me a lot of time and agony!
It probably didn't help that I read and re-read all the negative articles over and over again. Sending myself bad messages instead of picking myself up and doing something useful, like scrubbing the kitchen floor. It's ever so tempting to wallow in the negativity, isn't it?
I don't think people usually mean to be toxic. They just don't realize the consequences their words and actions have, and then we allow our own minds to magnify the toxicity, creating an icky stew of bad feelings that tastes even worse than hemp oil. For instance, Rebecca Traister didn't *mean* to ruin my Thanksgiving in 2006 and set off a string of nasty attacks on my blog that included the random death threat. Eventually we met, and we really quite like each other. (She also had a huge string of bad luck following that article, which I'm sure had nothing whatsoever to do with me but which might give columnists pause next time they decide to write something nasty about us...) But the fact is, if I hadn't thought about it so much, the whole thing probably would have been a lot less hellish.
These days, I feel incredibly good. I was thinking the other day that I feel as happy and optimistic and excited about life as I did at 22, but without all the craziness that comes with being 22. (If any of you out there are 22 year old women, let me assure you, it gets better.)
So far, 35 is my favorite year ever. Iyengar yoga with the most amazing yoga teacher on earth (Jonathan doesn't know about the blog so I can say nice things about him that he would really find irritating if he heard), unprecedented happiness on the home front, and the improbable appearance of the Low Carb Rockstar (not the diet version of the energy drink! That stuff if gross.) and subsequent introduction to all sorts of people who are actually *doing something* about the public health crisis directly caused by diet.
I find that on a daily basis, I am encouraged to dream big. And to act big. In a skinny sort of way. Delusions of grandeur, perhaps, but a hell of a lot more fun than sitting around feeling sorry for yourself.
Posted by april at January 18, 2010 4:38 AM
Comments
I'm sorry, April. I hadn't read that article by RT, and it would seem that I may want to give her a good slap. Yuck.
Posted by: Paige at January 18, 2010 11:30 AM
Good post, and all true! I've been working on my list for a while now and life is gradually improving as a result. Stopping the regular obligatory phone calls to my mother-in-law has made the biggest difference of all. I hadn't realised what a destructive influence (on diet, health and my self-esteem) she had been until I broke contact.
Posted by: Lin at January 19, 2010 7:49 AM
What is difficult is if the most toxic person in your life is a close family member. Growing up with an incredibly negative person who constantly offers little but criticism makes it very difficult to hold onto one's self-esteem, never mind pursue his/her dreams!
Posted by: Judith at January 19, 2010 12:37 PM
Another great entry. You are very wise April!
Posted by: Nancy at January 20, 2010 1:17 PM