Well, welcome back to Mind Your Fibro podcast, episode 20!
As I am working on the episode today, I keep hearing the airplane sounds - today is the 1st day of the Derby Festival, I live in Louisville KY, and it begins with an airshow during the day and one of the biggest fireworks in the world at night called the Thunder over Louisville. Lots of excitement in the air. The Kentucky Derby, for those who don't know, is the horse race, which happens on the 1st Saturday in May. And two weeks ahead of the race, we have festivities, and after the last 2 years of the COVID pandemic, things are finally going back to normal. Ladies are back at buying hats to wear at the racetrack, and kids are waiting for the fireworks. And luckily the weather is absolutely gorgeous today, warm and sunny, so happy for people who are gathering at the riverfront, because earlier this week it was rather rainy and cold.
I can tell you, many ladies take Derby rather seriously, planning their outfits, searching for that perfect hat or dress, or shoes. Many go on another diet that likely gets broken by the Mint Julep or a slice of the Derby pie.
As I study more neurobiology of trauma and chronic pain, I keep coming across perfectionism. You may think the desire to succeed includes perfectionism, and that may well be true, but perfectionism goes further and demands you to be the best, to be perfect.
Perfectionistic traits often arise from the psychological wounds of childhood. Perfectionism is a personality trait characterized by high expectations and standards of yourself and may/may not of others. Perfectionism can be caused by a fear of judgment or disapproval from others.
Children who experience emotional trauma, especially the withholding of love from a parent, believe that they must prove their worth and struggle with self-esteem. This can bring a huge amount of anxiety because you expect yourself to be perfect and otherwise you may blame yourself for being a failure. You may push yourself to make no mistakes and, if you do, you may become filled with self-blame. Perfectionism ties closely with a lack of self-love and self-loathing.
Self-loathing, or self-hatred, is extreme criticism of yourself. It may feel as though nothing you do is good enough or that you are unworthy or undeserving of good things in life. I am not good enough; I need to perfect it.
So when it comes to nutrition and dietary changes, many people aim to be perfect – perfect diet, follow all the rules, but often start making decisions based on self- criticism and self-loathing, and not love. I need to lose 10,20,50 or 100 pounds to feel accepted or look good. I cause my own pain because I don't eat well; all that sugar is causing inflammation. I have arthritis because I am obese my knees cannot not support me.
But often, our self-love or self-loathing habits have been passed to us from people around us, usually from childhood, and reinforced throughout our lives.
When you are a child, you can only accept yourself as the people around you accept you - your family - parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, teachers, classmates at school. You may feel judged and perceive your worthiness by their affirmations - how you behave, act, eat, look, what grades you bring home, or know your homework.
As a young child, you see yourself through the eyes of people you love; you look to your tribe to see what they tell you about you.
So if the people in your life didn't teach you that you are good the way you are, or if they only told you that you were only good enough when you performed like they wanted you to, then you have the directions for viewing yourself as not good enough the rest of your life.
Often, you're told that you're bad, not smart enough, sickly, fat, or lazy. This sets you up to be conditionally accepted or conditionally loved. It sets up your worthiness. If I change, they will accept me, but today, the way I am, I am not good enough; I am not worthy of approval, acceptance, and love. And the thoughts your brain creates, justify the feelings that you are not worthy of feeling good about yourself. What you practice makes it stronger - if you condition your brain only to accept and love yourself, conditionally, you will keep creating conditions that you will need to achieve to become worthy.
When you think about self-loathing, it really is, what is your opinion of yourself?
What do you think about yourself?
Of course, how you think about yourself will determine how you feel about yourself.
Your thoughts create your feelings.
Sometimes you may think of yourself in a positive way, but likely more often than not, the thoughts are negative.
Most people do not pay attention to what they think about themselves.
As you start being aware of your thoughts, you may notice things you think about yourself, your body, your health, your habits, how you are in relationships, at work, etc..
It's really worth paying attention to your opinion of yourself. Why? Because it will determine how you feel, and how you feel determines what you do, and what you do will either increase the evidence that you have to hate yourself or loathe yourself, or it will decrease that evidence.
If you keep having self-loathing thoughts, "There's something wrong with me. I am unwell. I'm not okay. My body is not okay, this pain is not normal. I am broken". You feel the way you think.
Most of these thoughts are automatic. They come up, and we keep them like we keep pets.
It is important to remember that when you practice thinking thoughts that are negative about yourself, that's what you're good at. When you practice liking yourself and thinking thoughts of self-love, self-acceptance, that's what you get good at. It is what ever muscle you practice, that muscle will grow.
So again, when it comes to nutrition and dietary changes, many people start making them because of criticism and self-loathing. I need to lose 10,20,50, and 100 pounds to feel accepted, to look good. I cause my own pain because I don't eat well. My joints hurt because I am too obese and I don't exercise. It is hard to maintain motivation with such self-talk.
So next time you have a bad day, maybe you pushed, and you crashed, and you ate something that is not on your plan, your perfectionism kicks in, the voice in your head starts tell you that the day is ruined, may as well keep eating foods I crave but could not have for the rest of the day. Oh, now my diet is ruined; I fell off my diet wagon. And the self-loathing and negative self-talk increase, motivation to change decreases, and you no longer follow your eating protocol. The stress level increases, it activates the nervous system, you may get into a fear-pain cycle and you may end up in a painful flare. And you may start beating yourself up for ruining the diet plan and causing the flare with what ever you ate..
And soon you are looking again for another diet. This is why the diet industry is a billion-dollar industry. They tap into your insecurities, self-loathing, and motivation to change is fueled by negative thoughts and feelings, and it is a temporary change as it is not sustainable.
So how do we change the self-loathing and start loving ourselves?
We start with awareness of our thinking. It would help if you began to catch yourself negatively talking about yourself, see the blame, shame, doubt, "beating" yourself up for making mistakes, judgments, and self-criticism. Write this down. Collect these thoughts in a journal. When your thoughts are on paper, your brain can look at them from a different perspective, analyze them, and not automatically believe them.
As you look at the write-up, be curious, not judging. Does your list of negative things you wrote make sense? Do you agree with it? Is it something everyone who knows you will agree with this list about you? Ask curious questions, not judge your writing. The writing or your thoughts have no power over you unless you accept them and believe they are true.
The next step will be to find alternative thoughts that will serve you better. What can you be thinking instead? What else is true about me that I chose to ignore? The goal is to show your brain alternatives, other options of thinking, and poke holes in the web of your old thinking. Start choosing thoughts that serve you, and encourage you, more loving thoughts.
Now self-love learning can fill probably several episodes of this podcast. This is just a snapshot, a seed for you to start planting in your brain, to begin looking at your diet or other lifestyle or health choices from the place of self-love, not hate. I hope you consider working on breaking the cycle you've been stuck in for a long time because there is no other way to maintain the focus and drive for a sustainable and healthy change unless the changes come from love and acceptance.
Thank you for listening. I will talk to you next week.