This title has been sitting in my que also for a long time. Another great idea with little follow through. I kind of joke about it now, while also teasing myself about this process. I am victimizing myself with my words. “look at these big dreams I once had, and I never followed through with”. It’s something to think about now.

I see a few providers, a therapist, a med prescriber (Do not knock a good cocktail), and a nutritionist (who is under my therapy umbrella)… I have a great team. I was sitting with my nutritionist yesterday, and she is also reading this mountain book. I actually got the idea from her to read the mountain book. I’ve really been thinking more about this idea of quitting for self preservation, mostly at this point with exercise. Now stay with me a moment, I will get to the victimization.

She asked me what my relationship with exercise was growing up and I thought about it for a moment. It was never consistent, and I always said I would do something to lose weight. I would join this sport to get “into shape”. Like something else would do that for me, and I couldn’t do it myself. I would always be disappointed in myself (small hills of victimization) because I wouldn’t ever actually follow through with even trying. In my 20’s and 30’s I would get into a good routine, but it came with some disruptions so eventually I would quit and couldn’t get back into the routine. Serial gym member owner, never a goer I call myself, and even now I just quit another gym membership because I have been putting so much money into it the last several years with out actually going.

We dived then into trust. I’ve had to build trust with-in myself in order to function better. Trust yourself before you can trust others. When you grow up with your trust being broken every day, and being gaslit, by someone who you should be able to trust, creates such a wishy washy relationship with yourself. Its really hard to undo that shit. Somewhere over my food journey I’ve been able to build a routine around meal planning every week. No matter how much disruption happens with my meal planning, I’ve always been able to get back to it. I’ve built my trust with in myself in order to get to this place with my food.

It should be obvious to me that I check out when things are stressful. I know this, and I don’t know why I’m like suddenly surprised by it. This time though, I’ve realized that me checking out is permission to continue to let myself victimize myself. Like checking out is a way to feel sorry for myself. Saying, things really suck right now, so you deserve to just chill and relax. Which is fine, and also for how long? Earlier this week, I walked several days in a row. Wednesday hit, and work got stressful again, and then I stopped walking the rest of the week. I allowed myself to chill and shut the world out.

I also realized that me checking out was giving my time to someone and something else. Working out right now, well ultimately training to walk a half marathon, is the only thing I am doing for myself that was outside my normal routine (you know showering, brushing my teeth and sleeping). This is what I’m thinking about now. We will see how this plays out.