Trust

Victimization of self.

Posted on by Rachael

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.

More on Trust:

Posted on by Rachael

For the last several years I’ve been working on trusting myself. That looks like trusting my feelings, thoughts, and body. I’ve been validating the things that come up for me to create consistency, so that I no longer question myself and what comes up for me. This has been a process, and un-doing that has been a slow consistent effort that has taken so much practice. I think in my last post I wrote about this through being gaslit, and I wanted to write more about learning to trust myself, through a different lens.

Just over 10 years ago I got into a car accident, and on the same day, I fell pretty hard on my tailbone. On that day, I did a lot of damage that ended up really hurting me for years to come. I did treat it at the time with some chiropractic, some light PT, and massage. I have to be honest though, I was in my mid 20’s and taking care of my body wasn’t very important to me. Now that I’m in my mid 30’s, it’s something I cannot take for granted anymore. 

I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone how badly my issues with my lower back, hips, and spinal area can be for me. I have a lot of fear of my own body hurting, and the impact on my daily life it has. It hurts daily and most days it’s fine, or okay… and then sometimes it gets triggered and I’m out. I can’t sleep due to the pain and I end up at the chiropractor which helps and it gets better within a week or two. Since Covid, the daily pain has gotten worse. I was in the chiropractor often, and my right hip had adjusted itself and I was walking crooked every day. I also had moments where I literally was losing function of my spine and was falling to the ground, with my feet swooping underneath me. I was in tears nearly every day. 

For the last several years I’ve taught myself how to take care of my body, as a reaction to pain. I was lifting my leg into my car with my hands to alleviate pain, I was pushing on the steering wheel to get out, I would put pillows on the floor if I knew I was going to be there a while, I had a system for flipping myself over in my bed (talk about a beached whale visual), I avoided certain kinds of exercise, I hated bending over (so I avoided it as much as possible), I do not like emptying the dishwasher or putting things in lower cabinets… All of these things were a natural avoidance for me, It became a muscle memory that I embedded to protect my body, and the pain that would come with it. 

Chiropractic, and protecting my body have been temporary solutions. I knew it was temporary, I also knew that it was a bandaid to the real problem. The solution? Was strengthening my core, of course, something I had been avoiding. I got referred to physical therapy and have made a lot of progress in such a short amount of time. I acknowledge that this will be a long journey to get my strength and build trust with-in myself. 

By building strength, I am also building trust in myself to be able to trust my body. Trust that I do not have to protect it anymore in the way that I had been. Trust it to get into my car on its own without extra support, trust that it won’t hurt if I tie my shoes or put on my pants. Also, trust that I will continue to do the work. I’ve been building trust with-in my brain, and the movement that comes with it. Retraining muscles to work correctly, retraining my brain to not be anxious when I bend over, and allow my body to do these things in slow, safe environments. 

Other things that have been helping: Noticing and validating my success, taking it really slow, heating pads, ice packs and massage.