Don’t Listen to Me

“How would you feel if someone followed you around all day telling you that you aren’t smart enough, you didn’t try hard enough, you’ve made the wrong choice – again, or you’re just weird.”

I really didn’t need much time to think about that question that had been presented to me about three years ago now. I answered that I wouldn’t like that person very much. I received rather immediate agreement from the person who had asked, then she went on to add that I would also likely be quite tired at the conclusion of the day. I agreed that I would be tired indeed.

I was often tired at that time in my life, as I am now. The point that she was trying to make then, that still holds true now, is that if a person’s speaks to herself in that way, she is beating herself up, and wearing herself down day after day.

During my teenage years, I was being educated in what I would now consider to be an extreme environment, and though I did consider it at that time to be a bit strange at best, I had little power to change the circumstances, Not only did the teachings lack any emphasis on self esteem, but the teachings actually denigrated the concept to the extent that we were really taught that we had no ability to trust our own judgment, to make valid decisions, or to determine our life’s direction in any way, without authorization.

The premise for that presentation of self esteem is not relevant to this post, but I will say that it was, as was nearly every teaching related to development of a self concept, taken out of context or manipulated in some way in order to allow those in positions of authority to continue to preserve as much power over people as possible.

As I have long since separated myself from those people and from their deviant teachings, I have come to realize that one’s self concept is quite important, as is the way in which self concept is introduced and taught. Rather than presenting the extreme idea of destroying the concept of self esteem completely or presenting the other extreme concept of allowing self esteem to overrule self discipline or any sense of altruism, I believe it is ideal to teach a balanced approach to self esteem, one that allows a person to find some value in who they are and in who they are becoming yet one which requires honesty, humility, and respect.

In that conversation addressing some of my own issues with my concept of myself, I was reminded that not only was self esteem important, but that self talk was also very important to my wellbeing and even to my success.

I know that I am not alone in having those conversations that no one else hears or ever will. They begin sometime when the haze of sleepiness wears off and the realization of what lies ahead for that particular day begins to dawn, whether or not literal dawn has broken. In those moments, we begin to assess how we feel about the things that are beginning to appear on our mental lists for the day at hand, and in those moments we sometimes start to think that we may not be adequate to successfully complete all of those tasks that lie ahead. We evaluate ourselves, and we often make the decision that we are unprepared or underequipped long before we have the chance to find out.

In ways, we are being evaluated all of the time. When I was a student, being evaluated in some way was just the norm. When one has a job, evaluation, whether formal or otherwise, is just part of the deal.

Since some of the people, if not many of the people, who will evaluate us during the course of the day do not have our best interests at heart or do not know us well at all, I think perhaps we should be among the people who evaluate us and who speak to ourselves more favorably. Lately, I have begun to once again consider my own self talk and my own self concept.

I have decided I must make some adjustments when it comes to those two things. First, I must not let others define my self concept. That’s not to say I don’t try to learn where I can, and that I don’t seek out guidance from people who I trust, but it is to say that people that I don’t know, like those who evaluate my resumes or online tests for example, cannot really be involved in the shaping of my self concept. While they can determine whether or not I work in any one particular job, they cannot define my worth.

Next, I am responsible for the way in which I talk to myself. As I thought about that conversation from three years ago once again, I realized that I don’t want to be my own worst enemy. It was while I was running a few weeks ago, and not feeling particularly well or inspired that day, passing words like “tired,” “bored,” “useless” through my mind, that I decided that I really shouldn’t listen to myself sometimes.

I shouldn’t listen to myself, unless I am being real with myself, and extreme negativity is no more being real than is thinking I am a person without flaws.

For many reasons, it’s pretty easy for me to tend toward the negative self talk. I am making it part of my new year’s goals to be more aware of my self talk and to be more accountable for being real with that, to both sides of the spectrum. I am neither flawless nor flawed to the extent of uselessness. Like everyone, I have some strengths, and I have some weaknesses.

I believe that I can do better with the self talk. So I will once again start listening, to the things I say to myself, and I plan to make more of those things the things I’d want to hear.

Diet: It’s a Four Letter Word

Ah, diet, no carbs, no red meats, only meats, no fruits and veggies, only veggies – oh and grains, no fats, no flavor, no fun….

Connotations are sometimes the only way in which words are understood, whether those connotations are valid or not. In the case of the word “diet,” the definition, according to Merriam-Webster, is: “food and drink regularly provided or consumed: habitual nourishment; the kind and amount of food prescribed for a person or animal for a special reason; a regimen of eating and drinking sparingly so as to reduce one’s weight.”

The fourth definition provided by Merriam-Webster is likely the one from which all of the negative connotations have arisen. When most people hear the word “diet” they think of restricting, reducing, and regimenting. People also often tend to view a diet as a short term commitment, in part likely because the terms of the “diet” are not sustainable for a long period of time.

Diets are also often associated with the need to make either a dramatic or an unrealistic change, like in the case of the person who needs to attend the 10th high school reunion and wants to drop 15 pounds in a month, or in the case of someone who has been to their doctor and has received the results of their lipid panel labs and decides a serious change Is necessary.

In the first case, the dramatic change is pretty unrealistic and is likely to be pursued in an unhealthy manner. In the second case, the change is likely ideal but may or may not be pursued in an unhealthy manner.

Again, this is not a business column, however, since it is January and advertising tends to be targeted to the more common new year’s resolutions, I am seeing things like “11 Tips for True Dieting Success” featuring a skinny woman in a white bikini on MSN, and, as we know, that’s just one of many, many examples I could cite this time of year.

As a fitness professional, it is beyond my professional scope of practice to give nutrition prescription to clients, but I can give nutrition advice When I am working with clients, I prefer to use the word “nutrition” and rarely, if ever, do I use “diet.” Do I go all kinds of crazy when someone does use the term diet, no; it’s just my own preference not to.

The definition of “nutrition” according to Merriam-Webster is: “the act or process of nourishing or being nourished; specifically :  the sum of the processes by which an animal or plant takes in and utilizes food substances.” I like this definition a great deal, particularly the part about the taking in and using the things we eat and drink.

What I try to portray to my clients, and to people who ask me about healthy eating in general, is that nutrition is a long term commitment, a process, because every day we need to fuel our bodies in order for them to do the things we ask of them. When the fuel is good overall, the result should be good overall, good lipid panel results, good performance results, good results in most every area of our lives from attitude to sleep.

Words like “nutrition” and “fuel” to me provide for a more positive connotation and a more favorable view of eating. Those terms empower one to do something good for one’s body rather than making one feel like they need to deprive the body of things. Those terms also help people to focus on their goals – health, fitness, performance, etc. – and on what the things they ingest can do to help them to achieve those goals. I also believe that people then become more aware of how those foods and drinks that we don’t want to have as often can negatively impact their goals when consumed in larger than ideal quantities.

Most of us don’t really respond well to a list of things we can’t have or can’t do. I think we much prefer to understand those things we can do to take control of a situation we want to change or a component of our lives on which we want to improve.

Perhaps this whole post could be reduced to semantics, but I don’t think so. “Diet” is so tied to that plate of lettuce with a lemon wedge, that list of “don’t eat” – ever, or that skinny woman in a white bikini that it is hard for many people to untie the word from those kinds of images.

All that being said, commit to your own healthy goal and make it happen.

A Frame for A Moment

Have you ever wished you could make time stand still?

Since approximately the 1940’s when the Polaroid camera became available to the general public, we have had the capability to capture a moment – to physically capture a moment, to hold it in our hands, to place it in a frame, to have made time stand still.

This past week, we had one of life’s more special moments. My husband’s first grandchild came into the world. We all did take pictures and tried to capture those moments. As I shared the digital versions of those pictures with a long time friend by email, her reply came back: “So precious that time should stand still and recognize.”

I paused a moment when I read that line. I literally felt the value of those words. The birth of Annabelle Rose was indeed such a precious moment in the lives of a small group of people, yet, for us, it was like time should stand still and the cosmos should indeed recognize that something amazing had just happened.

I thought about that statement some more and was a bit saddened that those moments had passed already, almost even unnoticed. Oh, I had realized what a milestone event this was for my husband, for his daughter and her husband, even for me. I had taken a picture the exact moment that the baby’s father handed her to my husband, her grandpa, and my husband took a picture when he handed her to me too.

I am glad we have those pictures; I am certainly one to be there with the camera to make sure we have those photos that we can put in a frame so we can indeed capture those moments. Yet, as I thought about the weekend and the events we had just experienced, I wondered if I had truly experienced those moments while being so busy trying to save them.

I am not a fan of cold weather, in particular the kind of extreme cold weather we have had in the Midwest these past few winters. I like to be outside, and one of my favorite places to be outside is Tawas Point State Park. On the last day of our camping trip about three years ago, I decided I would take a walk to the beach in the morning just so I could enjoy the moment, the place, the surroundings because I wasn’t sure when I would be able to go back.

I did indeed walk to the beach with my sisters, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew. We walked along a bit, talked a bit, but then I took a moment and stepped away from the group and stood in the water, about knee-deep, and just stopped moving. I listened to the waves of Lake Huron; I looked at the sun shining bright on the water – already high in the sky by about 9 o’clock; I felt the relative coolness of the water around my legs; and I could smell the moist air that blows over the Great Lakes.

I took pictures on that morning too, because that’s what I do. Yet I took time to do my best to capture that moment – all of that moment, as much as my senses could take in. That was one of the only times that I can remember so consciously trying to save a moment.

The intensity of arriving at the hospital to see what was happening, the resignation to waiting for those several hours for the baby to arrive, the flood of emotions at the arrival of the baby – all of that has passed now. The pictures remain. I am happy to have them because, no matter how hard we try, even when we take the time to try to save a moment, the memories do fade somewhat. Perhaps a sound or a scent or a place can bring back a bit of the past, but once a moment is gone, it has gone.

The lovely statement that my good friend made caused me to once again consider the value of taking notice of the moments while the moments are there and to find the balance between trying to save the moment and simply living in and enjoying those moments.

While I love pictures and always will, I think that maybe not every amazing moment needs to be placed in a frame. In fact, I am beginning to think that the most awesome of life’s moments find a place in a frame within our hearts and our memories where they may be better kept.