In the perpetual game of connect the dots, I feel like I’m finally getting to a place where the picture is showing itself. My initial thought was “I hope this lasts!” but then I decided to look at it a different way. Why wouldn’t it last?

First of all, what is “this” that I’m referring to? It’s this mental connection of intercepting previous habit behavior and pivoting. I’ve had it showing up in a few places and it’s coming through strong. It is a force coming in, but at the same time it is easy.

Yesterday my afternoon was thrown off a bit because I’m a dork and worked past the end of my work day. Putting myself 35 minutes behind schedule meant altering what I was going to do into what I could do. I had to go to the bank, then get groceries, then make another stop to pick up an online order. Instead of an hour and a half to do the banking I needed to do, I have myself about 30 minutes. That also changed my time to finish that and get to my grocery pickup on time. By the time I got to the grocery store I was hungry. Not head hungry, full blown sick to my stomach, feeling barfy hungry. I’d planned on cooking dinner. I’d also planned on being home an hour earlier to start that dinner. So immediately my brain went to “what can I get instead?”

Instead of convincing myself I had justification for fast food, I pulled an apple out of my lunch bag, ate that and went home to start dinner. I planned my dinner. I wasn’t going to die from delayed hunger. I wanted to do right by myself. Even when I set off the smoke alarm with my cooking, I didn’t grab ass anything or get stressed out. I just kept going.

Yesterday at work I had a bit of stress with various people wanting information and me realizing that their initial thinking for why they wanted information was off. This left me in a position of saying “I can give you those numbers, however what you think is being done in the project isn’t accurate.” Trying to explain the disconnect took quite a while and I’ll admit I wasn’t entirely successful. Part of it was just a lack of understanding what my department and our work actually consists of.

At one point I leaned over to grab my lunch bag and fish out a snack. As I did the lean I thought “why?” Because I’m stressed! Oh, ok. Let’s just be stressed then and the snack can wait until hunger. No drama. No fight. Just “oh, ok.”

It seems like it’s all of a sudden that I’m having the responses I want to have to emotional requests for food, but when I stop and reflect, I’ve been working on this for well over a year now. I started out with “I wish those thoughts would go away” to learning that they won’t go away, it’s up to me to learn how to handle them. That sounds grand, but I have put a lot of work into learning how to handle them. Am I perfect? Hell no! Now that it’s happening a bit more naturally, am I golden? Hell no again! What it means is I have proof that my brain is changing. I have slowed my fight or flight reaction to things and can slow down my reaction. Instead of focusing on what might happen or not happen, I’m letting go of perfection and just celebrating that it’s happening!

This also made me realize that I want to handle emotions my mom brings up differently than I have been. Seems like so many people’s advice is to just let it roll off my back. I realize that’s not me. I cannot just numb myself to feeling what she evokes. Numbing myself is where food took its role. I want to be able to say “wow, that hurt” or “fuck, what a horrible thing to say” and accept that. In the next breath though, I want to be able to say “and here is why I’m not going to value those words …”

When she shares her behaviors I find appalling or disgusting, I will let myself feel the grossness of her behavior, but I will then say “of course you feel like this. You are not that kind of person and that kind of behavior repulses you. It’s ok to be disappointed in her.”

I’m so thankful for allowing myself to find the way to my goals. It’s such a beautiful blessing that our minds can change and heal. I’m excited to see where this goes and who I’ll be in the future!