It Never Ends.... the Struggle with Behavior Change

I just want to write. I don’t know how many times I’ve started a journal entry that way…. But you would think enough times to act upon it.

Which fits perfectly into my theme and purpose tonight: 

Why is Behavior change so hard?! Why can’t I take this flaw so obvious and embarrassing and weak… and change it to a desired behavior? Why is that SO. DAMN. HARD?????

I was a spacey kid. I got away with it. I was a spacey teenager. I got away with it. I am a spacey woman….

I’m not letting myself get away with it!… even though I sort of am because the way I look at it is, when someone spaces out on me, I am usually really understanding and will more or less always give someone another chance, so I more or less assume they will feel that way towards me. 

Maybe that is a fault all on it’s own as that is a dangerous path towards getting walked all over… you become the path if you keep giving people chances when they flake.

But here is the thing. I don’t want to be spaced out on. And I don’t want to space out on others. I’m sick of myself. The worst part is… I’m not entirely sure how to fix it. 

For the perfection-seeking virgo, this is a big problem. It is torture. Letting others down and not living up to expectations is like watching a glass fall from a tall building, while you are just the right distance away to be helpless. You know what's going to happen, you see it happen, and there is nothing you can do about it.... I plan to get to a point where I reposition the glass before it falls.

Do we just go through life with flaws, accepting them almost as DNA. Because that’s what it feels like when I try to change. It feels like I might as well be hoping to wake up with brown eyes instead of blue. Responsibility instead of irresponsibility.

Maybe it’s a sign I’m not doing what I love? That was one take my sister opened my eyes to. And there is something to be said for that. Am I doing what I ultimately want to be doing? No. I want to help nutrient deficient populations abroad. I want to write. I don’t want to have to be somewhere at a certain time, unless I go back to school or have a project I am excited about.

I know this sounds all bratty to say. Like why am I so special that I should not have to pay my dues and work my way towards that life. And it’s not that I’m not open to working to get where I want to be…. It’s more that I am constantly scared that my current path is not leading me there. Boom, I said it.

Many of us hit that point as we get older. At some point as a kid we had this vision of our life at age "25", "35", "40"... 9 times out of 10 our life is very far from that vision... We tend to see this more often than not as a negative realization. 

In reality, I think it is a good reminder that we need to judge our contentment not on society's expectations of age-appropriate descriptions (i.e. solid career by 25, married by 30, kids by 37) nor our own previous expectations of what our life should look like at any given age.

Rather this is the judgement to rely on at any given moment: Am I following my heart's desire, leading an honest life, and contributing to my own well being and that of others'?

If your answer is no- the simple part is you know you need to make a change. The complicated part is that it may be a big one (change jobs, friends, daily habbits).

If your answer is yes- Congratulations! Keep it up and keep assessing that question in the present.

If, however, your answer involves a "yes, but" like mine... "yes, but I want to be better at being more responsible and I feel like I have been held back from my full potential because of this behavior".... Then it's reevaluation time.

So there's my answer. Or at least AN answer. 

In true virgo form, I plan to organize a logical plan to improve my Spacey Tracy condition....

I have begun to utilize more scheduling technique's (like talking to Siri who has become my closest girlfriend and all too closely reminds me of iRobot).

I have brainstormed an idea to create a chart to track my progress (aka I will recap the week and note any time I rescheduled/canceled/double booked/or heaven forbid flaked : (  I will also record if got canceled on etc.)

Lastly, I have drafted documents to hold me and my clients accountable for giving advance notice for rescheduling and listed out the consequences for breaking this policy, on both ends, mine and theirs.

I am looking forward to the progress. It will be diligent work to make strides, and I am up for the process!

What's your behavior that Never Ends? And What can You come up with as action steps in a better direction?  Let me know if I can help, and if you have any suggestions for me as well.

Tessie

It Never Ends… And Captured Memory Reminds us of That

Is capturing moments by way of writing, audio recording or video merely a mode to safeguard memory (like Dumbledore’s pensieve in Harry Potter), later to be revisited as a perilous moment of the past, which has been long-covered by layers of rosy retrospect?

Journaling, for instance, is that therapeutic release of anger, frustration and depression… put down on paper so that it can escape our mind. The entry is complete, though still in the moment of high emotion, we set the journal goodness-knows-where, so that when we do find it, months, even years later while cleaning our room during a productive “I-love-life” day, our rosy retrospect is slapped in the faced by thorny retroheck, bringing us from our current state of emotion back into the heartache of words relived.

The recorded memory cycle can work both ways, however. On the worst day of your life, you can come across an old home video and be reminded of the happiest moments when a significant other took you in their arms… or your kids are writing on a paper plate holding a pink crayon in with all four fingers wrapped around it….

Call me emotionally unstable, a buzkill, borderline pessimistic and broken, but Isn’t it crazy how happy memories can sometimes enhance our present feelings of loneliness and sadness? These recordings of happy times should remind us that life IS one big cycle; that if in a "down" presently, an "up" will surely come. That is itself the challenge of being optimistic when nothing around us gives us reason to be.

Either way, find something. Find something in your house- a video, an old letter, a saved, undeleted voicemail from someone close to you. Let emotion come, I say. For it will be the consequential feelings of that recalled memory that inspires our next one.

It Never Ends: But It Does Make You Slow Down?

Doesn't it ring true that, no matter how high your "highs" in life are, even in the middle of them, we often feel less than?...

You achieved a goal, you got a promotion, you finished a project. "Yay!" Says the mind and body... for about 10 seconds... before we begin getting anxious about "the next thing", or "the thing that went wrong instead of right".

As an ambitious, driven doer, there is no end... We don't over-celebrate victories because the "top" is always higher than we are at any given moment.

Effective? YES. Healthy? Not Always...

I have recently been experiencing extreme highs AND lows simultaneously, a phenomenon through which I have been analyzing how much to take a second and live in the high as is, and how much to keep my head down and push even further.

One of my "ups"? I have been making strides in my career I have been working towards for the past two years.

The consequential "down"? In trying to prove myself further, I suffered a physical injury, and for the time being cannot participate in my profession which I have been working towards...

My extra "push" has now slowed me down.

The takeaway? Learn to mediate your drive. It sounds like a contradiction, as drive is an organic quality released almost subconsciously when we are fighting for something.

To be able to control it, however, is desirable. Then we celebrate and feel the highs as we should, maintain the level we are at when it is best, and harness our drive at the opportune moment.

Blog Intro

It Never Ends: Soul-Searching

I want to start a blog. I want to write. I am writing. I am taking the first step. Do I believe in signs? Shall I let signs, my head, or my heart lead me to delve into one side of my brain or the other?

         I have a knack for science, but the emotional and expressive/creative side of me is more what I have pursued thus far.   This streams into another question: do I want to use my brain or my body? I yearn to go to graduate school, yet I am currently embarking on a career pursuit towards modeling and acting.

         If there are signs, I think one would be the fact that I am sitting in a Starbucks right now and I am pretty sure I am the only one not working on something academic… and my heart is throbbing with jealousy! The two men across the table from me are working on some intriguing physics problem, and one has to keep explaining it to the other.  It reminds me of my tendency to be an enthusiastic explainer… aka an over-explainer.  This quality in turn has come in most useful, however, in my passion for teaching. Just as my secret love of the limelight has led me towards the arts and performing, and just as my itch to explore the world has led me to research careers abroad, and just as my college cheerleading athletic trainer has sparked my interest in sports nutrition… So you see, the soul/career-searching never ends…. I’m sure you can relate.

         I was reading in O, Oprah’s magazine, some articles about connecting what we do for a living with what we love. If these two things are one in the same, we have found our calling. One article suggested thinking back of any activity that brought you joy in the past or that you got excited about. Easy- I love school supplies, poetry, and helping other people. More specifically, I remember in catholic school one of the first poems I wrote. It was called “A Spiced Aroma”. Reading it now it is not the greatest of poems but I remember being so proud of it and really believing that feelings can be captured in words. Word choice, rhythm and flow can actually appeal to all the senses. To me, that is magical.  One of my favorite days in college is in Spanish class. We translated an English poem into Spanish and had to maintain the same rhyming structure, mood of the poem and so on. I had a real knack for it and was, if I may say so myself, far more creative and determined to stick to these guidelines than my classmates.

As far as helping people- when someone is hurting or has a problem I love to use my philosophical, psychologist-like qualities to listen to, evaluate, and hypothesize options for someone’s particular situation.

So as the Oprah article suggested, I have been thinking about what it would look like to follow my “inner animal”- that feeling of “I want more!” which bubbles up inside when taking part in these activities that excited me. To follow it, I must ask what would the animal do next, what is the next step?

Well, I think sometimes I am so full of animals my mind is like a zoo!  I am that person who changed her major from pre-med to journalism to art history to fine arts to English to… finally settling on Africana and Chinano/a studies, and Spanish- only to graduate yearning to go back to school for Sports Nutrition, of all things.  No sooner after having my 2 BA’s in hand did I claim, “you know I’ve always wanted to take an acting class or try some modeling”. So instead of the woulda shoulda coulda, I’ve done it! Now that sounds like an accomplishment, and it sounds like a blessing to have the opportunity to follow one’s dreams. So why doesn’t it always feel like that? Why do I constantly feel like I’m searching? I suppose perhaps it is ok that I am still soul-searching and someday I’ll look back on this moment of confusion and realize that it was all part of the process- all necessary to get where I will be.

         So along with our soul-searching, I will be offering my take, and welcoming that of others, on the many issues in life about which we desperately sigh, “it never ends”: issues surrounding relationships, health, finance, education, family, our purpose, you name it.  For now, this is philosophical T signing off… until next time