Self Improvement, A @Femsplain Theme
Aug. 4th, 2015 08:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
semiotic_pirateI'm going to time delay this post by a month. This should give @femsplain enough time to sift through all the offers to do articles/stories for the Self Improvement theme. My problem is that they've already begun publishing stories and I can't tell if it's because these are meant to set the stage (they are written by their editors and other people that work for FS) or... *shrug* Hence the delay to the post.
Of course, to you it will seem like this just appeared. In fact, I wrote the following just after seeing the theme hit Twitter, before the end of June. And I'm setting up this post on 7/4/15 in the aftermath of seeing Star Trek: Genisys. Oh, wait... That was my hopeful Brightest Universe version of the title. I meant Terminator: Genisys.
Anyway. Here it is:
Self-improvement, for me, has always been a challenge. Sometimes, the how or what is elusive or I’ll decide that if no one likes me the way that I am already then it is their loss, not mine. For the longest time, it was mostly the former, then, after some long, hard internal monologues, and some unexpectedly helpful reading, it became the latter.
Putting the concept of change into a positive light, that any changes I make in or to myself are for myself and not to please anyone else around me was the crucial step for me. Once I realized that making changes is beneficial to me, (Some people refer to them as improvements but that always makes me think of home remodeling/redecorating and that leads to “big as a house” jokes in my head, and I don't see subliminal self-deprecating jokes about my size to be beneficial in my journey through life.) I figured that the concept, at least, wasn’t that bad in and of itself. That maybe it could be something I could come to terms with and embrace.
When I make changes to myself, in ways I interact with the world, in ways that leave me a happier person, it changes the perception of my self by other people and thereby change how they interact with me.
These days, I like to think of it as me, evolving into a better me. In thinking about it now, I have gone through a large number of chrysalis stages.
My first conscious choice to change myself: It all started one long summer between freshman year and sophomore year in high school. I felt lumpy and was unhappy with my body. So, every day while my Mum was at work I would do those early morning PBS aerobic workouts (I MISS THOSE SO MUCH) and eventually created a routine that is surprisingly similar to the Curves® concept of jogging in place interrupted by various strength-building exercises. That summer is the reason I know that if you buy the original Ghostbusters movie’s soundtrack these days it is not the same as the one available in 1987 is because I worked out to it every day for a whole summer. When I went back to school later that year, I did it riding my bike five miles round trip up steep hills both ways and I hade FUN doing it. I was more outgoing because I was a happier-with-myself person and that made me more popular. Popular in my terms, at least. The chrysalis I hatched from that summer lasted me through until my first major depression in 1992. I won’t dwell on that period in my life, here and now; that story is for another time.
My next encounter with serious change came about four years later, after my son and husband died. I worked through the grief by – well, lets’ be frank – crying a lot, interspersed with moments of self-discovery. I found out that I could make a mean lasagna, that I really liked falling asleep to the Cranberries, and I read all the time too. I read things like Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes and Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and their lessons were absorbed and became some of my most important guideposts. I watched movies and thought about how I wanted to do/be/think/act like those people – particularly Kate as played by Meg Ryan in French Kiss or Sabrina in the 1995 remake starring Julia Ormond. I cried some more. Then I decided to make huge changes, some of which failed miserably, some of which were crippled by self-sabotage, and some of which were accomplished through lots of hard work coupled with moments of both happiness and sorrow.
This is when I first acknowledged the concept and realities of self-sabotage and started thinking about what role it had played in my life up to that point. It’s something I’m still unpacking and fighting against. Because, it’s all well and good to say to yourself that you want to be happy (I did that enough times that if they were stars we wouldn’t need to leave the lights on at night) but you… I… I<\u> had to decide, and continue to have to decide, that I deserve to be happy. I am worth it. I am important enough to myself to create the world around me, make it change, to make my lifestyle habits change, and make my environment change, in order to be happy.
I discovered the benefits of financial stability and the importance of personal financial planning. Of course, the doing lagged the learning by far, mainly due to the lack of funds and partly due to having to dig out of poverty (both of the previously experienced kind, the one everyone associates the words “inner city” with, and the other existential kind that’s experienced when you are a returning adult student on a tight budget). Nearly a decade out of finding love again, after finally graduating, getting a job, and discovering the joys and miseries of home ownership… and I’m just now finding out about the benefits of working hard over a long time, saving, and having a great credit score. Not just knowing those things as a concept, but in moving that metaphorical wolf as far away from the door as possible. Part of that decade can be laid at the feet of the timing of the Big Recession. Part of it was me and my nemesis, self-sabotage. Part of it was a series of unfortunate illnesses. Again, stories for another time.
These days, I’ve begun looking back and looking forward, while trying to stay grounded in the present. I’ve started making strides toward making peace with my past blunders and circumstances and rediscovering the good I might have overlooked from those times. I’ve thought about my struggles to become, to evolve into my better self, and am starting to think it is a metaphor of the struggle between the Light and the Shadows, with Light represented by my repeated successful emergences from chrysalis and the Shadows represented by my cycles of self-sabotage. I can honestly say I can’t wait to see where I next take myself in life.
Of course, to you it will seem like this just appeared. In fact, I wrote the following just after seeing the theme hit Twitter, before the end of June. And I'm setting up this post on 7/4/15 in the aftermath of seeing Star Trek: Genisys. Oh, wait... That was my hopeful Brightest Universe version of the title. I meant Terminator: Genisys.
Anyway. Here it is:
Self-improvement, for me, has always been a challenge. Sometimes, the how or what is elusive or I’ll decide that if no one likes me the way that I am already then it is their loss, not mine. For the longest time, it was mostly the former, then, after some long, hard internal monologues, and some unexpectedly helpful reading, it became the latter.
Putting the concept of change into a positive light, that any changes I make in or to myself are for myself and not to please anyone else around me was the crucial step for me. Once I realized that making changes is beneficial to me, (Some people refer to them as improvements but that always makes me think of home remodeling/redecorating and that leads to “big as a house” jokes in my head, and I don't see subliminal self-deprecating jokes about my size to be beneficial in my journey through life.) I figured that the concept, at least, wasn’t that bad in and of itself. That maybe it could be something I could come to terms with and embrace.
When I make changes to myself, in ways I interact with the world, in ways that leave me a happier person, it changes the perception of my self by other people and thereby change how they interact with me.
These days, I like to think of it as me, evolving into a better me. In thinking about it now, I have gone through a large number of chrysalis stages.
My first conscious choice to change myself: It all started one long summer between freshman year and sophomore year in high school. I felt lumpy and was unhappy with my body. So, every day while my Mum was at work I would do those early morning PBS aerobic workouts (I MISS THOSE SO MUCH) and eventually created a routine that is surprisingly similar to the Curves® concept of jogging in place interrupted by various strength-building exercises. That summer is the reason I know that if you buy the original Ghostbusters movie’s soundtrack these days it is not the same as the one available in 1987 is because I worked out to it every day for a whole summer. When I went back to school later that year, I did it riding my bike five miles round trip up steep hills both ways and I hade FUN doing it. I was more outgoing because I was a happier-with-myself person and that made me more popular. Popular in my terms, at least. The chrysalis I hatched from that summer lasted me through until my first major depression in 1992. I won’t dwell on that period in my life, here and now; that story is for another time.
My next encounter with serious change came about four years later, after my son and husband died. I worked through the grief by – well, lets’ be frank – crying a lot, interspersed with moments of self-discovery. I found out that I could make a mean lasagna, that I really liked falling asleep to the Cranberries, and I read all the time too. I read things like Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes and Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and their lessons were absorbed and became some of my most important guideposts. I watched movies and thought about how I wanted to do/be/think/act like those people – particularly Kate as played by Meg Ryan in French Kiss or Sabrina in the 1995 remake starring Julia Ormond. I cried some more. Then I decided to make huge changes, some of which failed miserably, some of which were crippled by self-sabotage, and some of which were accomplished through lots of hard work coupled with moments of both happiness and sorrow.
This is when I first acknowledged the concept and realities of self-sabotage and started thinking about what role it had played in my life up to that point. It’s something I’m still unpacking and fighting against. Because, it’s all well and good to say to yourself that you want to be happy (I did that enough times that if they were stars we wouldn’t need to leave the lights on at night) but you… I… I<\u> had to decide, and continue to have to decide, that I deserve to be happy. I am worth it. I am important enough to myself to create the world around me, make it change, to make my lifestyle habits change, and make my environment change, in order to be happy.
I discovered the benefits of financial stability and the importance of personal financial planning. Of course, the doing lagged the learning by far, mainly due to the lack of funds and partly due to having to dig out of poverty (both of the previously experienced kind, the one everyone associates the words “inner city” with, and the other existential kind that’s experienced when you are a returning adult student on a tight budget). Nearly a decade out of finding love again, after finally graduating, getting a job, and discovering the joys and miseries of home ownership… and I’m just now finding out about the benefits of working hard over a long time, saving, and having a great credit score. Not just knowing those things as a concept, but in moving that metaphorical wolf as far away from the door as possible. Part of that decade can be laid at the feet of the timing of the Big Recession. Part of it was me and my nemesis, self-sabotage. Part of it was a series of unfortunate illnesses. Again, stories for another time.
These days, I’ve begun looking back and looking forward, while trying to stay grounded in the present. I’ve started making strides toward making peace with my past blunders and circumstances and rediscovering the good I might have overlooked from those times. I’ve thought about my struggles to become, to evolve into my better self, and am starting to think it is a metaphor of the struggle between the Light and the Shadows, with Light represented by my repeated successful emergences from chrysalis and the Shadows represented by my cycles of self-sabotage. I can honestly say I can’t wait to see where I next take myself in life.
