This day in no way has gone the way it was supposed to. This was supposed to be a really easy day...paperwork and catch up at work, a good workout with Gui and just a recovery day. Well that sure wasn't the outcome. I got a late start on the morning which put me behind on paperwork and then I got to the gym and the topics got heavy right away. It needed to happen, but I didn't handle it well. We ended up talking more than working out and it left me drained. I ended up stewing on it while doing more paperwork and then had a long long talk with a friend who helped me sort it all out. In between a lot of tears...of frustration and fear.
It was a hard day, but I have to admit I learned a lot about myself today and don't regret either conversation at all.
The big topic in it all was my need to protect myself and not let people very far in. I am slightly better about things when it comes to writing, which is why I can share to the extent I do here on the blog, where it is "safer" and I can edit and re-edit my thoughts before they come out, but it is still scary for me and there is part of me I still keep hidden. And if I am totally honest I have even retreated from my level of disclosure on here in the last couple months. I have let things get much more surfacy than they were, because I was afraid of how people were reacting to what I was sharing.
It is going to sounds so incredibly stupid, but my greatest fear in life is that once people get to know me, truly know what is inside, they will decide they don't like what they see and take off. That since most people only see the top layer and are ok with that, that letting any more than that out is not safe. And for those few who do get further, as soon as anyone starts to dissect who I am, what that inside is all about or criticize it, I start pushing them back out to protect myself. More protection mode.
Another thing that became crystal clear to me today (not something new to me) is I tend to have very high expectations of the people I let in, partially because I expect so much from myself and transfer those expectations to those around me and also because I look for any reason to close out those people I have let in to protect myself. If I set the bar high enough for them, usually at a point no one can reach, I can find a reason to get rid of them before they leave me. Again my need to control and protect!
Protection from being left or hurt is so much of this for me! More than I let myself realize. I have mentioned before, I work very hard, too hard it seems, to make sure no one is needed in my life. I have people I love and people around me, but they are there to the point I want them there, not to where I need them. And if they cross that line I close them back out. I have spent a long long time making sure no one in my world was important enough to my life that if they walked away I couldn't handle it. I'll spare you the psychology of how I got here, but this is definitely rooted in growing up with a mother who felt trapped with a man she didnt love because she wasn't capable of handling life on her own and my vow never to be her! Yet in ways I have ended up just as lonely as she was by keeping everyone at arms distance.
One of the scariest things about this journey, which I have blogged about before, is that I do feel it is something where I NEED help and that terrifies me. It goes against everything I believe in and I have worked very hard to make sure I hold the reigns on what help they can give me. Control!
But I very slowly coming to accept (thanks MK) is that I need to not be the one to decide what that help I get entails. That I hired professionals to help me, and I don't get to be the one who sets the boundaries on what they can and can't help with. I need to let go of that control.
It is easy to say that, but it is harder to understand how I do that. Especially since trainers change jobs so often or even change careers totally. Most of my friends are on their second trainer at least. That notion makes it very hard for me to let Gui in to the extent I probably should...ok that I know I should after today. I realize nothing in the world is forever, but again, I have worked very hard to protect myself, to make sure if/when he moves on I am not left with anything I can't handle. But today's lesson is that that is coming at the expense of making progress now. Yet I am really clueless how to not think that way.
That seems to be my biggest problem on all this, that even though I can sit here and say I need to let down my walls, I need to stop trying to be in control, I need to drop my unreasonable expectations of people around me. I have not the first clue how one even does that! It seems as foreign to me as if I needed to do quantum physics at this point (actually the physics would be easier for me).
I said when I first started this blog, I had no clue what I was getting into on this journey, that I thought when I started it was all about losing weight. I meant it when I said it, but I relearned today how little I knew about where this would go, or even how much I know at this point about where I am going.. That this really isn't about losing weight, it is about taking down all the things I was using to protect myself, to hide from the world with, and that my weight was just one of the items in that arsenal.
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