Someday Syndrome

Damaging My Defenses

When I was writing my upcoming email workshop (launching later this month), I asked my sister to be my lab-rat. She agreed and ran through the lessons and exercises, discovering a way to turn her negativity about her job into passion for a long-term blogging plan. Before she'd even finished the workshop, she'd launched Urban Panther (quickly joined by the Urbane Lion).

And being the sort of person my sister is, she researched what needed doing and set up a plan to do it. As a result, she's just a few months into blogging, has become very popular, and surpasses me in regular comments (and likely daily readers).

I'm extremely proud of and happy for her (especially since she discovered the passion through my workshop). There is, however, more than a smidgen of envy and even a touch of highly negative jealousy. Yes, that's right, Self-Pity-Alex managed to sneak back into the personality zoo and started running about yelling, "It's not fair! She's only been at it for a few months! I've been blogging for two years!"

Wise to Self-Pity-Alex's tricks, Realist-Alex pointed out that the Urban Panther went into blogging with a plan. I dove in two years ago without thinking, and other than (more or less) regular posts along consistent themes, I've been just mucking about.

Lazy-Alex stepped in to defend Self-Pity-Alex with some mutterings about how much work it is and shouldn't my writing skills be enough? That drew the rest of the personalities into the fray, causing a near meltdown in the shower this morning.

Fortunately, Realist-Alex called everyone's attention to the hole in the confidence fence that surrounds the zoo. "But what caused the hole?" they all asked, some of the more dramatic personalities fearing asteroid impacts or dinosaurs. "It's simple," replied Willpower-Alex, "We've fallen off the no sugar/no wheat wagon at high velocity and knocked a self-pity sized hole in the defenses during the landing.

Don't worry though, Realist-Alex has frogmarched Self-Pity Alex out of the personality zoo and Willpower-Alex has committed to repairing the breach and standing guard in the meantime.

Someday Lessons:

• Growth never goes in a straight line – expect a few hairpin turns that seemingly take you in the wrong direction.
• Don't let surface thoughts control you – examine them (on several levels) to find out the root cause of negativity.

The Return of the Victim

Poor Raul. He's had to put up with so much during my Someday Journey, and he hasn't even been aware of most of it.

Remember how last week I thrust Raul into the role of master to my butler? (Get your minds out of the gutter people!) That prompted me to think about what other roles I've been making the poor man play unwittingly.

For those who've been around since the beginning of this blog, you might remember Victim-Alex and Self-Pity-Alex. While I was looking the other way they've managed to unite and slip in unnoticed. How long they've been there, I don't know, but today I gave them the boot.

Most of my life I played the victim and felt put-upon, but with Raul I have no reason to. Habits of a lifetime are hard to change, however, and I realized this week that over the past little while, I'd pushed him into the role of aggressor without meaning to or really wanting to.

How did I do that? By feeling...

Insulted: When Raul states an opinion I see it as an attack. He's not the only one I do this to. My friend Cate once said to me "Shorts on men are ugly." I love wearing shorts (and think a fine pair of calves are super-sexy), so thought she meant that I was ugly. It doesn't matter though what she (or anyone) thinks about shorts. I like them and that's enough.

Resentful: I've talked about this one already. I spend more time at home than Raul does. He works a job that he really doesn't enjoy and that exhausts him. I end up doing more of the day to day stuff around the house. It just makes sense. And yet I end up having "discussions" with him in my head when he's not here about how I do things. I get all fierce in my internal dialogues telling him that if he doesn't like it, he can forget about me ever doing anything ever again. When he comes home and thanks me for whatever I've done, I'm already irritated and put-out so all I think is: "You better be, mister!"

Jealous: Raul adores me. I adore him. I trust him with my life. And yet if he talks about a new friend, or mentions that someone is hot, I get all insecure, sure that he'll wake up soon and realize how little he does adore me and go running off with some guy who speaks Spanish and is so much more together than I am...

Waah, waah, waah!

When reading over the blog recently I noticed that some of this self-victimizing had leaked into the blog, but I've figured out their game now and have expelled Self-Pity-Alex and Victim-Alex from the personality zoo. I can act like a normal human being again. Unfortunately given their knowledge of the inner workings of the zoo, I don't think they're gone for good.

Someday Lessons:

• We may think we've changed our ways, but old habits die hard and we have to stay vigilant against the return of unwanted behaviours.
• Negative emotions are insidious and often we don't notice them until they start causing problems.

Self-Induced Anger

Saturday night started with a glass of light port on ice then we toasted our anniversary with a glass of Cava Rosada and just before we left to go dancing, we threw back a shot of peach whiskey. A recipe for a fun night, surely.

Not quite so. My mood started out great. After all we were celebrating our one year anniversary and going to San Sebastian's Pride Party (where we met last year). A good friend and his new boyfriend had come over to celebrate with us. As we sat down to eat, however, I felt that Raul's attitude had changed. He had started to make little digs at me – insulting my lack of Spanish, ordering me about and getting snarky when I pushed back at his orders.

Arriving at the party, I decided all I wanted to do was dance. Otherwise I wanted to be left alone. As much as I knew Raul wanted to be affectionate, I could barely tolerate his touch – it forced me out of my private dancing world. Also, as people moved about the dance floor, they kept banging into me, jarring me further out of my world and disrespecting my right to dance uninterrupted!

I tried to ignore them, tried to have fun shaking my booty to the beat, but as person after person pushed past me, my shoulders cramped and my spine creaked like an unoiled bike chain. How dare they bother me! I was here to have fun, not to get pushed around by a bunch of drunken idiots with no respect for personal space!

At the point just before I retreated to a corner where the walls would have protected at least two sides of me, I realized that it wasn't the party-goers nor was it Raul. It was me. I was in a FOUL mood which fortunately was beginning to fade, letting sanity return.

I grabbed Raul, gave him a huge kiss and said (in Spanish of course): "I don't like alcohol. It puts me in a bad mood." I then spent the rest of the night overcoming this chemically produced anger through sheer willpower.

Someday Lessons:

• If the entire world seems lined up against you, check your attitude – maybe it's just a case of a twisted perception.
• Being self-aware doesn't just mean aware of your mind – it includes your body too.

Recommitting to All of You

I wasn't going to post today, and not just because it's Lazy Tuesday. This week I'm marathon editing my novel, as well as working on another project. I had thought that blogging would divert my creativity from my other projects but then I read a post on the Problogger site about The Dip – the posting-fatigue every blogger experiences.

I set up my weekday themes specifically to avoid the The Dip. If I take a break for a few days to write other projects then I'm setting up a bad habit of giving up the blog whenever I want to increase my productivity in other areas.

So, no unplanned breaks (except for the occasional Friday) and no Dip. I have some thoughts on how to spice things up and I'll be rolling out these new ideas over the summer.

Stay tuned!

Someday Lessons:

• Habits of inactivity are easier to create than habits of action.
• Periodically reexamine your reasons for and approach to doing something to confirm your continued passion.

Staying Quiet, Staying Productive

At the beginning of April, I learned not to talk about my goals, that for me, talking about goals reduces the likelihood of achieving them. Since then, I have been working on a new project and I've talked about it to a grand total of three people. I've also mentioned it very generally to my online writing group where we support each other's weekly and daily writing progress.

And know what? Not talking has worked. The project is reaching the point where I can talk about it because it'll be written and ready to send out to the world. I won't say anything more yet because it's not quite done and I don't want to stop working on it because I've over-hyped it.

All I will say is this: it's the next level of Someday Syndrome, helping you get rid the somedays in your own life.

Someday Lessons:

• Learning something new means nothing unless you look back and measure its success.
• It's very easy to get overexcited and to start celebrating successes before you finish them. Guard against that.

Taking the non-Plastic Plunge

I spent most of the day thinking about abandoning plastic – thanks for all the comments for a great day of productive procrastination! I'm definitely going to start making yoghurt, especially yoghurt cheese. I also read an article on fresh (tap) versus canned (bottled) water, so I've decided to go back to tap water, only drinking the bottled stuff when it's rained really hard and they've added more chlorine to the water.

I'm not sure, however, that I'll implement taking my containers to the butcher. And why not? Because it's different and no one else does it.

Say what?!? Alex embarrassed by being different? (Can you feel the chill of hell freezing over?)

I usually shop at the supermarket because I can pick my meat and vegetables I want without having to talk to anyone. Perfectionist-Alex won't let me talk when I'm out in stores because since I can't communicate well, I won't communicate at all.

Completely idiotic, I know. And now that I've written it down, I'm totally going to start buying my meat and veggies from local market stores. And yes, I'll talk to people and I might even take my own containers.

Someday Lessons:

• Telling others your reason for (not) doing something is often enough to prompt a change.
• Don't let your perfectionist self take over – you'll never get anything done!

Stolen Sense of Peace

Today someone stole Raul's wallet. It had no money, he noticed within an hour, and he canceled all his cards. There was absolutely no gain for the thief and yet Raul didn't find the wallet anywhere nearby, discarded for being useless.

The only outcome is inconvenience for Raul. He had to go to the police station and he had to call the bank. He'll have to take time off work to replace his national ID, health and social security cards. He will also have to spend a long time regaining a sense of security about the world.

All for nothing on the part of the thief who only takes away from the world and yet doesn't gain anything for himself.

Someday Lessons:

• What might seem like an easy win often turns out empty.
• Trust can be broken in the blink of an eye.

Why I'm Angry All the Time

Two years ago I decided to give up being merely comfortable and to ruthlessly pursue happiness, which I've pretty much achieved. I'm with a man I love doing what I love in a place that makes me swoon every time I look out the window.

Yet I spend a good deal of my time unreasonably angry with the world in general.

My pursuit of happiness is not comfortable, safe or easy. It's scary. Turning my back on comfort and relentlessly chasing happiness means taking risks which involves a whole lot of fear. Evolution wired human beings to be afraid of the unknown – which has saved us a species many times – but fear often produces anger and because I'm an overly-polite British-Canadian, I absorb that anger. I intellectualize my responses and feel like vomiting if I irrationally snark at someone, but then I feel like vomiting because all that anger has to go somewhere or it will give me an ulcer.

So what to do? Time and time again I've discovered the answer and yet time and time again I ignore it completely. I need to walk more. When I go for an epic two hour walk the endorphins soar and the anger that chews away at my stomach lining shrinks.

In fact I'm going out for a walk right now. See ya!

Someday Lessons:

• A rigorous pursuit of happiness involves more risk than many people are willing to take.
• Never underestimate the power and positive value of endorphins.

Too Polite for My Own Good

This weekend, friends visited from Catalonia (hence the lack of posts Thursday and Friday). With my recent stomach problems and resulting bad moods, four people in a 200sq ft apartment can feel a bit cramped (pun intended). In an effort to refrain from snapping at people, I kept my distance most of the weekend. The emotional distance also helped keep a physical distance from all the bad-for-me food that the others consumed over the four days.

Unfortunately the emotional distance ended up taking a toll on everyone with one guest trying to push into my carefully delineated Alex-only territory. Yesterday she decided to cook – paying us back for our hospitality. And even though I'd explained my dietary restrictions several times over the weekend, lunch ended up having garlic and pepper in it (Raul managed to stop her using white wine). Given the tension in the apartment, I decided just to eat the food without a fuss. After all, the garlic was still in its skin only flavouring the food -  I wouldn't actually be eating the stuff directly. I'd be fine!

Wrong!

Yesterday afternoon my stomach started to rebel and I got a wicked headache. I went to bed at 9:30 and slept almost ten hours. Today I feel like I have a stomach bug and I'm majorly regretting my I-so-nice-of-course-I'll-eat-your-food-that-is-bad-for-me Britishness.

Someday Lessons:

• Health issues supersede politeness every time.
• Listen to your gut (pun intended again). It knows what's good for you.

Resisting the Peanut Butter

I've always believed that I lack willpower. I just can't make myself do things I don't want to nor NOT do things I do want to.

I have all the things I need for super success in whatever I do: ambition, drive, talent (modesty) - everything except willpower. I'm not as successful as I could be because I lack willpower. It's inherent and unchangeable.

(Un)fortunately that's a complete lie. How do I know that? Because I've discovered I do possess willpower over what I eat. With my severely limited diet, I could cheat easily. No one would know if I bought a donut or devoured a bag of potato chips. I simply choose not to because I remember the nine years of pain I used to live in and was beginning to feel again.

Yesterday for example I had a terrible craving for peanut butter and Ritz crackers, my mainstay childhood food. I could taste the smooth sweetness of the Kraft PB, the buttery saltiness of the Ritz. I felt the cracker snap and flake as my teeth bit into it, the peanut butter sticking my tongue to the roof of my mouth.

Later in the day I walked past a bakery and decided I would be willing trade my soul for a soft, chewy peanut butter cookie that would coat my mouth with floury goodness.

I managed to resist both, however, without much drama. I have no desire to live the rest of my life in pain, so denying myself sweets and processed foods for six months every five years is easily doable.

So yeah, I do have willpower - when I find something important enough. Does it mean then that I find very few things important? Or that I'm just lazy?

Someday Lessons:

• Willpower is not inherent - it's a choice, like almost everything else in life.
• Pain and discomfort often motivate change better than anything else.