Mirror, mirror: discovering your true self
Week three. Time is flying! How are things on your end? Here’s my weekly update:
It was a SUPER stressful week, especially the weekend. To be completely honest with you, I’m in a terrible place right now, mentally and spiritually. Things have not gone as planned. Famous last words. So why does that still catch me by surprise and throw me off course? That’s the million-dollar question for me. And I’ll tell you right now, when things don’t go well and when things get stressful, I turn up the heat on myself. I pull out my worst “tape,” push my internal “play” button and let it rip. It’s not pretty or healthy, and it certainly doesn’t take me where I want or need to go, but it’s comfortable and familiar, the road most travelled, and so I take it. Even when I know I’ll regret it later, even when I know it’s likely to lead me to other unhealthy decisions — like eating the wrong food or staying up too late or skipping prayer time. This is why I’m head cheerleader for the tribe, because I have endless experience with this struggle. I’ll tell you this, however: Although I often feel history repeating itself in my life, the time I’ve spent working on my habits, journaling, and becoming more mindful have made me more aware. Even when I’m not following the Cravings “rules,” I’m well aware of where things have gone off track and how I might pull it back. The trick is getting from awareness to action.
This week, as we delve into chapter 3, we’re going to be focusing a lot on those tapes we tend to play, the words we say in our head, or maybe even out loud as we stand before the mirror. I always say that if I loved my neighbor as myself, it would be very bad news for my neighbor! I say things to myself, about myself that I would never say to or about anyone I cared about, or even about a total stranger. Why do we do that? Why is that comfortable? And how can we begin to backtrack to the place where those thoughts were created so we can dig them up, toss them out once and for all, and replace them with something that will lift us up rather than tear us down?
In chapter 3 I talk about the two sides of this, the fact that sometimes I am ever-so-grateful for my physical health, my material comfort, and the many blessings I have had over the course of a very privileged lifetime, one not without traumatic and devastating losses and crises, to be sure, but overwhelmingly blessed. And 
then there is the shadow side, the times when I look at myself, not just physically but on every level, and see nothing, absolute failure, zero, worthlessness. Unfortunately, I spend an inordinate amount of time on the shadow side, where my faults and flaws are magnified as in a fun house mirror and any potential reminders of anything good are drowned out by the drumbeat of self-loathing. It’s not pleasant, that’s for sure, but since I was a little girl, it’s been home for me, the place with which I am most familiar, the persona that feels most comfortable: failure, reject, misfit, lost soul. And that’s where I am today. It’s one reason this blog post is so late. How do I tell my tribe that I’m mentally and spiritually MIA? I guess I just did. Maybe some of you will identify with it; maybe some will think, What am I doing hanging out with this nutcase?!? 
