On Lattes & The Gap (The Candida Diaries, Week 6)
Now that we're sliding into March, it kind of amazes me, how far things have come since just January. January was all about how difficult this candida stuff was...February was about struggling with slips...and I feel like March...March is going to finally be about how much better this stuff makes me feel. Now that I finally feel free from the sugar withdrawal after a short month of stops and starts, I feel like I have more perspective on why I want to keep doing this, instead of just why I kind of have to.
A handful of months ago, I wrote about my quest to start loving my body. Really loving it. I had no idea what lay in store for me in the new year...that a sucktown diagnosis would eventually force me to get serious about what I was putting into my body, and why. It was kind of a roundabout process, but today it struck me that it did the trick. I care about my body, now. I care about the way it feels, and I care about that waaaaay more than I care about how it looks. That is revolutionary for me. A lot of that caring, that vanity, has been tossed out of the window because now I can tell the difference between when my body feels healthy and when it doesn't. And that feeling of healthy, of knowing how good it can feel be inside my own body, has become way more affirming and reinforcing than whether or not I can fit into my jeans (although, don't get me wrong...the fact that almost of all of my jeans fall off me now without a belt? That's a super rad feeling).
The really, really great part about this? Is that it also relates to an even bigger issue that I've been talking about all year, which is the tendency to look for affirmation and stimulation outside of myself. Last week I talked about old habits like always wanting to watch TV or read when I ate a meal, because I'm always looking to pair one reinforcing stimuli with another in order to create the ultimate reinforcing feels. This week, I noticed that the more I sat down and just concentrated on my food, the more it was just enough. It's kind of like meditation, in a way...what am I trying to drown out? What am I trying to actively *not* pay attention to? When I stop trying to crowd out what I'm doing with other stimuli, I learn to pay attention to the present moment, and slowly, that present moment, that present stimuli, it becomes enough. And when I'm feeling good inside my own body, I'm not actively looking for other things to make me feel good. I'm not trying to grab onto chocolate, or make out with the next hot guy, or buy another pair of great boots. Everything I need, I already have inside of myself.
Kind of trippy, and the idea probably deserves a post of its own. But. Moving on...
This week I challenged myself to think about the above and use it to help me stare down some more of my weird food addictions/habits, esp. when I was tempted to cheat/slip in my treatment.
Sometimes it's the dumbest things...like reading an article about project management and seeing the author's bio:
And then thinking/whining to myself, "I find joy in lattes, TOO! And I want that joy RIGHT NOW!"
It's so weird, how psychological associations can totally trip us up. I had to remind myself that I used to find joy in lattes...and if I think long and hard about it, I can trace that joy back to a GAP spring commercial from 2006.
See, when this commercial first came out, I had just moved to Minneapolis that spring. And this commercial, for me, was about new possibilities...metropolitan possibilities. Of walking down city sidewalks, going to coffee shops every day if I wanted to, running through parks, bein' fresh. That girl(s) with that latte was who I wanted to be at the time: Joyful, colorful, spring-y, on my way to meet someone totally hot and make out in a park.
(This is how my mind works, people. Welcome to my amazing mental world)
And that association has become totally and completely ingrained in my psyche: When I think of lattes, I think of sitting in front of my awesome desk and being motivated to do great work/writing all day long, or taking a sunny stroll through a park somewhere with my best friend, or grabbing one just before I set off on another adventure with my girl Meg. Lattes are not my joy. It's the images and experiences and memories that those lattes conjure up for me.
But reality is...now, lattes literally make my throat hurt. And instead of motivating me to do great work, they make me tired, zoned out. They ruin my gut. They don't even taste that great anymore, not even when they're flavored (with the exception of a Pumpkin Spice Latte. I think there's something in the way that our female parts are wired that ensures that Pumpkin Spice Lattes will always taste like heaven to us. Maybe all of us girls have a chip that was implanted in us during our gyno visits, which is controlled by the government and sets off some weird type of simulation response to Pumpkin Spice Lattes, which also, conveniently, helps keep the scarf and knee-high boot industries in business. I don't know! All I know is that I'm a girl and I LOVE THEM).
The point is: If it was that easy for me to create such an ingrained physical craving and psychological response to lattes based on a few images, I should also be able to create something else to replace it with...something that is actually (still) really good for me.
For instance, when I sat down to write this post, I was drinking a strong cup of Lemon Ginger tea. Now, whenever I think of spring or how much I want it to get here, I wanna drink a cup of that fuckin' awesome tea.
See? My mind - and yours, too, probably, even if you don't know it - is a super powerful association machine. Rather than fighting that and all the old associations I've built up - Reeces Pieces mean a more a fun movie experience, a glass of white wine means relaxation, a pint of beer means happy hours - I'm going to focus on playing with creative ones that I can use to my new - healthier - advantage.
A handful of months ago, I wrote about my quest to start loving my body. Really loving it. I had no idea what lay in store for me in the new year...that a sucktown diagnosis would eventually force me to get serious about what I was putting into my body, and why. It was kind of a roundabout process, but today it struck me that it did the trick. I care about my body, now. I care about the way it feels, and I care about that waaaaay more than I care about how it looks. That is revolutionary for me. A lot of that caring, that vanity, has been tossed out of the window because now I can tell the difference between when my body feels healthy and when it doesn't. And that feeling of healthy, of knowing how good it can feel be inside my own body, has become way more affirming and reinforcing than whether or not I can fit into my jeans (although, don't get me wrong...the fact that almost of all of my jeans fall off me now without a belt? That's a super rad feeling).
The really, really great part about this? Is that it also relates to an even bigger issue that I've been talking about all year, which is the tendency to look for affirmation and stimulation outside of myself. Last week I talked about old habits like always wanting to watch TV or read when I ate a meal, because I'm always looking to pair one reinforcing stimuli with another in order to create the ultimate reinforcing feels. This week, I noticed that the more I sat down and just concentrated on my food, the more it was just enough. It's kind of like meditation, in a way...what am I trying to drown out? What am I trying to actively *not* pay attention to? When I stop trying to crowd out what I'm doing with other stimuli, I learn to pay attention to the present moment, and slowly, that present moment, that present stimuli, it becomes enough. And when I'm feeling good inside my own body, I'm not actively looking for other things to make me feel good. I'm not trying to grab onto chocolate, or make out with the next hot guy, or buy another pair of great boots. Everything I need, I already have inside of myself.
Kind of trippy, and the idea probably deserves a post of its own. But. Moving on...
This week I challenged myself to think about the above and use it to help me stare down some more of my weird food addictions/habits, esp. when I was tempted to cheat/slip in my treatment.
Sometimes it's the dumbest things...like reading an article about project management and seeing the author's bio:
And then thinking/whining to myself, "I find joy in lattes, TOO! And I want that joy RIGHT NOW!" It's so weird, how psychological associations can totally trip us up. I had to remind myself that I used to find joy in lattes...and if I think long and hard about it, I can trace that joy back to a GAP spring commercial from 2006.
See, when this commercial first came out, I had just moved to Minneapolis that spring. And this commercial, for me, was about new possibilities...metropolitan possibilities. Of walking down city sidewalks, going to coffee shops every day if I wanted to, running through parks, bein' fresh. That girl(s) with that latte was who I wanted to be at the time: Joyful, colorful, spring-y, on my way to meet someone totally hot and make out in a park.
(This is how my mind works, people. Welcome to my amazing mental world)
And that association has become totally and completely ingrained in my psyche: When I think of lattes, I think of sitting in front of my awesome desk and being motivated to do great work/writing all day long, or taking a sunny stroll through a park somewhere with my best friend, or grabbing one just before I set off on another adventure with my girl Meg. Lattes are not my joy. It's the images and experiences and memories that those lattes conjure up for me.
But reality is...now, lattes literally make my throat hurt. And instead of motivating me to do great work, they make me tired, zoned out. They ruin my gut. They don't even taste that great anymore, not even when they're flavored (with the exception of a Pumpkin Spice Latte. I think there's something in the way that our female parts are wired that ensures that Pumpkin Spice Lattes will always taste like heaven to us. Maybe all of us girls have a chip that was implanted in us during our gyno visits, which is controlled by the government and sets off some weird type of simulation response to Pumpkin Spice Lattes, which also, conveniently, helps keep the scarf and knee-high boot industries in business. I don't know! All I know is that I'm a girl and I LOVE THEM).
The point is: If it was that easy for me to create such an ingrained physical craving and psychological response to lattes based on a few images, I should also be able to create something else to replace it with...something that is actually (still) really good for me.
For instance, when I sat down to write this post, I was drinking a strong cup of Lemon Ginger tea. Now, whenever I think of spring or how much I want it to get here, I wanna drink a cup of that fuckin' awesome tea.
See? My mind - and yours, too, probably, even if you don't know it - is a super powerful association machine. Rather than fighting that and all the old associations I've built up - Reeces Pieces mean a more a fun movie experience, a glass of white wine means relaxation, a pint of beer means happy hours - I'm going to focus on playing with creative ones that I can use to my new - healthier - advantage.
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