Quote of the Moment

Now I know it might just be a commercial, for The Biggest Loser no less, but I do have to say that the show really does have qualities in it that resonate with what I am going through right now. It has the heart, the fight, it deals with insecurities and weight issues. It deals with emotional and physical issues.

Anyway, the point is that although it might just be a commercial, and as much as I hate commercials, I have actually been pretty glad for it lately. Especially when they run the commercial where trainer Bob says:

“I know it hurts, but I am saving your life.”

Some people are scared of being alone. I am scared of being in a relationship. In fact, I’m so scared that I usually take off running the other direction if I even sense the possibility of a relationship brewing that has the potential for more than friendship. That is, unless I know that things will never get to that point for one reason or another. No, the relationships I know won’t work out, those I obsess about and dream about and wonder about. Those I allow myself to think about because those, I know, are just safe enough for me.

So why do I do this? What good can possibly come of this? What drives me to turn away and run? What scares me from even letting possibility close to me? And why am I so afraid of it?

I don’t know exactly. It’s something I’ve been working on for a while. And like most things, just when I think I have it figured out, it’s never quite the same as it was before.

So why do it? Well, I used to think I was doing it because I didn’t want to be in a relationship. I had so much going on between school and my family, and then it was school and work and my family; there was always an excuse. Always an excuse of it never being the right time. But if now is never the right time, when is it the right time? Is there a “right time”? Or is it all chance and huge leaps of faith? I guess, now, I believe it’s a little bit of both. But I suppose I’ve never wanted to believe that before. I’ve always wanted to believe that there had to be a “right time” …just “now” never seemed like it. “Maybe later” was always more plausible. So to save myself the heartbreak of it all ending badly, I ran. And I ran until I realized that I didn’t have to run any longer because that chance had already flown away while I was busy running. And then, when I would come down from that high, the low of realizing that I just ran from something was even worse than I imagine the heartbreak could have been.

What good can possibly come of this? The simple answer is nothing. Nothing good comes from always being too afraid to put yourself out there. Nothing good can come from always being too afraid to interact. It might be easier and it might seem like a whole lot less painful. But I wouldn’t say that it’s good. I mean sure, there are benefits, you do get the chance to self-reflect and find your own strength. You do get that chance to get to know yourself and what you are capable of on your own. You do get that chance to do whatever it is you want in life… unless what you want in life is to share it with someone else. But when you are afraid to share it with someone else, you try not to think about it because thinking about brings up all those old demons. But being alone? That’s safe. That’s what you cling to because being safe is what you strive for. But I wouldn’t say that it’s a good thing.

What drives me to turn away and run and what scares me from even letting possibility close to me are two parts to the same question. And that is, why am I so afraid? Now in my life, I’ve never felt like the bravest person. I’ve always been afraid of something and I always will be. But when it comes to love and relationships and putting myself out there, it’s never been something I’ve ever been very good at. Sure I like to flirt and I can and do allow myself to flirt, but I’m horrible with the follow through.

The short, simple answer is that I’m afraid of who I know I can be when it comes to relationships of any kind. Because I’m so willing and want so badly to please everyone I care about, I am prone to adjusting to any situation and trying to make the best of it. I’m prone to changing, or maybe lessening, parts of who I am to accomodate for my concern for whoever is around me and has to “deal” with me. I’m prone to backing down even when I know I’m right, because I care too much about the other person to hurt them. And most importantly, I’m prone to hurting myself before hurting anyone else and taking the full responsibility of whatever may be going wrong.

So yes, I’m afraid of losing myself in a relationship because of my want and need to please whomever I am with. I’m afraid of forgetting who I am and how I got to that point and becoming someone else entirely. I’m not so much afraid of changing, but I’m afraid of the change that might occur. I’m afraid of becoming submissive out of fear of losing someone. I’m afraid of losing what strength I have in me, just trying to hold on to something. So what keeps me running? Fear. What scares me from even letting possibility close to me? Fear. Fear that once I reach a certain point, I’ll never be able to turn back. Fear that it won’t work out in the end and I’ll end up hurt. Fear that it all might work out. Fear. And why am I so afraid? Because right now, when I’m barely sure who I am, losing myself would be the easiest thing to do. And it’s the last thing I want to do right now.

The problem with that is that until I can find a way to open myself up, I mean truly open myself up to possibilities, I’m also limiting who I am and limiting what I can do. I’m limiting myself to what I think I should be like because of what I’m afraid I can become. Because of fear. And that’s no way to live life. It’s no way to live.

So I feel like I might be ready now. Ready for possibility. I’m still afraid of it, but I feel like I might be ready. At least, I hope I am because I’m so tired of limiting myself out of my need for self-preservation. I’m so tired of always thinking before I act. I’m so tired of always being alone in a crowd. I’m tired of always being afraid. And so right now, if learning how to open up is what I need to do, then it’s what I hope to do and do well.

The First Lull Between

Between the first phase and the second phase of this project, there was a two day period in which we were supposed to reread our journals and reflect on what we had written before taking the time to decide what we wanted to work on. As I mentioned before, by the time I finished the first set of journals, I already had what I wanted to work on.

Now ideally, I should have chosen something simple. Maybe started with procrastination or time management. But because I had spent so much time reflecting, I decided to try attacking the root of the problem. It’s something I’ve never quite gone after. I’ve tried reorganization to help with both procrastination and time management. I’ve tried various things to help with both causes. But since it seemed to me that so much of what I was doing first started and ended with my problems with self-confidence, I thought it best to just go after it.

So after class that Tuesday, I spoke with my professor about what I wanted to do. She informed me that for phase two, the observation period, I should keep track of all the things people said or did that made me feel uncomfortable. Keep track of what triggered negative thoughts and why or how. What it related to in my past or in my present that made me feel bad and do the same for the things that made me have positive thoughts. Keep track of these things but the key part of phase two was to NOT change anything. Don’t change behaviors, don’t change thoughts, don’t do anything to change during that time period. Just observe.

And I have to say it was five of the hardest days to just observe my behavior, be so fully aware of it, and not try and do anything. I suppose because before, when I wasn’t trying to do anything about it, I never noticed just how often I felt insecure. I never noticed just how much things affected me until it was already so effective in keeping me down. But during those five days of observation, I also found it really hard to keep track of those things that also caused me to have negative thoughts. Sometimes they were little things, sometimes they were big. The bigger stuff I remembered to write down and, of course, those things that kept me down while at home. But during school it was so hard to remember when I felt down and when I felt good and what was causing those feelings. At some point I began to wonder if there was nothing specific that caused the feelings, but rather something deeper that was already there.

I am still currently unsure if I did the journals for phase two correctly, but I should at least have some of those excerpts up soon. And then I can begin to fully delve into phase three and now. I can’t wait. But for now it’s back to homework and sleep and tomorrow I wake up and do it all over again.

Except that tomorrow is also the fifth anniversary of September 11th and I’m sure I’ll have more reflecting to do about my life. I always do. Thankfully, as the years have gone by, I’ve been more able to take less things for granted. And I’m really thankful for that opportunity. As sad as September 11th was, and I’ll try tomorrow to recap that day for me and what I was going through, it was also a day that helped change my life and helped get me to this place and time.

Phase I : Open Journal #5 – The Last One

Even though we were supposed to spend the two days after writing the open journals reading them and trying to figure out what we want to change, by the time I wrote the last one, I already knew what I wanted to work on. And this is why…

Journal #5 : The Underlying Problem
By now it’s pretty clear to me that my underlying problem is not just the desire to distract, but also in large part self-confidence. Because I don’t think I’m good enough, or pretty enough, or smart enough, I turn negative when I need to be positive and prevent myself from ever fully reaching my potential. I realized yesterday, as I wrote the last entry, that when I start something with the idea of changing in mind, for example starting a new diet, I do so thinking that it will help me emotionally because just knowing that I’m not as fat anymore will make me feel better about myself. I also realized that I go to school because I love it, but I love it because it’s the one area of my life where I feel like I have the most control and the most confidence because I know that I am smart. Although, at the same time, I also realized that even though I know I am smart, I am constantly in fear of failure because that would mean that I am actually not smart and it would ruin my entire concept of myself. Smart, nice, funny, caring, witty, intelligent, bright, sweet, helpful… these are all words that are used to describe me. These are the only things used to describe me and if one of those is wrong, than maybe the others are wrong too. Maybe I have been right my entire life and everyone has been lying to me in order to make me feel better about myself, or in order to not hurt my feelings.

And as I thought about these things I realized that maybe I’ve been going about this the wrong way. Maybe in order to help me heal emotionally, I have to start with the emotion itself. Before I used to believe that if only I could make myself look better physically, I could make myself feel better emotionally but I’ve tried that numerous times and in numerous ways over the years. So maybe it’s a matter of actually getting to the emotion and starting there.

By the way, like I said before when I started talking about “mental fixation”, this journal has become a mental fixation for me. Usually when I write about something I often forget what I want to say and how I want to say it. But I think I’ve done a fairly good job of keeping my train of thought inline here.

Phase I : Open Journal #4

Day 4 was a short entry…

Journal #4 : What’s My Problem
I think my biggest problem lately is that I don’t know how to fix anything. I’ve known for a long time that I act in ways that are self-destructive. I’ve known about my bad habit of procrastinating until the last minute. I’ve known about my inability to balance life between social and personal. And I’ve known about my ability to distract myself from life through fixations and obsessions. But the thought of actually doing something about it scares me. Maybe not scares, so much as eludes me because I don’t understand how to get to the place where I can figure out how to change.

We talked in class on Thursday about PTC (Paradoxical Theory of Change) and how if you can identify how you make adjustments, you can begin to experience growth. My problem is not identifying how I adjust or the methods of which I use to cope. My problem is making the move between simply adjusting and growing. I feel like because I am constantly trying to understand why I do the things I do and identifying with the things that make me who I am, I am also constantly growing because of it. But at the same time, it’s that notion of two steps forward, one step back. Since I can identify these things, they always bring to light a whole new set of questions before the previous ones have been answered. And at the same time, because I can’t answer them and I can’t fix them, I start to repeat the cycle. And at times I begin to hate myself because I can’t seem to do anything about it. Whenever I seem to try and make changes, I seem to fail or force myself to fail because I have convinced myself I don’t deserve something.

And here is probably where I began to fall apart mentally. Confused and mentally exhausted over analyzing everything I had been thinking about, I broke down and cried. Yes, I cried. And I couldn’t sleep. And by the time I did manage to sleep, when I woke up it hadn’t helped much at all. I also hadn’t been asleep very long either but it was time for school and I was running late again.

Phase I : Open Journal #3

Journal #3 : Self – Destruction
If distraction was what I was looking to do and procrastination was how I did it, than self-destruction became a side effect. I wanted to distract myself from life, so putting everything off in order to do something else, something “fun” became a main objective. I wanted to hang out with my friends, not do homework. I was busy with my family, I didn’t want to bother with explaining to my friends or worrying about school. Similarly, when I was busy with school I couldn’t bother with my family. It became this endless cycle of too much, too little. I couldn’t strike a balance between the two worlds I had created and thus consistently spent far too much time in one world and not enough in the other, alternating by interest or responsibility. When school was going good, I was heavily focused on my family. When family was going good, I focused in on school. I focused as hard as I could fearing that I would lose the concentration at any point in time. And I always did.

For me, self-destruction is not just the act of doing something harmful like cutting or hitting yourself , nor is it just drinking or doing drugs. For me, self-destruction is about doing any behavior that could potentially be harmful to you physically, mentally, emotionally or otherwise, and it’s about both temporary and long term effects. And it’s also about the mindset that accompanies these acts. For example, with “mental fixation”, if I read a book with a particular familiar character that ends up in the sort of situation I long to be in, with the sort of ideal person that I long for, I fixate on that. I fixate on their relationship and every little detail about the characters, flaws and awes, and I can’t get around it. I can’t get past the fact that it’s so on point to what I long for, that it’s so on point to exactly what I’m missing, that’s it’s just such familiar territory. And then I realize that no, as much as I want to be this character, I am not. Because in some way, this character has so much more than me. This character has been on numerous dates, whereas I have not. This character has had her share of heartbreak and deserves that, whereas I have never even been in love. This character is not ugly and fat like I am, she is beautiful and attractive to the sort of men that I’m not good enough for. You see, the more I fixate on the situation I long for, whether it’s the accomplishment of a goal, beating a certain game, or longing to fall in love in the way the characters in a book did; the more I fixate on that one thing, the more I fixate on my every flaw. It serves to highlight all that I feel is wrong with me, only because I can’t focus on anything else, I turn self-destructive and convince myself that I can’t do anything about it, I just have to accept it. Only I can’t because the longer I know what’s wrong with me, the more self-destructive I become. It’s almost as if, if I didn’t think anything was wrong with me, I’d be able to fix it all without thinking about it. And I might be happy doing it. But because I know it exists, because I know I’m not perfect, I can’t get around it. I can’t get around it and I cant see past it, can’t see through it and there is no way for me to fix it. And no way for me to accept it either.

Procrastination only seems to add to that because of the fact that the more I can convince myself that I don’t deserve something or don’t want something badly enough, the longer I can procrastinate from doing it. The more I can fixate on something, the longer I can put off having to deal with something else. And the more I can convince myself of these things, the more self-destructive I become.

Phase I : Open Journal #2

Journal #2 : Procrastination
In my last entry I talked about my inability to focus and how it leads to distraction and isolation and this state of “mental fixation”. I also mentioned my desire for wanting to distract myself from life. This is because life, to me, has always been something that should “ideally” be easy, but in reality never is. Even though it’s a perceptual thing, life is what you make of it, my perception of my own life has always been complicated.

Growing up in a small town in California still easily provides you with numerous types of family. But even early on I realized that my family was very different from all the other families I knew. To begin with, my parents were much older than all of my friends parents and so were my brothers and sisters. As the youngest of seven kids, my oldest five siblings range between 16 – 21 years older than me. And being that by the time I came around most were already out of the house, I grew up barely knowing them. The only sibling I knew and was close with was the sister that I grew up with who was still 6 years older than I was.

If this wasn’t weird enough, because both my parents were much older than a majority of my friends parents, they (my friends) didn’t understand what I meant when I said my parents were sick. From about fourth grade on I faced the reality that my parents were not well and I felt like I could lose them at any point in time. It just isn’t something most kids think about. Your parents are supposed to be there for you all your life and you are never supposed to realize that your parents aren’t invincible. But when I was about 10, my mother started to get sick. We found out she had cancer and from that point on I realized just how different my family was from all of my friends. My mother was not well and my dad, although he far from acted like it, was also dealing with other health situations.

Because I realized that I could lose either, or both, of my parents at any time, I was determined to spend as much time with them as I could because I felt that my brothers and sisters had had the unfair advantage of being born earlier and knowing them better. So everyday after school I would come home and lay in bed with my mom and watch tv, or sit out back with my dad and just talk with him. This is something that I’m grateful for. Although, at the same time I realize now that even back then I had a huge desire to distract myself from things because part of the benefit of spending so much time with my parents was the fact that I evaded having to do my homework.

Later, perhaps because I was so keen on distracting myself, I developed a bad habit of procrastinating. Or rather, maybe it was always sort of there. My dad likes to remind me that I was always telling him that I would do something “later” even as a little kid. So maybe it was already there at some point early on, but over the years I perfected it. I put off homework until the next day in class, and because the teachers sent you to “detention” during break to do your homework instead of going out to play, I was fine with missing some play time if it meant I didn’t have to do my homework at home. Home, for me, had become some place school couldn’t touch. It was a whole other world and I liked to keep it that way. The kids at school didn’t know much about me at home and at home my parents were usually too busy worrying about other things to ask me about school, unless I got a bad grade. So all I had to do was keep my grades up by quickening my pace at homework until I could fit it in under the break time and keep my grades up and all of my other time was free for me.

The problem with that is that it all changes when you get into junior high. And, of course, like every pre-teen / teenager, life became even more complicated… So as I struggled to build my relationships both at school and at home, I realized that if I was going to succeed I would have to integrate both worlds somehow. I was going to have to bring school home and home with me to school as much as I didn’t like it… By high school I had perfected procrastination to a science and realized that I only did well when I did, which didn’t help matters any. I only seemed to pass a test if I studied right before it. I only did well on a paper if I wrote it right before it was due. I only understood something I read if I read it right before we talked about it. Procrastination, while it kept me from experiencing a lot of things, had this high and seeming positive effect of providing me with the right amount of confidence to do something.

And here is where I start to realize just how my problems seem to interconnect with each other. Perhaps it’s also where I started to realize what lay underneath each problem.

Personal Adjustment : Project 1 – Self-Awareness and Self-Change

Perhaps as the biggest “UNnatural” thing for me to do so far, I started this blog as a way to open up what I’ve been going through and what I will be going through as I try to make that move towards change. Because “naturally” I’m just not the type of person to just freely share my life like that. Which is, I suppose, why I will skip the background information until I get more comfortable with this.

However, I feel like I can’t fully share what I’m going through right now, without first sharing how it came about. As the first phase of the project, we were required to write an “open journal” everyday for five days. This is how mine began :

Journal #1 : Fixation and Distraction
My ability, or inability for that matter, to focus in on something has always been an issue for me. Few things hold my interest and even fewer things hold my interest for very long. This has been a problem for me in school, in life, with friends, with family, and I think it has affected a lot of aspects of my life. Growing up I only ever talked about being two things: a lawyer or a teacher. And being a teacher was always just a back up in case I decided not to be a lawyer. But in the six years since I graduated high school I have changed my major no less than four times and my two associate degrees will testify to my inability to stay focused.

However, if there is one thing I can attest to is the consistency of my inconsistency. While I may not be able to focus in on something that I should, like homework, school, or studying, I seem to overexert my ability to focus on random things like musical interest or computer graphics. Things that I find fascinating and that seem to remind me of a certain time in my life, I have no problem focusing in on, almost to the point of isolation.

I get stuck in a state of what I like to call “mental fixation” wherein I cannot focus on anything but this one momentary obsession. And the obsession, while it makes me happy, is always a huge distraction from my life and what I should be doing. For example, like instead of being able to focus on my homework, I can only focus on the book I just finished or a clip of something on the internet. Something that is always “more interesting” to me because I don’t have to do it, I want to do it. I can’t stop doing it. And this becomes the big difference for me between my ability to focus in on something and just how much time I can devote to something. The simple distinction between having to and wanting to do somehow seems to decide for me what I can do. And moreover, each and every obsession is not only a fixation, but it also speaks about my desire to distract myself from my life.

Emotionally it’s a lot like a bout with depression, but mentally it’s just this complete and utter road block. It’s like my mind gets so tired of focusing on everyday things that it just chooses to shut down and focus on this one thing. This one thing that, until I conquer it or find it’s equal replacement, stays on my mind at all times. And try as I might, during these times is when I’m the most susceptible to slipping back into depression because it’s like you can only focus on this one thing, it’s all you’ve got. But, at the same time, the fact that you can only focus on this one thing highlights every other downfall in your life. The more I focus on it, the more I realize why I can’t have it.

Paradoxical Theory Of Change (PTC)

The Paradoxical Theory of Change (PTC) : holds that personal change tends to occur when we become aware of what we are as opposed to trying to become what we are not (Beisser, 1970)

In essence, in order to become who you want to be, you must first accept who you are. Or in order to achieve growth (a personal, life-long venture), you must first recognize and accept just how you make adjustments (temporary and fickle environmental changes) in your life. It’s the theory that we can ultimately only change who we are once we accept that we are not perfect and accept how we are not perfect.

Well, I’ve long since realized that I am far from perfect but I’m stuck in that phase between realizing how I am not perfect and how I can change that. Really, the main problem I have is identifying those areas that are “quirks” and those that are “major flaws”; the difference between what I can change and what I shouldn’t.

Because sometimes “flaws” or “quirks” are deeply embedded into who you are as a person, it can become difficult to recognize and differentiate between those areas you need to work on and those areas that help uniquely make up you as an individual. To do this, you must first be prepared to look deeper into your thoughts and feelings than you are generally accustomed to and be ready to face any of those old demons that you may have burried away and tried to forget.

All that said, this is my attempt. Not my first mind you, but perhaps this time I’ll be better equipped to take on that challenge. Let’s hope so.

In the Beginning

Welcome to the new adventure in my life. I’m UNnautural Mel and I invite you to join me as I share a part of my life that has the potential to change my life forever. Or not. Regardless, I’ve decided to share it, so please be gentle.

For now I’ll leave out the background and share that with you as time goes on. But the important thing to know about me right now is why and how this blog came about.

I am a college student currently enrolled in The University of Guam on the tiny island of… you guessed it, Guam. Now as fickle as I may be about major life decisions, I have made the very one that has brought me to this time and place. However, not for lack of trying, I have made a series of bad decisions that has also landed me in this time and place. Which is to say that I’m as unsure as I have ever been about what I want to do with my life and what I expect out of it. Which is only half of why I am here.

In the Fall of 2006, I began taking a Personal Adjustment class. You know the class. It’s part psychology, it’s part get your act together program. It’s the class you take in lieu of physical education because you figure it requires less energy. That is until you get to class and you realize it’s probably a class that will likely bring up all of your old deamons and tilt your world in a direction that you never thought possible. That’s this class.

Our first assignment was to start a series of open journals and along the way pick a behavior or emotion that we most wanted to work on. For me the answer to my topic came at the tail end of those journals. While I thought that procrastination would be the behavior I would need to work on, I found that my lack of self-confidence was ultimately the underlying problem in all I seemed to convey in my journals.

So that’s where this blog and this journey come in. While talking with a friend about how to change, it was suggested that I try something unnatural to my very being, everyday. And that is what I hope to do. Wish me luck!