Everyone wants to be different, better, perfect...although most would still choose to be the person they are. That is a curious thing really, I mean, we do countless things to ourselves in order to have the more perfect body, the more perfect exterior, and yet we would not choose to change who we actually are. For example, I would not choose to be Brad Pitt even though I envy his abs. Now, I might choose to be him for an evening :) but I would not want to live his life. I think deep down inside us there is acceptance of who we are, that we are unique, and we don't want to admit that any one person is better than us, no matter the circumstances. We want to remain who we are, we just want to be our uber-self.
That is a good thing, because you can work with that, if you have a mind to. And it is work too, it just doesn't happen...you have to think about it, about what drives you, about what drives your bad habits and your good. You also have to think about why you feel you need to be perfect in the first place, or why you feel you are flawed.
Thinking scares a lot of people, you'd be surprised. While I rather enjoy the mental solitude and challenge of thinking about stuff, many find it down right scary to scratch there own surface and peer underneath. Like all things, there are extremes. For example, I like thinking a little too much, it provides an outlet for my anxiety, and a place to go to prevent actual action. It is safer to think than to do, because you can only fail when you do things. Of course that is complete bullshit, but my subconscious doesn't know that. On the other extreme, many people don't want to know what is going on at all. They are more comfortable with doing things, anything, to keep their mind off of their real troubles. So, you can think too much, and you can think too little...both are just running in circles, but there is a happy place in between.
A long while ago I was suffering from clinical depression. The neurons just were not firing like they should, and depression had set in. The doc gave me the meds, but I chose a different path, therapist. Previously I had never put much stock in them, but my experience changed my mind. Even though mine did nothing but sit and listen, it was really a liberating experience. Every time my session was over, I walked out of there and went home feeling a little more whole, and that is really remarkable considering all I did was talk about shitty stuff that happened to me. I guess, somehow, it is good to talk to someone that isn't judging you.
Some of you might say that is what friends are for, but it doesn't work that way. Generally friends only mimic what we say, or tell us what we want to hear. We often choose our friends based on how we behave, so we tend to choose friends that think and act like us. A friend can only help you out of a depression two ways, scoring you some Prozac or giving you the number of a good therapist.
I have come to realize that for many of us, losing weight is not enough, it is merely addressing a symptom of a larger problem, and leaving that problem unaddressed can be harmful to yourself and those around you. Over the course of my struggles with weight loss, I have lost weight and came as close to the Uber-Self as I am going to get about 6 or 7 times. I still come back to where I am now. Yes, reaching my goal was exhilarating, confidence boosting and all that, but it was never enough, there was always more tweaking to do...I was never satisfied. The only thing I had done was take away my coping mechanism, my opiate of choice was food, and when I didn't have that, stress, anxiety and who knows what else just bubbled and brewed inside until it exploded in a total meltdown.
My experience, my knowledge, the research I have read (and it is considerable) and my experience with friends, have shown me that attacking only the symptom and not the disease is a disaster. You need to do both if you are going to achieve your ultimate Uber-self. Working on the outside can give you confidence, but working on the inside can eliminate the addiction in the first place. Taking that path is harder, requires a modicum of thought and reflection, and yes you can get stuck...that's why we need outside help for a little bit of that journey.
I found this great website that can help anyone searching for a therapist. It can be a scary thing to do, you want to find the right person to feel comfortable with. Plug in your zip and state and you will get a list of therapists, each with their own synopsis of what they do and why they do it, some even have pictures. Please, if you have been struggling, give this a try. You have nothing to lose but 45 minutes a week, a bit of money...and just possibly that thing that has been gnawing at your insides your entire adult life.
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