Ep: #26 - Moving On After A Tough Day

Faye Casement Author

Mar 22, 2023 |

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST:

So rationally we all know that making mistakes is a part of life, but it can be hard to not worry about messing up.

It can be tough to accept that making mistakes is part of life and the learning process, especially when we are worried about what others will think.

It is easy to go in on yourself and tell yourself you are a failure but this closes the doors to learning, growth and eventual success.

In today's show, I am going to run you through a difficult day I had last week and how I am dealing with it.

If you need the link to the live video and printable version of the show notes, drop me a DM 

THE DAY IN QUESTION:

So it is the Friday of the platinum Jubilee weekend.

Firstly, I wake up at about 4:30am ... it was 5:30am in winter but it has gotten earlier pretty sure this is down to my hormones. Here is mistake number 1 and one that I seem to keep repeating. I try to go back to sleep! I look at the clock and thoughts are "It's too early", "I shouldn't be awake right now!". So instead of embracing and accepting my 'awakeness'... I fight it! Tossing and turning for half an hour, getting a little frustrated. I then pick up my phone because "It's still too early to get up" and so an hour passes. I am now feeling sleepy again so I go back to sleep.

Does any of this sound familiar? LMK

What happens then is that I have some kind of crazy dream. This always happens in those early hours. I then wake up disorientated, feeling fuzzy-headed and feeling less than stellar. The dreams usually involve some kind of struggle or difficulty I find which can leave a bit of residue. New thought, "Great I have a show to write and a party to go to later this is not boding well".

Coffee! "Coffee, will cure it!" So off on trot for coffee.

Now coffee is great...but I have to say I give it far more credit than it is due. If only coffee could solve everything right!

I have an unexpected call with a friend that I am helping with something and then an unexpected call with my Mum. Mum and Dad think they have Covid so I offer to get the milk.

I still haven't done the writing I want to do, I need to get ready and I need to cook food for the party....thought "aaargh! there is no time"

I sit down at my computer to write. Mistake number 2! I am in no mood to write. I am trying to do it because that is what I think I 'should' be doing and that I 'need to do it as I am behind where I wanted to be'. It was like wading through soup and not really productive in the end.

I give up and go get ready.

A shower! The shower will cure it! (What even was it! I never stopped to question that)

I get dressed and ready. Crap... here comes mistake number 3...I realise I have 30 minutes to make the Mexican rice and quiche I wanted to make and to get everything ready for the street party! I'm rushing now. I don't like being late or disorganised.

OK, I make it...I call the daughter we start loading the car.

Mistake 4... I'm still rushing. I had dumped some shopping bags at the front door to go back in the car a few days before. I'm carrying a picnic table and 2 chairs as, you know I'm in a rush and get my foot caught in one of the bags, step on the bag with the other and fly out of my front door landing on the table. Cue grazed hands and a cut foot. I'm trying to hold back my tears as I have done my make-up.

I'm feeling very sorry for myself now as I go and get a plaster for my foot and change my shoes as they will rub my now cut foot. 😭

Still I don't slow down we are supposed to be going to a party and I still need to get the milk. Mistake 5... thinking "I can't let anyone down".

I manage to get to Morrisons and to my Mum in one piece! Now on to the party. My hands and foot throbbing! 😭

I'm at my friend's house....and breathe!

I had been looking forward to the party. It was on one of my best friends' streets. Someone I have known since I was 16. I said "yes" instantly as I really wanted to spend time with her and her family and it sounded like fun. I have been conscious lately also I have been spending way too much time in the house locked away.

I would be lying though if I had said I was not still a little nervous about going as I didn't really know anyone. Mistake 6 not recognising that fully and brushing the thoughts away.

So we arrived and it was going well we sat down chatting but then there was a shift and in order to converse I was going to have to mingle. I suddenly felt super lost. All of a sudden I didn't know who to speak to or how. I started to feel really overwhelmed and had a ton of thoughts rush in that were not nice about how I standing around like a wallflower, that I didn't know what to say, that I wasn't as confident as I thought, what if I told people about my weight loss coaching and they judged me for not being a 'supermodel', I was worried about my daughter's happiness at that moment as the lone teen at the party, how I didn't know how to help her, how I was feeling pathetic, my back was hurting, my foot was hurting and it was no wonder I had lost friends over the years! Thank you brain!

I had been completely taken over by this point in time by my inner saboteurs, judge jury and executioners!

I made my excuses. Had a brief cry on my friend (cue worrying that I had dampened her day) and cried the way home.

I got home had an honest chat with my daughter about my feelings (she is amazing!) and trotted off to journal continuing to blub like a baby.

And so there I sat writing this show continuing to process, with the occasional tear, and aching head to toe from my fall but feeling inspired to share.

This actually is quite fascinating. You see I was never someone who thought it was ok to show your feelings or to be vulnerable. Ask me anything and I would tell you anything, but you had to ask me first. I thought I had to be capable, responsible, tough and show no weakness.

This started really early for me. When I was around 8 or 9 I think it was and I'm not sure if you will believe this but I actually taught myself not to be ticklish! I hated being tickled and feeling powerless and so I blocked down the feelings and would proudly declare I was not ticklish to anyone that tried.

I don't like crying though realise I can feel so much better and so I can hold back tears.

Watching horror movies, I don't want to seem weak or to act scared!

Whatever it was that started this, whether it be the name-calling/ general low self-esteem I don't know fully yet it means I have a tendency to bottle my feelings and I don't always recognise I'm doing it.

Mistake number 7 not realising I had been bottling or as I liken it I have been holding a balloon under water. Boldly carrying on and not really paying attention fully to my needs!

Mistake 8 - believing cheesecake would make me feel better! Yep, you guessed it I had an emotional overeat in the evening. I had been looking forward so some cheesecake as it is my favourite but I delivered a larger portion than I needed. It happens! TBH I am actually still classing it as a win as old me would have eaten the whole thing or at least half and this was just a quarter but still, I didn't physically need it.

LEARNING POINTS

So what are my learning points from this?

I have been learning a lot about my saboteurs lately in a course I am doing on Positive Intelligence (My top ones being my judge, hyper-rationalising, hyper-achieving and avoiding). This is my work in progress. I am way better than I was but this is one of my takeaways from the day is that I still have work to do.

Do you know what though...that is OK! 

Again old me would have wallowed and got a bit depressed, gone into my victim saboteur and hidden away from it until it went away and carried on... until next time!.

This is the one thing I really have learnt from my weight loss journey and the process I use that it really is OK to not be OK. It is ok to have vulnerabilities and things you need to work on. You really do not need to be perfect.

The next thing is the power of acceptance. There is so much relief from suffering when you accept you are where you are and do not try and fight reality. Yesterday was yesterday and I cannot change it but I can decide how I want to move forward. This is so much better a position than what I could be doing which would be worrying about it, judging myself for it and continuing to berate myself over and over.

I also now have the superpower of curiosity. I can do a curious and kind assessment of the day just like I can do with my weight loss and as neutrally as possible I can go over what happened and get curious as to how I can step into action for myself now and in the future to help me move forward.

MY TAKEAWAY GIFTS

The first gift is the extra self-awareness I now have this is critical and why it is the first step in my Triple-A-Way™️ Life and Weight Loss Method. I now have the power to step into action if I chose and I am here talking to you and so being accountable and sharing with others so the process is happening in real life!

Mistake 1 - Going back to sleep when I woke up at 4:30am

So I recognise I need to work on my thoughts about waking up early. The ones I shared early are obvious "it is too early to get up" is full of judgement - who says it is too early? There really no such thing as getting up too early if you are rested. I know I have thoughts like it is cold and dark too. Also, judgement, coldness and darkness are also solvable. This potentially was the catalyst for the day and so making it a priority too.

So my plan to try:

Work on going to bed at a suitable time to ensure I am well-rested. I want to look more into sleep cycles but can do this intuitively too.

I can remind myself that going back to sleep often makes me feel worse.

I can see the gifts in the morning I am typically more creative in the morning so it can be a good time for writing, I like the peacefulness of the morning, I like watching the sunrise.

Mistake 2 - Trying to write when I was not in the mood.

If you are a business owner you will know it takes work. I also feel very compelled to show up because I feel so passionately about what I do. This said sometimes it leads to me putting more pressure on myself than I really need to. I advocate listening to your mind. body and soul but I sometimes forget to do it too. The great thing about awareness though is once you see it, it can be hard to unsee it. It is ok to not be in the mood to do something. I have a choice do it or not do it. Work on my mood, don't work on the mood.

Mistake 3 - Not having a plan

The day's events, reinforce the fact I work better with a realistic plan. I was trying to do too much and heightened my expectations of myself.

I need to plan...even if don't stick to it 100% as it is not about perfection it serves as a guide and increases the chance of success.

I had made a big wish list for myself effectively and then didn't have a pivot mapped out for surprises. You can't plan away everything and planning itself should not feel restrictive but It may have made a difference.

Mistake 4 - Rushing

I am reminded that I need to slow down, I could have brought in my mindfulness techniques, journaled and self-coached more before, during and after. These are not things you do once or even once a day if you want to see the benefit and they don't have to take long.

Mistake 5 - Thinking I can let people down

This one was interesting to reflect on. Of course, you can let people down, the point is that I am not the one in control of it. I have limited ability to impact someone's thoughts and feelings. I can only ever try to be the best person I can be at any given moment and that will either be accepted by the other person or not. The irony is in rushing to make sure I was on time for others I put me last. The reality is that they may not have cared that I was running late. It is not like me to be late, but my true friends and family accept me for who I am. The only one judging me at that point in time was myself, as I had gone too far down the rabbit hole to see it.

Mistake 6 - Not recognising concerns regarding socialising

In the show I did on the 5 D's of eating out, I talked about how I had suffered from depression in the past and had in the past struggled when it came to going to parties. I didn't really go into it much in that show but part of this was the thoughts I would have about what people thought of me, eating out, what would I say, how did I look etc this had at times led me to cancel on friends and that this had lost me friendships as a result.

When I wrote that though it had been a while since I had been invited to a party and I am not going to lie I thought I had moved on since then.

I have no problem talking on the phone, or online but seemingly meeting up with a bunch of strangers is not my forte no matter how nice they are.

I don't think I am alone in this but it is something I will be pondering more on. Am I just not a party person and in which case do I need to think more about what events I say yes/no to or do I want to work on being more comfortable in those situations. Kudos to me though, it may not have worked out how I would have hoped but I did go at least.

Mistake 7 - Bottling Feelings

This is a deep one for me. It is a habit I have had for a long time and therefore one that I accept will come back from time to time. I had not been feeling great at the start of the week. Possibly hormone-related and I had tried to put in extra self-care and mindfulness which had helped but in hindsight, I could have gone further. I have been feeling it in my body and so I will remind myself and use my accountability system to ensure that when I feel like this I need to take some deeper action.

Mistake 8 -Emotionally eating Cheesecake

Yeah, it happens. I am not infallible to an overeat. I see it though for what it is. I still have at the point of writing the rest of the cheesecake in the fridge and I have a choice as to what I do with it. The great thing about my weight loss program is I can have it if I want to. I could cut it into smaller portions. I could freeze some or I could if I wanted to chuck the rest in the bin. There is no right or wrong answer there other than making the decision and being happy with it because I chose it and not doing something because I think I 'should' or 'must'.

RECAP

I hope what you have seen today is that it is ok to have bad days. It is ok to struggle with making mistakes, and even after a really howling day there are ways to go forward in life and weight loss. This hopefully is not a typical day for most of you so there was a lot to cover but I use it as a great example of how to plan for action and the future and how to hold yourself accountable with and without others. How all of this is possible with the Triple-A-Way™️ method and Self-Coaching

Today I am able to breathe easier.

What's important is that I try to learn from my mistakes and grow from them.

If you are ready to find sustainable weight loss by ditching mainstream diets to find more joy PLUS Food & Life Freedom check out the VIP Coaching Membership HERE.

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Categories: : mindset, Weight loss