Love Me, Love Me, Love Me

I've never thought I had a problem loving myself because I have pretty high self esteem. It turns out those two things are not the same and having one doesn't mean you have the other. I take a lot of pride in my accomplishments, and I rarely doubt my ability to achieve any goal I set for myself, but lately I am realizing that I haven't been loving myself.

About a year ago, I came to realize that I did not know how to meet my own emotional needs. I expected others to fill that role and provide me with love, support, encouragement, and positivity when I lacked it. If I were sad, I looked to others to make me happy. If I were lonely, I expected the people who said they cared about me to be there to alleviate my loneliness. If I were angry, I expected the person whose behavior had triggered my anger to change themselves to appease me. I have learned that I alone am responsible for fulfilling my emotional needs and that, in fact, others really can't do this for me.

Before my ex walked out on me a year ago last April, he had asked me to take the Love Languages quiz with him, which I did. I learned that my primary love language is acts of service. Last month, the day before I was leaving on vacation, I had an epiphany. I had to mow the lawn that morning. I hate mowing the lawn, but I don't have anyone else to do it and can't really afford to pay someone right now. On my way to meet a friend, I realized that even though my primary love language is acts of service, I actively refuse to let anyone help me. Ever. Had someone offered to mow my lawn for me, I would have refused insistently for two reasons. 1) I believe that asking for help is weakness (even if the help is proffered, and 2) I don't want to ow anyone anything. (I don't yet know how this latter belief was developed.) Besides if someone really loved me, they'd insist just as hard to do it and even sneak and mow my yard behind my back if they had to. Seriously, Tif? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!

There have been all kinds of people in my life trying to love me the way I want and need, and I stand in their way and block them from doing it. "Nah, thanks but no thanks. I can do it myself." This was the moment I realized that I don't love myself. Not because I don't want to  or because I think I don't deserve it. I am an awesome person, and I totally deserve love. It's because I never knew how, and if I don't know how to love me, how the fuck is anyone else supposed to know how to do it? It's my job to tell people how I want to be loved, and if I can't do that, I can't get pissed when they don't do it right. And I certainly can't throw a pity party for myself (NOBODY LOVES ME!) when intuitive, discerning people try to love me the way I want and need, and I block them from doing it. And I have to stop standing in their way when they try to offer me the love I want.

Because I never received love the way I needed as a child, I actively put up barriers in my adult life, expecting that someone who REALLY loved me will meet my needs anyway despite my resistant, that they'll "inflict some care" on me as I heard someone say once. But forced love isn't love.

So now I am working on figuring out how to love me, so that I can love myself fully the way I deserve to be loved, and so that when I find my someone to spend the rest of my life with, whether my ex and I eventually work things out or I meet an amazing new someone, I will be able to communicate to them the things that make me feel loved, and so they can do the same with me.

So far, I am making good progress. :) <3

Love Me, Love Me, Love Me

I've never thought I had a problem loving myself because I have pretty high self esteem. It turns out those two things are not the same and having one doesn't mean you have the other. I take a lot of pride in my accomplishments, and I rarely doubt my ability to achieve any goal I set for myself, but lately I am realizing that I haven't been loving myself.

About a year ago, I came to realize that I did not know how to meet my own emotional needs. I expected others to fill that role and provide me with love, support, encouragement, and positivity when I lacked it. If I were sad, I looked to others to make me happy. If I were lonely, I expected the people who said they cared about me to be there to alleviate my loneliness. If I were angry, I expected the person whose behavior had triggered my anger to change themselves to appease me. I have learned that I alone am responsible for fulfilling my emotional needs and that, in fact, others really can't do this for me.

Before my ex walked out on me a year ago last April, he had asked me to take the Love Languages quiz with him, which I did. I learned that my primary love language is acts of service. Last month, the day before I was leaving on vacation, I had an epiphany. I had to mow the lawn that morning. I hate mowing the lawn, but I don't have anyone else to do it and can't really afford to pay someone right now. On my way to meet a friend, I realized that even though my primary love language is acts of service, I actively refuse to let anyone help me. Ever. Had someone offered to mow my lawn for me, I would have refused insistently for two reasons. 1) I believe that asking for help is weakness (even if the help is proffered, and 2) I don't want to owe anyone anything. (I don't yet know how this latter belief was developed.) Besides if someone really loved me, they'd insist just as hard to do it and even sneak and mow my yard behind my back if they had to. Seriously, Tif? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!

There have been all kinds of people in my life trying to love me the way I want and need, and I stand in their way and block them from doing it. "Nah, thanks but no thanks. I can do it myself." This was the moment I realized that I don't love myself. Not because I don't want to  or because I think I don't deserve it. I am an awesome person, and I totally deserve love. It's because I never knew how, and if I don't know how to love me, how the fuck is anyone else supposed to know how to do it? It's my job to tell people how I want to be loved, and if I can't do that, I can't get pissed when they don't do it right. And I certainly can't throw a pity party for myself (NOBODY LOVES ME!) when intuitive, discerning people try to love me the way I want and need, and I block them from doing it. I have to stop standing in their way when they try to offer me the love I want.

Because I never received love the way I needed as a child, I actively put up barriers in my adult life, expecting that someone who REALLY loved me will meet my needs anyway despite my resistance, that they'll "inflict some care" on me as I heard someone say once. But forced love isn't love.

So now I am working on figuring out how to love me, so that I can love myself fully the way I deserve to be loved, and so that when I find my someone to spend the rest of my life with, whether my ex and I eventually work things out or I meet an amazing new someone, I will be able to communicate to him the things that make me feel loved, and so he can do the same with me.

So far, I am making good progress. :) <3

Oh, the Terror! Oh, the Beauty!

As much as I'd love to write about my whole vacation, that would probably take all night and the whole of it doesn't really fit the purpose of this blog, so I'm going to focus on one day. The worst day. The best day.

With only one day left of our vacation at the Grand Canyon, my daughter and I decided to hike to Skeleton Point because it sounded way cooler than any of our other options. We didn't know the trail to Skelton Point would lead us down into the canyon. I just figured the trail continued on around the rim another five miles. That notion was quickly dispelled once we started our hike. It was completely by accident that we hiked into the Grand Canyon that day, but we were so stoked that we got this amazing fortuitous opportunity.

As we continued hiking, we saw signs posted warning hikers about the strenuousness of the trail, which was seeming pretty easy to us, so we decided to hike all the way to the Colorado River. We made it probably 3/4 of the way down, and stopped at Tip Off Point (about a mile and a half past Skeleton Point) to eat, hydrate, and rest a  bit. My daughter was ready to give up on our goal and head back up. I was disappointed, but I also didn't want to push her past her limits. I knew going back up was going to be a bitch. But I tend to have an obsessive mind. When I get something in my head, I often can't let it go. I was so close to the bottom. Only another 2.6 miles. How could I quit now? I tried to convince her to wait for me at Tip Off, but she insisted on heading back up. 

This is where I made a bad decision. I let her go by herself, and I continued my trek down to the river. I advised her to go slow, ration her water, and take frequent breaks in the shade, promising to catch back up to her within an hour or two. We set a meet-up location at the trailhead just in case it took me longer than anticipated. 

I guess I made it to within about a half-mile from the trail bridge that crossed the river (about a mile / mile and a half from the campgrounds and Phantom Ranch) when I really started second guessing my decision. It was 3:30 at this point, and I definitely did not want to be hiking up the canyon after dark. I was also starting to worry about my daughter heading back up on her own. 

I turned around. Making it all the way to the river would just have to wait for another trip. 

At this point, I felt fine. I was starting to feel a little tired. After all, I had hiked somewhere around 7-8 miles of steep, rocky trail from elevation of 7,000 feet to about 3,000 or 4,000 feet in 115 degree heat in around 3 hours. I took about ten steps back up the trail before the heat exhaustion hit me hard. I could barely move. I started feeling incredibly faint and nauseated. I slowed down, focusing just on putting one foot in front of the other. I might have made it close to a half mile before I started seriously thinking I might die down there. I stopped every ten steps or so to rest. I started scoping out crevices in the walls that could keep me from falling off the edge if I were to actually faint, which was feeling like an increasing danger with every step I took. 

I started fearing the worst for my daughter and berating myself for letting her head back up alone. At this point, I only had one goal: to get back to her. But I could barely move. 

I remembered an emergency phone at Tip Off Point--the only one I had seen on the entire trail. I knew that couldn't be more than a mile away. All I had to do was make it that phone, and I could get help. I don't know how long it took me to get there, but it felt like hours, crawling at a snail's pace, stopping every few steps. I hadn't seen any other hikers for hours. No one would save me. I determined I would not die down there. 

I was ashamed to use the emergency phone. All those warning signs that I didn't think applied to me, and here I was one of those stupid tourists who didn't know her limitations in need of being rescued. But I didn't have a choice. This was for my daughter, so my pride was irrelevant. 

I picked up the phone and explained my symptoms to the dispatcher and a park ranger. I had this idea in my mind that someone was going to come get me. Ha! The ranger gave me the combination to the lock on the emergency supplies and told me to rest for an hour, slowly drinking water and eating some salty snacks until I felt myself again. I followed orders. 

Thankfully, as it closed in on the end of the hour, I saw two hikers coming down the trail. They had seen my daughter and confirmed that she was fine. When they saw her, she was already back to the more populated portion of the trail. Relieved that she had not suffered as I had,  I started to make my way back. It was a slow, painstaking journey. Every step was a challenge. With each step, I didn't think I could possibly take another. But I did. One more step. One more step. I just focused on one at a time.

As the sun started setting, I started thinking about all the dangers I might encounter. I unpacked my gear, hung the whistle around my neck, strapped my knife to my waistband, got my headlamp out, and tied my jacket around my waist so it would easily accessible when then sun sank and the temperatures dropped. I started thinking about every danger I might encounter. As the temps fall with the sun, snakes and scorpions come out. There were also warnings about mountain lions. Needless to say, I was a bit terrified, but I didn't have much choice. I had to keep going. I had to get back to my daughter. I knew she'd worry until we were reunited. 

Most of the way up, I kept my eyes on my feet on the trail. I was very unsteady, and the last thing I needed was to trip and fall off the ledge. But every once and a while, I'd stop and make myself look out over the canyon. "Don't miss it!" I told myself. I watched the sun set as I walked. I watched the moon rise. I watched the clouds parts and the stars come out. I watched the color palette of the canyon fade--the reds and oranges and greens and browns dissolved into gray shadows and finally a black abyss. 

It was the most terrifying and the most amazing experience of my life. Every moment, I felt more alive than I ever have in my life. And I made it. At 10:30, I took the last step up out of the canyon. I hugged my daughter and told her I loved her. We shared stories. We shared how scared we were and how proud of what we had both accomplished. 

I didn't make it to the river, but I got close. Based on the number of hikers we saw at each point on the way down, not may can say they made it as far as I did, and certainly fewer can say they also made it back to the top in the same day. I can now count myself among a very small group of people in the world who have hiked the canyon at night.

To understand the scale of my hike, just to Skeleton Point was described on the maps as the equivalent of 240 flights of stairs. I hiked 2-3 miles of trail beyond that. Round trip, that's roughly an additional 5 miles of climbing.

There are some people I won't be able to share this story with. Out of a place of love for me and fear for my safety, they will berate me for my choices and diminish the awe and wonder of my experience. I would prefer to have not allowed my obsession to separate my daughter and me on our hike. I would prefer to have been better prepared and taken a lot more water on our journey. I would prefer to have had a better understanding of my limitations before I set out. But I didn't. And that's ok. I learned a lot from this experience, and I wouldn't give it back for anything in the world. 

I am already planning a return trip where I will hike to the bottom and camp and raft the river and explore everything the bottom of the canyon has to offer. 

Encouragement

I ended up eating a cheeseburger at McD's last night after all, but only after an entire day of incredibly healthy (and cheap!) food choices. My brain keeps wanting me to believe that the cheeseburger was so worth it, but the truth is it wasn't. It didn't satisfy my craving. It didn't live up to the expectations I had built up in my mind. Ultimately, eating that McDonald's cheeseburger was every bit as disappointing as eating cucumber salad for lunch. I must remember this gong forward. Just like that super hot guy probably isn't any good in bed, the junk food I crave only appears to be everything I've ever wanted. Sure, I can have it if I want, but in the end I'll just be left with disappointment and regret and probably a tummy ache and an entire day of lethargy. 

Loving myself means taking care of myself. Today, I will make choices that are good are for me. 

One of the support groups I have is a private Facebook group devoted to healthy living. I posted my struggle yesterday and a pic of my cucumber salad. Today when I woke up, the first thing I saw on Facebook was an encouraging message from a friend in the group. Her response to me is literally the only reason I am continuing yesterday's experiment today. Because let's face it. Yesterday sucked. Eating healthy sucked. Going to the gym sucked. Not spending money sucked. I'd rather watch Netflix and pound down a pizza and a couple liters of Coke. Yesterday, I think I'd have been willing to kill (or at least claw someone's eyes out) for a giant bowl of white cheddar mac n cheese. (The struggle is real!)

So here's a shout out to Angela for helping me stay the course. 

By the way, after just one day of eating a low carb diet, my body fat percentage went back to normal (about 26.5% for me). If I could drop 1% body fat after one day of eating well and going to the gym, imagine what a month could do for my fitness goals! 

Accountability

Achieving one's goals requires a high level of accountability. For me, accountability means reporting on my progress and reflecting on my choices. I have created spaces in my life for support groups connected to specific goals, but I don't always like such compartmentalization. Everything is interconnected, and seeing the connections is how I stay the course for my  long term goals. It's easier to drink a protein shake for breakfast instead of going to McDonald's for a McGriddle (one of today's challenges) if I see it as more than just a choice to eat healthy but as a choice to save money as well.

It can also be difficult to navigate group spaces, which are shared with others. I want a space of my own. I have many blogs, but each is tied to one specific area of my life, and probably as a direct result of that has been long abandoned. I need a "me" space, a space where I can share and reflect on everything, all the areas of life I'm trying to improve against all odds: work, home, family, finance, healthy eating, exercise, spiritual growth, relationships. You name it, I'm probably trying to work on it.

Calling myself Wonder Woman might be a bit grandiose, but I'm hardly the first woman to do it. I have a tendency to take on and accomplish more than most people. I set what might seem like impossible standards, and then I find a way to measure up to them. I dream big. I vanquish all that stands in my way. No enemy has ever defeated me. It's time, though, to start redefining my enemies, so I can build the life I want, the life I deserve.

My primary enemy right now is my attitude. I hear myself saying "I can't, I can't, I can't." The truth is I'm just lazy and don't want to follow through on the behavior changes necessary to achieve my goals. I have to start responding to myself like all the people in my past who told me I couldn't do the things I wanted: "Fuck you. Watch me." I let their doubt fuel me. I need to turn my own doubt into fuel.

I started today. When I woke up this morning, I wanted McDonald's for breakfast. With my vacation coming up, I don't need to be spending money eating out, but that hasn't stopped me any other day this week. These poor food choices aren't just fucking over my budget though. They're blowing up my waist line. One bad choice doesn't seem like a big deal, but they add up over time. Today I decided to start making better choices.

I made myself a protein shake for breakfast: tropical fruits (pineapple, strawberry, mango), spinach, almond milk, and my vanilla protein powder. I know it's good for me, not just my health but for attaining financial freedom and building body I want. I made a cucumber salad recipe I've been wanting to try before I headed to the gym. That way I knew I'd have something healthy waiting for me when I got home. I ate half a red pepper on my way out and a chocolate Quest bar on my way to the gym. I hit the weights. Hard. I'm on my second 32 ounce bottle of water today, and I did eat the cucumber salad for lunch. Once again, a cheeseburger would taste so much better. It would satisfy my cravings. But I know what I'll feel like later if I succumb to that. Cucumber salad it is.

When I have these fights with myself, I have to remember that the one I feed (literally!) wins. Who do I want to be? What kind of life will I live? The woman I feed will determine these outcomes. I'm tired of losing to myself. I'm tired of sacrificing what I really want to momentary pleasures. I am Wonder Woman. If I can conquer the world, I can conquer myself.