Mind mischief

Gotta be above it, gotta be above it, gotta be above it, gotta be above it...
                                                 'Be Above It' Tame Impala

Progress report from yesterday and this morning. Only one self hypno session yesterday and it was marred by brain skittering off in about 3 million directions. Can I help it if I have an inquiring mind and think about a lot of stuff? Not a lot of highly intellectual stuff, admittedly. But at least I think! This morning was better with a more extended period of trying to settle my mind down and staying on task.  Still not sure I'm being specific enough with what I'm asking my unconscious mind to do or whether I'm so desperate to change I'm just asking for anything that sounds positive and/or will help me drop some more weight. Yeah, I'm that shallow. Deal with it :)

The kindest man in the world, because he is the kindest man in the world and has only ever wanted me to be happy and fulfilled in my own skin, is absolutely on board with all this and for this I am grateful. Let's just say it's not a level of support I have enjoyed in the past.  Note to people everywhere: telling your supposed loved one that they are 'fucking huge and need to do something about it', particularly when you are somewhat hefty yourself, is rarely a productive way to get somebody to change. Or is that just me?  I know I favour the direct approach, but seriously.  Firstly, I have never been the kind of person who will change just because somebody else thinks I should. Secondly, credit me with enough intelligence to already know that being (at the time) a size 28 meant that I was indeed huge and needed to do something about it. Thirdly, fuck off. I already judge myself enough for you and the population of a small overly critical European country and do not require your assistance in this regard.

The kindest man in the world has never judged me, which is one of the reasons I moved 10,000 miles to be with him. It's no surprise to me therefore that when I first brought up the idea of hypno-dude he was all for it and since starting with the whole hypno/life coachy malarkey has been asking me how he can help with the process. At the moment it's reminding me to do the two daily self hypno sessions and also being on the alert for when I'm slapping myself down. I'm happy to say I haven't kept him too busy with this in the last couple of days. Yay for progress!

Actually, it's probably going to help him too, as the kindest man in the world isn't necessarily the kindest he could be to himself. But he can't be talking negative shit about himself when he's encouraging me not to, can he? Self help by stealth!

I have one of hypo-dude's books (actually I have two, but only know the location of one - ooops) so my first mission today is to re-read the bit on self hypno to make sure I've got it straight and hopefully reassure myself that one day I can do it without getting distracted by thoughts about football, what colour I should do my hair next, the increasingly perilous nature of Western capitalism, the lyrics to the Dead Kennedy's 'Nazi Punks Fuck Off' and where the hell to find a decent pair of shoes that won't kill my feet.  I'm sure I'll get there eventually.

My second mission is to do my second self hypno session but not late at night because although it's relaxing and helps me sleep, it's relaxing and helps me sleep....a bit too much!

I may have found the theme song for this journey although really it's a song that got me through a major rough patch i.e.being told I had incurable chronic kidney disease and would be dead in five to twenty years - not overly inspiring news when you're 36! In one of those freaky twists of fate that make you think there's a lot more going on than we know, three years later I was told by the frankly stunned kidney specialist that it had completely cleared...so there you go, never say never but getting back to my point (eventually) this was my theme song through those years and I think is about to become again...because whatever else you can say about this freakshow called life, there's always hope for better stuff around the corner. So always keep an eye out for the corner. It'd be a bitch if you missed it.

Chewing the fat

Ain't you got no true love waiting for you
Ain't you got no true love waiting
Eat city's gonna get you!
                                   'Eat City'  The Angels

Right, progress check from yesterday.

2 self hypnosis sessions, tick. Successfully managed not to reply with 'good thinking, fatwoman' when the kindest man in the world said to me 'good thinking, batman' about something in relation to lunch, tick. Kept eye on negative thought patterns, tick. Need to talk to hypno-dude about the self hypnosis and what appears to me to be a somewhat scattergun approach to what he calls 'dissociation-reintegration'. I do all right on the dissociation part (asking unconscious mind to clear out the crap) but when it comes to good stuff in as opposed to bad stuff out I get a bit panicky and start shoving all sorts of positive goodness into the old unconscious. It may not be able to cope with it after all these years of abuse haha. I think I'm being a bit positive-generic, like any positivity will do.  One for the update email he wants from me tomorrow.

Also a tad concerned about my inability to really focus in the second session, although admittedly I was knackered and knackered is rarely a state for one's finest work. I don't know if my unconscious mind is really going to benefit from me wondering whether that interview on Uruguayan radio means that Luis Suarez is going to leave Liverpool.  Damn you, wandering mind!

Today I am, and I would say somewhat ironically given the reference to Luis Suarez if it didn't happen ALL THE BLOODY TIME, spending time thinking about my eating issues. Because one of the things that has brought me to this point is being fat. Sometimes pretty fat, sometime really fat and occasionally freak show fat. You would have gathered yesterday I don't really do excuses and 'there there, you've had a tough life, no wonder dear' bullshit thinking. So I am not going to sit here and say yeah I am fat but it's because of this bad thing and this traumatic life event and therefore I should be a bit kinder to myself about my own failings, even though according to the self help gurus I probably should. Be kinder to myself, not offer excuses. Probably. Yeah, I should.

I am bloody tired of thinking about being fat and how not to be fat and my general level of self loathing connected with being fat and yet here I am again. It's the frigging 21st century and the world is full of both awesome things and real problems that deserve my attention far more than this. Excuse me a moment while I express some exasperation:

FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The aim of this current journey is to build some self confidence. I'm pretty sure the lack of self confidence led to the fat in the first instance. No love for self = no caring for self = punishing self by doing thing that will make you feel even worse because you're a piece of shit aren't you? (Note I have said that in the second person so my record of not saying negative stuff about myself since seeing hypno-dude still stands. It works for me haha.) So hopefully as my confidence increases, the fat decreases and the amount of time I think about what does and doesn't go into my gob decreases as well.  Man that will be good!!!!!!

As much as anything else I really, realllllly bloody hope that after decades of obsessing and beating myself up I can finally let fat Sandy go. I nearly added 'and forget she ever existed' but I don't really want to do that. Though I do. Though I know I shouldn't want to. But I do. But I won't because fat Sandy in all her incarnations and circus tents made me the person I am now who although yeah still fat has gained a fair bit of wisdom, compassion, empathy, humour and general awesomeness through suffering. Can't be all bad, even given the size of my arse.

See, I'm a bit into the yin and yang of the universe, nothing's completely good or completely bad. Or as a friend of mine once put it, it takes shit for roses to grow. Whenever I have been going through a crap phase (and there have been many) this thought kept me going. You never know what good things are around the corner. The fact the kindest man in the world is in my life is proof enough of that.

Fat Sandy had her place and she wasn't altogether bad but I'm grown up now (theoretically) and there's stuff I want to do and sorry love but you're not up to it and you can't come. Now let me put that bloody cheese toastie down OK. It's time to move on.

Well, how about it then?

Hello, my name is Sandy and I would like to be in a better place than I am....making me the same as about 90% of the population probably. Which is not a good way to introduce anything that you want anybody to take notice of, I realise.

Let's start again.  Hello, my name is Sandy and I am a person who has spent a large part of her life fighting her own demons. Occasionally I have succeeded and sometimes I have spectacularly failed. I don't really want to talk here about why I have demons largely cos it's got to the stage where it bores the shit out of me and what's the friggin' point? This is the point where I lose not only the people who are the same as me, but everyone who likes reading about other people's demons.  I think I have now reduced my readership to potentially five people, four of who are now flicking back to check their Twitter feeds. Wey hey! 

Bear with me, I do have a point, it's somewhere between my ears and will be released soon, I promise!

Not only do I have a point, I have a reason for starting this blog now and not at any other demon battling point...I've just started a new journey of self awareness (can't you hear the pan pipes) and I'd like to document it. Why, cos at this stage of my life, I need not only to battle, I need to win, and if I talk about it maybe it all starts to make sense and gel and I finally, finally get to a point where I may actually *whispers in fear of jinxing it* LIKE myself.  Because I know I'm all right really, but I don't really believe it. You could say I'm a bit of a fuckup. YOU could, I can't call myself a fuckup any more because my hypno-dude will be cranky and he could be reading this so there I haven't said it sir and I now reaffirm that I am actually a damn fine human being. See, I'm learning!

My approach to self help has not always been so self-concillatory.  Some people who have tragic/shitty/complicated lives blame everybody and everything else, thereby making everyone else suffer/victims of crime/really pissed off.  I cannot bloody stand those people. I have compassion for them as somebody else who could be considered to have led a more or less tragic/complicated/shitty life, but I also want to beat the living shit out of them.  This is because and I will put this in caps because I often do shout it LIFE CAN BE SHIT BUT HOW YOU RESPOND IS YOUR CHOICE!!!!! You don't have to become an alcoholic, or a granny basher, or a misery guts. You choose your response to everything that happens to you. You choose to accept responsibility for yourself. You choose to get bitter or get better. 

This is the philosophy I live by.  Got issues? How about a nice cup of harden up, princess?

As I have gotten older though I'm kind of starting to realise I've gone too far in the direction of hard. That I'm constantly beating myself up for not being stronger, better, more resilient. That the confidence that I lost and that I allowed to be taken from me isn't really going to come back if I'm constantly falling short of my own expectations of my ability to let go and move on. The self help gurus will say I need to be kinder to myself and as much as that kind of statement makes me want to spew they are right. Probably. Yeah, they're right, bugger it.

So I have found myself hypno-dude who is a hypnosis/life coachy person and not at all a hippy dippy hand wringing mung bean eating chanting incense burning freak because otherwise I a) wouldn't be working with him and/or b) would probably be arrested for strangling him. My apologies to any hippy dippy hand wringing mung bean eating chanting incense burning freaks, I mean people reading this. I don't hate you at all honestly, just sometimes I want to slap you stupid. 

Hypno-dude is my weapon of choice at the moment because I don't need counselling, I don't need psychotherapy and I don't need someone to facilitate me wallowing in my own shit, particularly if I'm paying for it! I need somebody to help me push past my own barriers. First session was yesterday. So far so good. Blockages being cleared leaving a big hole in brain and putting up a sign saying 'insert good stuff here', with good stuff being inserted in the sessions and my own self hypnosis sessions which will be done daily. And will be tracking the progress in this here blog :)

I am ready to like me, to be everything I can be and help as many other people along the way as I can.  I've wasted too much time on negative shit and beating myself up. Life's too short. Too short to waste and too long to regret.  So here goes...............................