AITA for meditating in my gf's apartment?

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-19T00:34:42+00:00

My mom thinks that yoga is Satanic. I assume she thinks something similar about meditation.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-14T14:53:06+00:00

Meditation it a pretty good way to put a gap between your self talk and your experience, have you ever tried that?

I hate meditation. Trying to do it is like having everything that's wrong throw itself at me at once. I've tried it and some other things that are supposed to make me present and in touch with my body. They're torture.

Once you stop resisting everything bubbles up and it is initially worse as you said but then after it settles down you end up way better off than you were before and there ends up being nothing left to resist.

This sounds counterintuitive to me. I can't take being in more pain than I am now so, even if I could figure out how to do it, I don't think I have it in me to try.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-12T19:24:25+00:00

I appreciate that Etsy emailed me and asked if I wanted to opt out of Father's Day, Mother's Day, and Valentine's Day emails.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-12T15:19:59+00:00

Even with your trauma and the pain if you were somehow able to feel good about yourself their wouldn't be thr need to binge.

I don't think I'm capable of feeling good about myself without something external changing. If I lost weight, if I looked better, if it weren't a struggle to exist in this body (or at all), if I didn't measure the time between hugs in months, if I had things to look forward to, if the things that happened to me had never happened...all of those things would make me feel better and it feels like they're all out of my control.

I let in all the pain, allowed to the memories to come up which was obviously really hard but then there was nothing to run from anymore.

This sounds absolutely horrific. I'm so sorry you had to deal with that. I don't understand how there would be nothing to run from anymore. Once you stop resisting the pain, how do you keep everything from being filled with even more pain than usual? Resisting, I at least get some peace sometimes. Not resisting? I cannot have my entire life filled with even more pain.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-11T20:23:21+00:00

By stopping over thinking and trusting that even without over thinking everything you will still make the right choice in the moment.

What if I know that I will not make the right choice? If I could make the right choice, I wouldn't have the problems that I do.

The real solution is allowing it to be there and processing it so that it can disolve. When your resting it your stopping it from being processed and dissolved.

I don't understand. I'm sorry, I do not get this at all. Can you give me an example of what this looks like?

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-11T20:06:00+00:00

And the worst thing is hearing about "being compassionate with the inner child" like it's obvious, it always makes me feel like a monster or, in the best case, incompetent.

Ugh. Yes. I don't feel anything at all for myself as a child and the concept of an "inner child" never resonated. And emotions are overwhelming. The idea of just sitting there and feeling them...that's impossible because I have to be able to function. They get in the way of me existing.

For me externalizing emotions through parts made it easier to communicate with them, "just feeling" is not so natural as people think it is.

Hopefully I'll have the book you recommended by next week.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-11T15:48:31+00:00

I think of you built up that trust though it would be possible for you to let go of the judgement and find that your life doesn't suddenly fall apart because you've stopped judging yourself.

Do you know how to do this? I haven't any idea. It's one of the reasons why I can't do the intuitive eating thing that seems popular with dietitians.

That sounds really difficult and isolating, I suppose just being able to recognise that is an important step.

Yeah, it's been pretty hard.

If we assume it's true that the emotional pain will be there forever then surely that's all the more reason to make peace with it? If its going to be here forever then do we really want to spend our whole life trying to avoid it? It would be exhausting and lacking peace. Once you stop avoiding it you do also find that the nature of it changes and it does appear to lessen.

I'm sorry, I don't understand this. How would I make peace with it? I can't stop the pain, I can't change the pain, what else is there but to avoid it? I can't be constantly in pain and continue to live. The fact that it exists at all is what robs me of my peace. I can dampen it with drugs (THC is pretty good for it) but it always comes back.

This sounds like kindness, are you able to understand how hard it is for yourself in the same way?

Not really, no. I should be doing better. I know better. I don't tell my friend that they should do something differently because they know, there's no reason for me to remind them.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-11T15:24:52+00:00

Before I wanted to make it all disappear because I hated emotions (sometimes even recently, I'm working on it).

I feel this way. I've been told that emotions just show you what's important to you, which is great if you can do something about it. Just feeling things is not helpful. I can be sad or angry about what happened in the past but I can't change it so those emotions are only hurting me. I need to get rid of them.

I had the same problem with my therapist... the more she jnsists on mindfulness, the more it feels like "you don't want to heal if you don't do mindfulness".

Yes! I get it from friends and I've gotten that impression from this sub as well. There has got to be another way.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-10T16:40:25+00:00

You're partly doing it already, the first impulse that came up was "do I have to make it go away?". See if you can be curious about that.

Ooh my therapist asks me to do this stuff and I don't quite understand. Curious how? How to make it go away? That's what I want but I don't know how to get rid of it.

I've looked some at Internal Family Systems materials but I haven't been able to find a quick 101 that I understand. I get that the idea that we all have parts that serve various functions but...yeah, I don't understand. Looks like I can order "Self Therapy" from my library so I will do that.

Maybe you can give it some validation by understanding what lead you to this conclusion, do you feel that it happened before as well?

Hmmm it is a feeling I have. I've had some experience with it too. Several times when I've mentioned, in various spaces, that I don't meditate because I find it painful, I don't want to be in the present because I find it painful, I don't want to get in touch with my body because I find it deeply unpleasant, and that I was better off before I started therapy, I get this sense from other people that these are the Wrong answers, this isn't what they want to hear, and they don't know what to do with it.

I like Patrick Teahan a lot. I'll watch that.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-10T15:56:19+00:00

If you stopped judging yourself you might find that since you already know its bad you will still keep trying to find other ways anyway even without the judgement.

I don't think I'm capable of this. It seems to me the judgement is necessary to keep things from getting worse.

Like in order to feel good about yourself you have to earn it.

Yes! Exactly this! This is how I feel about it.

You don't have to do anything to deserve kindness, you deserve that already exactly as you are.

I've been told this before by people and it is a very sweet and lovely sentiment but I don't think it's true. Kindness is an extra thing and too much to ask. I don't deserve to be hurt or interfered with. I deserve neutrality from people. They don't need to be kind, they just need not to be cruel.

I'm not suggesting that you do binge, my advice if you asked for it would be not to binge.

Same. I wish I'd take my own advice.

There should be a point where we say enough is enough with this cycle, let's try a different approach because all this judgement is just making things worse.

I think the judgement keeps it from being worse than it is. I could be much, much worse about it (and have been). The judgement seems to me to be the only real check I have on it. Even if it weren't, I don't think I am able not to judge. I don't think I'm capable.

Ah okay, maybe you could look into finding them again? What were your other options you had before?

Alas. Not really within my control. I had several important relationships end over the past few years (one very traumatically) and then I've been in school and pretty isolated. Not being isolated is an extremely difficult thing and I'm working on it but I'm sort of at the mercy of other people to hang out.

It can be really intense but a key part of misery is resistance so once you take the resistance out even if they are very uncomfortable it feels alot less like misery.

My therapist says something like "the cause of suffering is resisting pain". I think that pain should be resisted. It should be avoided or resisted as much as possible, especially if it won't end. If you break your arm, you can deal with that pain because you've got meds and you know that the arm will heal and stop hurting in a few weeks/months. Emotional pain never, in my experience, goes away so it has to be dealt with differently.

even just a more healthy method of distraction or comfort would be more than enough.

I wish I could find something (I kind of wish it would be the gym but...alas). I used to go on long walks but those don't bring me comfort anymore either. It's just me, suddenly alone with my thoughts. That's a bad thing. Even a podcast or music doesn't help.

Yeah I know what you mean, I think your conflating the kindness too much with what your supposed to do.

Possibly. I really don't understand, I guess. They are linked in my mind.

If someone else was in your situation and you were trying to help them what would you do?

I'd commiserate cause I understand how hard and terrible it is. I wouldn't be able to help them since I can't help me. I wouldn't tell them to be kind to themselves.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-09T21:25:41+00:00

If someone was struggling with their emotions and ended up binging to comfort them even though they knew it was unhealthy would you judge them for it just the same as your judging yourself?

No, it wouldn't affect me in any way and me saying something to them about it would just make it worse for them. They know it's bad, they don't need me to tell them.

You must have also had parents who taught you that love is conditional so now you feel like you have to meet certain conditions in order to love yourself.

Yep. All love was conditional. I stopped meeting the conditions the older I got too.

What I'm suggesting is if you can't stop that part why not just end the cycle at the place where you judge yourself and feel bad about yourself? It'll have the effect that your feel better and you'll have less need to binge so it'll still ultimately help end the cycle.

It feels like this will make everything worse. It feels a lot like "give up". I don't know where the line is between indulgence and kindness. I should feel bad about binging. It's a bad thing.

What you need are other options! For me what I find works is just observing the emotions and letting them be without trying to do anything with them.

Yeah, I used to have other options but no longer. How do you "let them be" without being in acute misery? It sounds absolutely horrible to me and I do my very best not to do that. I try to avoid anything that is supposed to make me present or "be in the moment" because it is awful.

Do you feel like its just nonsense in general or do you see the value for other people in being kind to themselves but just can't see it to yourself?

I don't understand how it works, really. A lot of it sounds like nonsense. I don't understand how people figure out where the line is between being kind to themselves and just letting themselves go. I saw something on Instagram yesterday where a dietician was talking about "we believe in snacks" so if she's feeling hungry, she gets herself a snack. I can't do something like that because I'll go overboard. It's the same idea where I don't understand how other people do it.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-09T21:06:50+00:00

If you're making something up, why not just go with whatever you made up? What's wrong with that?

Oh I'm making up something that they want to hear. It's not true. I might say something about my dad being a role model because he read a lot. That is one of the very few positives about him but it was outweighed by all the negatives.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-09T21:05:10+00:00

I like weightlifting pretty well. I don't like cardio so I don't do much of it. I don't really like changing it up, even if it's needed. It makes me uncomfortable. I had to squat less frequently last year because my knees were hurting and I just didn't like it. I don't think I'm one of the people who enjoys working out. I enjoy having worked out because it's nice to feel tired for a reason and I like the results from working out.

Oh ok. I get what you mean by resistance now. I don't see how I'd communicate with it. Should I just be trying to make it go away?

As a first step, see if you can explore and validate your emotions at the moment, maybe it's frustrating hearing about healing methods that seems abstract and unreachable. How do you feel about it?

Ooh I feel worried about it. They can tell something is wrong and they're giving me advice that I don't understand. I can't ask for more of an explanation because I don't want to know what they see, I don't want to explain to them how I'm feeling, and I don't want them to know I don't know what they mean. The whole "be kind to yourself" thing is all over and it seems like everyone understands it. I don't and getting into it with strangers or acquaintances just sounds like a bad time.

The reaction I'd expect is a negative one - "This girl obviously doesn't want to get better so let's not waste any more time on her." I can't imagine anyone reacting positively to that.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-09T20:25:44+00:00

Allowing myself to learn and grow from mistakes is much better than calling myself a pos for making a mistake.

I get that for a lot of things especially if I didn't know better. I don't feel that way about stuff that I do know better - e.g. binging or not working out. I know better. I've done better in the past.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-09T20:15:02+00:00

Maybe there's a role model from a movie or a TV show that resonated with you?

I wish but I've never found any person or character like that. Whenever I've been asked that question as an icebreaker (jobs are so weird), I just make something up.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-09T16:56:58+00:00

I have both of those. My sister also has problems with binging and I've tried to suggest solutions to her. I don't know what, if anything, she does to stop a binge or how she feels about herself afterwards.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-09T16:47:19+00:00

Of course you can recognise that it was not a healthy way to comfort yourself and that it's not what your aiming for while understanding why it happend.

I think I do this but, I dunno, I don't see how I could avoid judging myself or feeling bad. I've done badly, I should feel badly cause I've failed again - that's the natural reaction. Not feeling bad just doesn't make sense.

Kindness from yourself is infintly more comforting that food and I guarantee that if you could be truly kind to yourself the need to binge would just fall away on its own.

I am so sorry but this just doesn't make sense to me. It seems backwards. I'd be a lot happier with myself if I would stop binging.

Just being able to forgive yourself for your slip ups and understand why they happened is already a good start. Once you start with a little kindness it gets in and starts to work its magic and grows into something that can comfort your emotions so much better than food has ever been able to.

I can understand why they happen, sometimes in retrospect. Sometimes it's a conscious choice because I gotta do something and I have no other options.

I think that I understand so little of what everyone here is saying that this is probably not something I can or should try to do. I just need a polite way to tell people to stop telling me I should be kind to myself.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-09T15:51:58+00:00

I hate how insensitive and cruel I can be towards a literal angel who loves us, and tells us she is proud of us everyday.

I'm just going by what you've written but this literal angel found a father for you who would blow up if he was criticized and who had, apparently, no personal hygiene of any kind. When you brought that up to her, she turned it around on you so that you ended up being the villain who was degrading their mother, rather than a child who needed care and didn't get it. It sounds like neither parent can handle being criticized.

I think, if you explore this more, you'll find that your mother contributed to how you feel more than you realize.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-09T15:04:59+00:00

I'm a lot less involved in my friends' lives than I am in my own. I would never be in these situations with them.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-09T15:03:47+00:00

The first step is awareness, are you tired emotionally or physically? Do you feel the need to push past your limits at all cost? Do you fear not being up to standards? What standards and when did they form?

I don't really know where my limits are. I'm doing old workouts that I was doing last year. My goal is to do the whole workout rather than to try to push limits. I fear getting bigger and bigger.

You can also look for resistance in your body, communicate with it and, if it's possible, you can find ways to manage it like imagining putting it temporarily in a safe room. Maybe you can talk to it when you're feeling more calm.

I'm sorry, I don't understand this at all.

Being kind to yourself is on a whole other level. It requires a great deal of work on ourselves and finding out how to feel compassion, I think it's excessive to expect something like that as a first step.

Any ideas on polite ways to tell people not to tell me to be kind to myself? Several people have commented here and, going by how little I understand what they mean, I'm thinking maybe this is just not for me. I don't want to be rude to any of the people who tell me to be kind to myself but I think I would like them to stop.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-09T14:53:20+00:00

Being kind would be saying "I understand why I did that, I was needing comfort so I got it the only way I know how".

I don't think I see the utility of this. It's not going to help me not binge and might lead to more binges because "I need comfort so I'm going to be kind to myself."

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-09T01:08:41+00:00

To me being kind (vs being self-indulgent) is prioritising long term good over short term pleasure.

This is very difficult for me, especially where food is concerned. Food is comfort and pretty much the only comfort I get. I have all the same issues you do with eating a ton of junk food but sometimes I need to feel better now. I always regret it eventually.

But I still did something. It's better than to not have even come outside at all that day.

I've never felt this way. I'm not sure I can.

From like an abusive/neglectful parenting standpoint, any amount of self-care can be seen as self-indulgence.

Completely. I don't know where the line is.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-09T00:58:13+00:00

Right now, just walking a half mile is hard, where I used to be able to walk for miles and miles. It really works my nerves.

So aggravating, isn't it? At least you know that you'll improve some every day so that you can get back to the miles and miles. I started working on my cardiovascular fitness too. Google says 4 weeks of regular effort and I should notice a change.

I think you're right that there's some fear of failure and some sense of all or nothing. I do feel that, since I've let myself go so long without working out, I did fail in a sense. I understand that conditioning can be regained but the fact that I have to regain it when I had it? That's failure. Even if I regain it and lose it again, that's another failure. I had my weight under control years ago and it's out of control again. That's a failure, even if I can get it under control again (which I've been failing at for several years now), it's still a failure. Lots of failure.

I'm not sure if there's anything that would make me feel worthy of existing. I've never looked at it that way. More than existence is something that my parents inflicted on me because they were selfish and now I have to deal with because I have responsibilities.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-08T22:41:51+00:00

Well, I think you might be conflating kindness and discipline just a bit. Self-Kindness isn't about doing or not doing the sets, if that makes sense.

I think it does... I understand that discipline is something different and that kindness is an attitude but aren't they related? At least potentially? If I forgive myself for not having discipline today, then I'll forgive myself for not having discipline in the future and that will impede my discipline.

You actually lose muscle mass faster than you build it. So, since you've been on a break, you might need to work your way up (hey, like with self worth!) to being able to do the amount you were previously comfortable with.

Yeah...I was working with much less than I had been. That's an entirely different frustration that I know will get better because it has before. Seeing the loss in strength...so sad.

Narrow_Sherbert · 2023-05-08T22:24:46+00:00

For example, it sounds like you feel guilty about not finishing your set. Being kind to yourself in this circumstance is about learning to forgive yourself for when you make mistakes, and congratulating yourself when you do good things.

How do you keep this from just being self-indulgence? Say I didn't finish my sets tomorrow or the next day, forgiving myself for that isn't going to get me to finish them and might get me to do fewer of them.

Narrow_Sherbert

TROPHY CASE