Lead Me Not Into Temptation…
So it was my 3-year old’s “Peppa Pig Happy Birthday Party” on Sunday morning… And, as I do, I over-catered. Dramatically. Leaving me with enough sweets, chocolates, cake and chips to pave the road to The North Pole, and back again. (That blog image is actual evidence, not stock photography!).
Truth be told, I’ve battled with weight issues, sugar and carb addiction (at various intensities) for as long as I’ve identified as being consciously human. And as much as I’ve recently gotten a decent handle on this for the first time in my life (albeit through quite extreme means!), the body can change, but the hard-wiring often takes a while to catch up!
Whether Currently Indulgent, or Currently Chaste, The Battle Is Real...
For this reason, it’s actually a Really Bad Idea to have that amount of Evil in my home, at any given time. It’s all too easy to just dip in for a treat… And to do this several times a day… Or to expend huge amounts of mental and emotional energy deliberately not dipping in! Whether indulgent or chaste, the ‘spiritual warfare’ between myself and that sweet-box wages on, toxic and torrid, by virtue only of its existence in my home. (I see the same warfare ensuing between that dastardly box, and the other members of my little family. The honest truth is that we should employ Weigh Less circa 1986’s mantra, and “Rather WASTE it than WAIST it”. Or we should give it away. ‘Lord knows my kids are sufficiently spoilt not to be in any way compromised by this purging.)
Energy Flows Where Focus Goes…
It’s exhausting. Energy flows where focus goes, right..? And so all that ‘life force’ that could be better used on creativity and passion, productivity, care, charity and wellness, gets sapped by a boring battle between sugar and self. What a waste! Most battles between self and ‘object’ cause emotional shut-down, stuntedness and unavailability, rendering us less effective and dynamic humans… And this gets boring, right? Fighting the same battle year in, and year out, for decades. It’s for this reason that we simply have to go to whatever means necessary to recover, so that we can actually progress and grow in life, and not be utterly robbed by the inability to even moderately master our own base human natures. But that’s just a little rant.
Dangerous People, Places and Things.
Drug rehabilitation programs provide fervent caution to addicts to avoid what they call “Dangerous People, Places and Things”. They teach their participants to be very mindful of the individuals, venues and objects that render them most susceptible to relapse, and to steer clear of these. Now one could be mistaken, and believe that such programs are externalising blame and responsibility, and making the people, places and things the problem, and the addict the innocent victim of such. They’re not. What they’re boldly saying that life is a lot simpler and less triggering when we do away with all that shifts our focus off wellness, wholeness, health, and the pursuit of the best version of ourselves. That we shouldn’t deliberately procure a “sweet box’ and install it in our home, to taunt us and tempt us and skew our focus. There’s no heroism in this. It’s really just stupid, and ultimately masochistic.
But what makes a person, place or thing dangerous to us..? I can guarantee you that it has very little, objectively, to do with any particular person, place or thing. Nothing and no one is particularly dangerous in and of itself, himself or herself. It’s what these individuals, locations and objects mean to us, and the sentiments they evoke in us that make them perilous to us. And how the associations we have with these things compels us to self-sooth with our idiosyncratic go-to passifiers, be they drugging or bingeing or shopping or gambling or raging or isolating or or or [insert self-destructive behaviour of choice].
Emotional Regulation, and the True Point of Impact.
From an “emotional regulation” perspective, we need to be so attuned to, and mindful of our emotional responses to our environments, that we pick up the first hint of inner upset and discord, long before we’re inclined to act out because of it. Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, for example, teaches us how - after a ‘relapse, of any description (whatever relapse means to us) - to trace back our steps until we pinpoint the first ‘point of impact’; the first event or interaction in the course of our day that unhinged us, and placed us on a collision course that culminated in the relapse event. In such a model, it’s actually not the relapse that’s as important as understanding what circumstances led to it. And again, this is not to blame those circumstances… But to become more and more competent at immediately identifying triggers as they emerge, and then emptying them of their destructive power… Rather than allowing them to simmer in the background until some critical moment when they manifest into a Large Scale Episode. Those triggering events and their contexts become the dangerous people, places and things that we need to be mindful of, and skilful at handling.
Human Nature 101, and Radical Acceptance of This…
What’s dangerous to me won’t be what’s dangerous to you… It might be dangerous for me to not get 8 hours of sleep… Tiredness may particularly lower my resolve, rendering me vulnerable to self-destructive behaviours. Particular people, through no fault of their own, may stir up self-deprecating feelings in me, which then require soothing through less than ideal means… (she’s prettier than me, she’s got her shit together better than I do). This latter example is actually quite a good illustration of how it’s not the triggering entity that’s necessarily in any way at fault. (No one’s to blame for being attractive and successful). And in such an instance, one may be tempted to say, “oh for god’s sake, she’s prettier or more talented than you; get over it, and get over yourself”. And one would be right! That’s good and apt advice! But if I’m vulnerable in particular ways, and vulnerable to behaviours that derail me, then that person who makes me feel bad about myself is a “dangerous entity” to me. At least until such a time as I am able to grow beyond my own limitation. We can judge such things, at will, but they remain true. Our first duty is to be well. Our second duty is to grow. And wellness requires avoidance of peril, so that we remain firm-footed on our paths.
Oh that we may all ultimately be self-aware and together enough not to be triggered! But until then, we need to know and avoid what is fundamentally dangerous in our worlds!
Threats to Living Well
Living well is a skill and an art… My view is that a life well lived is a life-long string of Mostly Good Decisions that bare Mostly Good Fruit… I’m sure it’s impossible to live perfectly (and who would even want to..?). Living well, I would think, is about being authentic… About being truthful to self and others. About knowing where we’re weak, and knowing where we’re strong. And about engaging robustly with all emerging experiences. And living well also involves ‘defending our borders’ against enemy threats and conquests (dangerous people, places and things!). It was Soccrates who said “The unexamined life is not worth living”, implying that self-awareness and self-regulation is absolutely key to justifying the purpose of being alive. Examining our life, I’m sure, includes knowing what wounds we carry, and what experiences would be like rubbing broken glass into them. And then simply not allowing that to happen.
What is your ‘sweet box’..?
Why do you keep it around..?
How can you ‘throw it away’?
Throw it away, before it derails you from the path you’re nobly pursuing…
