How to Love Yourself After You Lie to Yourself
It’s the last week of January, and I’m not alone.
I’m sitting in a circle with all the other liars. Of course, we didn’t mean to do it, we’re good people – well-intentioned. We care. We know what we want. We know our “why”. We imagine what it will be like when we get there.
I’m self-reliant. I’m confident that I can accomplish what I want now because I’ve done it in the past. I’ve got enough support. A few people to talk with. Accountability. Encouragement. Safety nets. I’m honest with myself. Except that I’m not.
This morning I woke up with a knot in my stomach, remorse in my heart, and fog in my brain.
It was a simple thing. A slight offense. Meaningless.
But not for me. Not if I am to get where I want to go.
One foot off the path, and the slope is slippery. One thing leads to another.
I did it easily. Effortlessly. Edged off the cliff right into self-deception.
Slips feel better when you fall into a compassionate crowd. At least until your disdain for the people around you becomes intolerable. Then the crowd becomes a catalyst. Something to push against, to get yourself out of the boiling pot of crabs.
Forbes did a survey and discovered that the average resolution lasts a meager 3.74 months. 13% of these just-like-you people are heroes. They are still committed after 4 months. After a year, only 6% are still doing what they promised to do. That’s 60 people out of 1,000.
Forward, action-specific goals tend to result in success after a year more than avoidance-oriented goals (58.9% vs. 47.1%) [1].
But what if I fail to complete the actions? The reason I can’t make it for a year is the same reason I can’t make it for 5 consecutive days. It boils down to faulty thinking.
Faulty thinking and lies.
The very thinking that I believed would get me where I want to be, left me waking up with a knot in my stomach, remorse in my heart, and fog in my brain.
I’m self-reliant. I’m confident that I can accomplish what I want now because I’ve done it in the past. I’ve got enough support. A few people to talk with. Accountability. Encouragement. Safety nets.
So what’s the problem?
There are many paths to personal growth.12-step groups have proven to be an effective way to sort through this dilemma and get results, though there’s some mystery as to why they work. I believe it’s because the structure turns safety nets into solid containers that squeeze out every activity that isn’t directly related to achieving the goal.
There’s hope, but you can’t do it alone, and most of us hate that. It all begins with dropping the very thing we believe is the answer to accomplishing our goals - self-reliance.
This approach turns everything we’re taught upside down and we’re forced to see from a new perspective.
The morning-after syndrome, whether resulting from commission – eating, drinking, buying, saying, doing anything that we said we wouldn’t, or omission – not exercising, eating properly, or adhering to any forward-moving actions we agreed to, reminds us that self-reliance failed us again.
Our former mantra is reduced to a list of superficial affirmations.
I’m self-reliant. I’m confident that I can accomplish what I want now because I’ve done it in the past. I’ve got enough support. A few people to talk with. Accountability. Encouragement. Safety nets. = LIES.
And so we attempt to mend the nets, but the thread is weak, and we fall again. And again. And again.
It’s hard to admit that our willpower isn’t effective. After all, this is America! The land of opportunity, built on the determination and willpower of immigrants who have overcome impossible obstacles. If they can do it, why can’t I do such simple things as stop watching Netflix, obsessing about work, dating so many men, buying clothes that hang forever in my closet, drinking, smoking, playing video games, eating processed food, etc?
To admit you can’t do the thing, to surrender, is unAmerican. What the hell, America is unAmerican. When anything goes, nothing goes.
In 1934, Cole Porter cheerfully noted that:
The world has gone mad today
And good's bad today,
And black's white today,
And day's night today.
If saying your prayers you like,
If green pears you like
If old chairs you like,
If back stairs you like,
If love affairs you like
With young bears you like,
Why nobody will oppose!
And because we can’t “just do it”, and we have no choice, we forgive ourselves, join the other January dropouts, pull back on those big, audacious goals, and limp lazily forward.
I don’t want to focus on and openly admit my short comings. I don’t enjoy examining my thinking or admitting my character.
Success stories.
That’s what I want to hear.
Even better, that’s what I want to share. My own success stories are the best.
I want to share the overcoming. The in spite of it all, I achieved! stories. The Ta-Da! stories.
I want to be there, not be on the way there. I want to stand at the top, look down at you, and offer to pull you up.
That’s when I’ll be ready to talk about it. When you admire me for my accomplishments, appreciate how compassionate I am with you. When you see me as a hero, not a victim. When you can see the red bottoms of my Louboutin heels as you sit in the audience of the stage I am speaking on.
I want to be your hero. The one who has proven it’s possible for you too.
Until I find out what makes it possible for me to do such a thing, and when I do, you’ll think I’m wearing black-soled shoes.
If you choose to give it a try to accomplish your goals, you’ll find that a 12-step group will rapidly move you from the stage to the floor at the back of the room. If you’re wise you won’t quit wearing those beautifully made shoes. You’ll just sit there on floor.
You'll just sit there, feeling the full spectrum of emotions you've spent a lifetime avoiding. Among them, you'll confront the chaotic dissonance of being human—the profound realization that you're capable of experiencing such a vast and conflicting range of feelings.
You might even come to the realization that there is an alternative to your mantra that begins with self-reliance.
You’ll marvel at the fact that you are surrounded by heroes. Everyday heroes, who moment by moment make huge sacrifices, as they slowly dismantle the patterns and personas that keep them from accomplishing their goals. The ordinary-looking people who don’t dress the way you think they should, or speak the way you’re sure they ought to. The people who at first seem to warrant your judgment, prove your superiority, and confirm that you are separate. When you fall again off the shaky pedestal of pride, you begin to recognize the courage, persistence, humility, service, and forgiveness, that are the qualities that make up a hero.
Importantly, you’ll cease trying to be one, and in doing so you might just discover what it takes to be one.
