Posts Tagged Self Sabatoge
Breaking the Funk….
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on August 10th, 2010
I’ve been gone for a while. Some people will have noticed, some will not. I haven’t really been gone, I just haven’t felt like blogging. It’s ironic that one of the things that I enjoy doing and something that gives me accountability is one of the things that I felt like I didn’t want to do.
When compared to my past, this little funk has been mild. I didn’t go on any huge binges, I didn’t stop working out, I didn’t gain 30 pounds. I actually lost weight. I wish I had some great reason as to why I took some time off, but I don’t.
What I have realized is that when I slide into a little funk the first thing that I do is stop doing the things that I know help me to be successful. Blogging for one, being visible for two. What do I mean by being visible? For me, it means letting people see what I am up to, both physically and on line through social media. I
It seems that when I slide back I try to cover it up. I am in a place where people look to me for advice and at times inspiration. When I am not feeling 100% mentally I feel like I am letting people down. Recently, I have decided that I may be letting people down by not letting them see my personal struggles.
We can all learn from each other. I am human, with all the faults and hang-ups that many of us have. When I share my struggles, I am able to let others see how they can make changes as well.
Here is the most important thing that I learned from my hiatus. Many times when things are rough in our lives, we stop doing the very things that we know we need to do in order to put a stop to our slide downward. I think we do this because it gives us a reason for why things may be less than ideal. It gives us something to blame.
Rather than acknowledge our true feelings and examining them, we cover them up with a superficial reason as to why things are the way they are. More than that, we don’t allow ourselves to feel our feelings and learn from them. If we are feeling a certain way there is probably a reason for it. It could be fear, anger, disappointment, or any other negative emotion that we have been programmed to feel are “bad”. Feelings and emotions aren’t “bad” sometimes it is the way we deal with them that is.
I am going to focus on the root of my feelings and what I need to learn and change. I will end this cycle of stopping the very things that I know I need to do in order to work through my feelings and use those tools to stop the downward slide that we all go through from time to time.
I WILL see you tomorrow!
The Funk…
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on May 18th, 2010
I don’t know about you, but sometimes when things hit a rough patch, the first things that I start to put off are the very things I need to make a priority. This blog for example, I use this blog to share my knowledge and sometimes analyze how I am feeling.
When I take a couple days off(or week) I think about it daily. I then find myself saying I will do it tomorrow. The longer I let it go the easier it is to let it go. I will say “OK, seriously tomorrow get back at it.” Tomorrow comes and I again say tomorrow. If I had the answer to why we put the things off that we know we need to do, I’d have my own television show.
What I do know is this. Sometimes a rough day can lead into a serious funk, the type of funk that keeps you worrying about things rather than acting upon them. Whether we feel like it or not the only way to get over setbacks is to get moving again.
This past week I managed to injure myself while training and get sick as well. I took a few days off and started to feel better. Rather than jump back into my routine I let fear take hold. The thought’s that have stifled me in the past came racing back to the front of my mind. “Every time you get in a groove this happens.” “Be careful, you might hurt yourself more.” “You fell off track again.” These thoughts paralyzed me for a while. Although they may have a grain of truth, they do not have to dictate how I react to them.
I found myself not sleeping, not eating, and then overeating. It is almost as if I was trying to reinforce my negative thoughts with negative behaviors. The more we reinforce negative thoughts with negative behaviors, the more negative we become.
Here is the million dollar question: How do you pull yourself out of it? I’ll give you my fifty cent answer. Just get over it. The blessing that we have in life is that each day presents itself for a new start. If you have been in a funk you can put a stop to it when you want to. On the other hand you can prolong it for as long as you want as well.
For me, it is a matter of knowing what to do and then acting. These past couple of weeks have been rough but I choose not to continue. I am going to do the things I know I need to do in order to feel well and live well. How about you?
What I See When I Look In The Mirror…
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on February 3rd, 2010
There is a strange phenomenon that occurs when you lose weight with someone close to you. When Suzy and I were on the show neither of us really noticed the changes that were happening physically. It seems like when we see a person everyday we are less likely to notice the changes in appearance that are taking place.
It seems like the last person to see the change in us when we lose weight is us. When I got home from the ranch everyone was telling me how good I looked but when I saw myself in the mirror I saw the old me. In the same way that we may not notice a weight loss in a person close to us, the opposite is also true. It may not be immediately obvious when the same person we saw lose the weight starts to gain it back.
After Jax was born Suzy said she was going to take six weeks and then get back to working out. At the six week mark she started working out again. By this time I had gotten pretty lazy. Suzy would ask if I wanted to go for a walk and I would go begrudgingly. When I saw Suzy working out everyday, I didn’t see her as someone who needed to lose weight. I saw her as someone who was suggesting that I needed to lose weight.
There hasn’t been a day that has gone by that I haven’t thought my wife is the most beautiful woman in the world. When she said she was unhappy with her weight I couldn’t figure it out. I seriously thought she was crazy. That is when I realized that I was being an enabler. Not just for my wife, but for myself as well.
By not being supportive of her feelings I was basically telling her that her feelings about herself weren’t valid. By telling her she didn’t have to work out I was giving myself permission to not work out as well. Although I was trying to show her that I loved her “just they way she is” I was doing more harm than good. Of course we love the ones closest to us just the way they are. What are you suppose to do when you love them but they don’t necessarily love themselves?
I’m not saying Suzy didn’t love herself, she didn’t love the way she looked. Not supporting her was like nonverbally saying everyday “It’s fine with me if you aren’t happy just don’t bother me with it because I think you look just fine.” Unfortunately that type thinking was more of a reflection upon myself than it was on my wife.
If I could just get Suzy to be happy with not working out and just carrying some extra weight, maybe I could do the same. It is a little sad but a lot of times in relationships if one person decides they need to make a change the other person takes it personal. As if them wanting to improve themselves somehow means that we are lacking.
For me it was “If Suzy wants to lose weight, she must really mean that she wants me to lose weight.” Oh whoas me! How could she be so selfish as to want something better for herself. There must be something wrong with me. Suzy wanted to be healthy and be an example for our kids like we had talked about since before they were born. I wanted to somehow be healthy but not have to put so much effort into it.
In 14 months my wife had 2 babies and I was the one feeling sorry for myself when I looked in the mirror. Selfishness not only sabatoges the ones we love but ourselves as well. When I finally took a good long look in the mirror I realized that I did in fact need to make some changes. Changes in the way I really saw myself, not how I thought others saw me or how my wife saw me but in the person I saw staring back at me in that mirror everyday.
See you tomorrow!
