Trouble loving myself

[Exit]

I've realized much of what destroyed my last relationship was not loving myself and relying on my ex to make me feel important. Since the breakup I've really wanted to work on this but I find myself still struggling. I thought I was on dating websites just to see if I could find my next love, but I get so overly excited when I start communicating with a new girl and I realize it's because I'm trying to find an emotional crutch again. I'm trying to find someone to love me so I don't have to figure out how to love myself.

 

When my ex left me I thought I finally had the traumatic event I needed to get in shape. I'm not out of shape by any means, but I have 15-20lbs always lingering around because I am an emotional eater and reach for the sweets any time I am feeling down. 6 months since the breakup and I have not succeeded at changing my habits. Then October rolled around and I told myself if I started October 1st, I'd have approximately a 6 month window until spring, and if I worked hard I could be in shape for next year. Well, October has gone by now and I still failed. Mainly because I got in touch with an old friend and we started hanging out a ton, usually until all hours of the morning, messing up my schedule, eating pizza while I was with them, and smoking cigarettes when I'm around them. I hate to have to lose my friends and spend more time alone (depressing), but I don't see any other way to achieve my goals.

 

So now it's November 1st and I am attempting to start again. Geez... I've had so many of these "Starting points" that it's starting to become meaningless, it's hard to get myself fired-up and motivated when I know it never lasts. But I need to do this. I need to love myself enough to do something that I've wanted for a long time, I want to be in better shape. I don't want someone to love me right now and give me that false sense of security. I realized if I could choose between getting back with my ex, or finally accomplishing some of my own personal goals, I would want the things for myself, so it feels good to know there's at least one thing I want more than my ex.

 

I don't know how this time will be any different. I'm terrible with long term goals. I get excited at the beginning, I enjoy the creation of a plan more than I enjoy carrying it out. Long term goals seem so far away, but on the other hand, time goes by so fast. It seemed hard to stay strict at the beginning of October, but now it's easy to look back and think "wow, those 30 days went fast, I could have already made some progress". I need to figure out how to visualize things from the end, instead of looking at the uphill battle in front of me.

 

It's a bit daunting to try to eliminate smoking, junk food, and hanging out with friends all at once. What support system will I have left? I'm not religious, my family isn't really into health (they're the ones providing all the junk food I eat), and none of my friends are really in a position to be supportive, they all drink, smoke, and eat whatever. I really only have myself to rely on, and I'm not feeling too emotionally strong these days.

[quarterlifecrisis]

I am no expert in relationships, and that's why I'm here crying my eyes out alongside you.

 

However, I have had success in reaching some pretty ambitious long-term goals in the past (physical, career, etc.). The absolute KEY is always to break the long-term goals into smaller, more manageable goals.

 

Everyone always sets a new year's resolution and says they will lose 15 pounds by the end of the year or get a better job, etc. The problem with these goals is that they are so far out that oftentimes you procrastinate. Or, you attempt them feverishly for the first few days (apparently most people drop off after 9 days or so on a new self-help routine) then fatigue and drop back to the starting point.

 

Rather than committing yourself to losing 15 pounds at a TBD future time period, here's what I would do. Pick a variable to work on, either amount of exercise, amount of food, or amount of weight.

 

For a period of 1 week, commit yourself to 20 minutes of exercise (not even a full workout, even if you have the energy to do so). The goal of the first week is not to lose a ton of weight. It is to form a habit. By setting a much more manageable goal of 20 mins as opposed to full hour or more of weights/cardio/sports, you'll feel less inertia in giving it a try. The next week, up it to 30 mins. Ease into your full workout routine over 2-3 weeks.

 

Alternatively, cut back on portion sizes for just one meal during a day. You don't even have to change what you eat yet, just change the amount. After 2-3 weeks, then start changing the substance. Btw, your body gets used to diets. A lot of athletes will eat really healthy 6 days a week and then relax the diet on the 7th day. This prevents your body from totally adjusting to specific diet, and makes everything more effective.

 

Or, do whatever it takes to lose 1 lb in the first 10 days. Then shoot for another lb in the next 10 days. This is harder to control though as you get a diminishing rate of return. You will have to keep working harder and harder for the additional pounds. It makes more sense to follow the workout and diet routines in my opinion.

[Tamia78]

I totally feel you on that. It's hard to get motivated doing things you know you want to do. I started small. I played on my brother's softball team once a week, then started taking just 1 class at the gym. That at least got me started being a little active as opposed to doing nothing at all. Changing the eating habits was rough, tho, lol. My friends were pretty good at helping me and I was pretty resloved at what I wanted to eat, so they stopped offering me junk food, which really helped.

 

Long story short, I actually have a regular weekly workout routine, and while I haven't totally switched over to healthy foods, I do try to watch what I eat, and it's making a big difference! The plus side to all this is that I feel so busy now that I don't think about the breakup as much as I used to.

 

Anyways, maybe baby steps might work for you, too. Good luck! You can do it!

 

--T

[mickleb]

Hey there Mister.

 

You know, reading your post, I feel like you've not acknowledged the AMAZING work you have done on yourself, already. You have come SO FAR since I started posting here.

 

Loving yourself is a process that, in a way, never stops. You achieve something and then life throws another heap of cr*p at you and you have to keep on working at dealing with everything. It's just that, as we achieve more, we find greater resilience and less doubt about our ability to be self-reliant.

 

I think your statement, about how you'd rather achieve your goals than have your ex back, shows that you actually value yourself quite highly (rightly so, of course!) This shows that you don't simply HAVE to have an emotional crutch to lean upon. It shows you have determination. Which is step 1.

 

I'm going to bang out a couple of cliches. The first being: Rome wasn't built in a day. I think, rather than valuing yourself, your issue might be that you are too hard on yourself. My next cliche is: small steps. Basically, a problem is difficult to fix if all you can see is this massive effort that needs to be put in to achieve it. There's no way you should give up everything at once. You need to break down your goal (losing weight) into smaller, achievable chunks.

 

Start with losing, say 5lbs. Improve your diet a bit. Have a few less pizzas and few more salads, instead. Ask your friends if you can get chinese instead, sometimes and order a stir-fry. When you're not with your mates, eat a few more vegetables, have some fruit for a snack, etc. Eat less carbs in the evening. Cut the sweets down, not out.

 

Decide what an achievable goal is for you working out and stick with that. If this is once a fortnight, do it. Go with a friend, if possible, or get them to nag you if you don't go. Arrange to meet up with them after every session, or something, to motivate you to get out (rather than slouching at home).

 

Smoking is a different beast so you might want to cut down a bit (maybe two cigarettes a day) until you've achieved your weight goal and then work on quitting, full stop. (Remember, it's SO easy to snack instead of have a fag, though, so you might want to try quitting before dieting.)

 

I see so many people trying to rush at life and they give themselves such a hard time if they, then, overdo it and fail. The key to happiness, IMVHO, is to REMOVE stress. Easier said than done, granted but usually, if you set yourself a smaller, achievable goal (you can give yourself an appropriate reward for achieving each one, btw), once you get this done, it's much easier to set the next - and so on.

 

We actually need to reward ourselves a hell of a lot more than we do - just not with a pice of cake.

 

Try posting in the working out forum for further motivation and well done for how far you've already come in the past few months! x

[EmptyPromises]

i feel the same way. i dont love myself and have no respect for myself . i feel worthless and feel like i have nothing going for me.

[Thornton]

Do you really think you will love yourself more if you quit smoking and lose a few pounds? People always say "I will be happy if..." I suggest you drop the "if" and just work on being happy with yourself as you are now. That way, you can work on all your other goals as a happy person who loves himself, and you're much more likely to be successful. You cannot predicate your happiness or self-love upon arbitrary things such as weight, because it makes you so desperate to reach your goal that you're doomed to impatience and failure, and it also puts you at risk of losing that self-love if you happen to gain weight again. You need to stop saying "I will love myself when I lose 10lb"... stop putting it off until some point in the future and work on loving yourself now.

[GrayClouds]

Loving yourself is over rated, on some days I am just trying to get along with myself.

 

“Happiness is different from pleasure. Happiness has something to do with struggling and enduring and accomplishing.”

 

 

Self love is another word for masturbation which can be pleasurable but really does not accomplish much. Remember quality feelings comes from action more often than feelings lead to quality actions. In other words if your waiting for you self esteem to rise before you start something, you may be waiting for a long time. In the morning I never feel like putting on the runners and hitting the trails, much rather get another 45 min of sleep. But begrudgingly I go run, and not because I love myself, but because I like myself better when I am done.

 

You think Bill Gates accomplished what he did through self love. H#ll no. He was a pimply faced, skinny wimp that couldn't get a chick and was desperate to prove to daddy that he was worth his love. He was full of self hatred but he turn that into action and create the dominate operating system in the world.

 

Ironically enough, many of us now find ourselves agreeing with young Bill's assessment of himself for sticking us with that same operating system that now old Bill has gain so much self esteem from. Which leads us to Apple and Steve Jobs which is a discussion for another time.

[Exit]

Thanks for the replies, lots of good input.

 

I agree about loving myself now, and not being so sure that I'll like myself any better just because I lose weight. It's not so much about the actual 5lbs I need to lose, or the cigarettes I've been smoking, it's more about the abstract idea that there are things that I want for myself and I am only sabotaging my own happiness. Being 10lbs lighter won't change my life, and I only smoke socially so that's not an earth shattering change, BUT knowing that I am taking care of myself and finally looking for true happiness instead of a quick fix, THAT'S what will help me love myself.

 

I'm familiar with breaking goals down into smaller pieces. It's not about never having junk food again, it's just knowing that I'm not going to binge today.

 

I'm familiar with allowing a "cheat" day during a diet to keep your metabolism confused and to allow yourself a little treat, but in my case it can quickly get out of hand and lead to an entire week of cheating.

 

Most of all I agree that it does no good to pound yourself into submission. Being mad at myself, being angry about it, hating myself until I get to my goal, is only going to make me feel bad and likely make me fail again. The trick is to do it gracefully, not by force, just to gently make changes that I know are for the better.

[mickleb]

I'm going to agree with GrayClouds, in that the term 'self-love', itself is a bit alienating.

 

'Love' is a lot harder to achieve than plain old 'like' but we're, basically, talking about the same thing.

 

A better term, I think, is self-esteem. I read a quote from a doctor somewhere (vague, moi?) who said that egotism - basically, narcissism - is the opposite of self-esteem - self-esteem is like good health, you can't have enough of it.

 

Self-esteem is all about liking yourself, respecting yourself. Are you proud of yourself?

 

I think we all have things we should be proud of but, for some of us, it's difficult to recognise these. I think we all have things we could achieve, too. For some of us, it's difficult to get these 'done'.

 

I, personally, think self-esteem goes hand-in-hand WITH achievement. If you can't recgonise your own talents, abilities and qualities, it's pretty hard to get the motivation to get anything done. If you don't get anything done, it gets pretty difficult remembering what you're good at.

 

Starting with a simple list of all your qualities - simple and new-age nonsensical as it may sound - is, in fact, not a bad place to start, when seeking the elusive prize of happiness.

[mickleb]

Thanks for the replies, lots of good input.

 

I agree about loving myself now, and not being so sure that I'll like myself any better just because I lose weight. It's not so much about the actual 5lbs I need to lose, or the cigarettes I've been smoking, it's more about the abstract idea that there are things that I want for myself and I am only sabotaging my own happiness. Being 10lbs lighter won't change my life, and I only smoke socially so that's not an earth shattering change, BUT knowing that I am taking care of myself and finally looking for true happiness instead of a quick fix, THAT'S what will help me love myself.

 

I'm familiar with breaking goals down into smaller pieces. It's not about never having junk food again, it's just knowing that I'm not going to binge today.

 

I'm familiar with allowing a "cheat" day during a diet to keep your metabolism confused and to allow yourself a little treat, but in my case it can quickly get out of hand and lead to an entire week of cheating.

 

Most of all I agree that it does no good to pound yourself into submission. Being mad at myself, being angry about it, hating myself until I get to my goal, is only going to make me feel bad and likely make me fail again. The trick is to do it gracefully, not by force, just to gently make changes that I know are for the better.

 

Ee - what a lovely post. You're more than half-way there, my boy!

[Taucher]

I've realized much of what destroyed my last relationship was not loving myself and relying on my ex to make me feel important. Since the breakup I've really wanted to work on this but I find myself still struggling. I thought I was on dating websites just to see if I could find my next love, but I get so overly excited when I start communicating with a new girl and I realize it's because I'm trying to find an emotional crutch again. I'm trying to find someone to love me so I don't have to figure out how to love myself.

 

When my ex left me I thought I finally had the traumatic event I needed to get in shape. I'm not out of shape by any means, but I have 15-20lbs always lingering around because I am an emotional eater and reach for the sweets any time I am feeling down. 6 months since the breakup and I have not succeeded at changing my habits. Then October rolled around and I told myself if I started October 1st, I'd have approximately a 6 month window until spring, and if I worked hard I could be in shape for next year. Well, October has gone by now and I still failed. Mainly because I got in touch with an old friend and we started hanging out a ton, usually until all hours of the morning, messing up my schedule, eating pizza while I was with them, and smoking cigarettes when I'm around them. I hate to have to lose my friends and spend more time alone (depressing), but I don't see any other way to achieve my goals.

 

So now it's November 1st and I am attempting to start again. Geez... I've had so many of these "Starting points" that it's starting to become meaningless, it's hard to get myself fired-up and motivated when I know it never lasts. But I need to do this. I need to love myself enough to do something that I've wanted for a long time, I want to be in better shape. I don't want someone to love me right now and give me that false sense of security. I realized if I could choose between getting back with my ex, or finally accomplishing some of my own personal goals, I would want the things for myself, so it feels good to know there's at least one thing I want more than my ex.

 

I don't know how this time will be any different. I'm terrible with long term goals. I get excited at the beginning, I enjoy the creation of a plan more than I enjoy carrying it out. Long term goals seem so far away, but on the other hand, time goes by so fast. It seemed hard to stay strict at the beginning of October, but now it's easy to look back and think "wow, those 30 days went fast, I could have already made some progress". I need to figure out how to visualize things from the end, instead of looking at the uphill battle in front of me.

 

It's a bit daunting to try to eliminate smoking, junk food, and hanging out with friends all at once. What support system will I have left? I'm not religious, my family isn't really into health (they're the ones providing all the junk food I eat), and none of my friends are really in a position to be supportive, they all drink, smoke, and eat whatever. I really only have myself to rely on, and I'm not feeling too emotionally strong these days.

 

Wow. This is how I am also, but explains it much clearer than I ever could. Like you, I have had sooooo many days which are new beginnings. In fact, every Monday seems to be the day when I plan to make everything better, get fit etc. I tell myself that I can do what I want now, I can drink and smoke and eat sh*t, and Monday it will ALL change, from Monday I will be BETTER. And then Monday comes and...nothing. Same old. I joined a gym 3 months ago. I have hardly ever been. (although I have found out that my ex is now frequenting this gym and so thats an incentive not to go there! Like I needed one.)

 

The madness is that, when I DO do exercise or eat really healthy for a couple of days, I feel great. It's not even a question of self-esteem for me, more a question of just doing it. I think I just need to go out and go to the gym without really thinking about it. Like, just leave my house like a robot and just do it. Dont think...GO! Easier said than done.

 

My problem is I only see my friends when we go down the pub, go out drinking and at house parties etc. I have realised that it is important to see my friends in a different social setting. I have been trying to organise seeing my friends in different ways. Me and a group of friends have devloped a strange and spontenaious liking for photography, so we spend Sundays going to new parts of London and taking pictures on second hand 35mm SLR cameras we have bought. This has been invaluable, developing interests outside of drinking and smoking etc. This would be perfect if I had someone I could go to the gym with too.

 

I'm terrible with long term goals. I get excited at the beginning, I enjoy the creation of a plan more than I enjoy carrying it out. Long term goals seem so far away, but on the other hand, time goes by so fast. It seemed hard to stay strict at the beginning of October, but now it's easy to look back and think "wow, those 30 days went fast, I could have already made some progress".

 

Me too! A week after my ex left me, I though "I can change myself, I can work on myself, get fit and if I start RIGHT NOW, I will be looking well fit by December". And I have done NOTHING. I am not massively overweight or anything, just aware that at 30 years old, I should be looking my best and I am not. And that it is going to get harder.

 

Anyway, not much advice from me I am afraid, just wanted to say that out of any post on Loveshack EVER, I totally relate to this one.

[PinkToes]

Hey Exit, I agree with mickleb (as usual) that you've taken some huge steps in a short time. So give yourself credit for that.

 

Personally, I've always found it easier to exercise more than eat less. That's the balance that works for me. So rather than setting long-term overwhelming goals, maybe try to step up your acitvity level, whether that means going to the gym or walking everywhere you can. Just little stuff will help get you there.

[JaggedRoad]

You guys can siphon your unwanted weight to me =)