Have I fallen off of my Yale course? Maybe. I have this issue of jumping around from one thing to the next. My attention span really isn’t the best. It’s something I have to make a choice to work on every day. If I don’t do it intentionally, then it really doesn’t happen. But I am here to rectify that and continue on.
I just wanted to touch really quick on this one exercise I did for the Science of Well-being course awhile back. The exercise was one in helping me practice my signature strengths, although if I’m being perfectly honest, I don’t remember which one.
What I did was write down five emotions that I felt every day for a month. It was quite interesting because I did notice some patterns in my mood, that had extremely clear causes. I found that I was my happiest when I was feeling independent, grateful, interested, loved, inquisitive and supported. Most of these emotions came from when I was taking care of ME, and I think that’s what is so special about them. They were intrinsic, not completely dependent on someone or something else.
I was at my saddest when I felt restless, skeptical, ashamed, on alert, out of control, guilty, and fake. To be honest these emotions made me realize that although my behaviors around eating and my body image have gotten healthier, I still struggle with my mindset towards food. I know that I’m not alone in this, especially as someone who has had literally every eating disorder in the book, but it sucked to realize that it still had such a hold on me. It’s quite confusing to be honest. It makes me sad even thinking about it, because it effected me every day in some way.
It’s just so weird that thing that I am most interested in, that makes me happiest — taking care of my health, also fucks me up so much because I end up judging myself when I’m not perfect. It’s such a thin line, and I don’t really know what the answer to it is.
I think it’s just this all of nothing mentality I have sometimes that needs to be squashed. The world isn’t black and white.
Anyway, the exercise did reveal parts of myself that I need to work on.
I’m here for it.