JinxieKat
02-18-2006, 12:00 PM
How do you survive the 'Frenzies'? I've been thinking on this all morning. You may not have heard the term 'Frenzies' before, but I'm sure you'll recognise it, either in yourself or in others. You find a new thing, it's exciting, interesting, you want to learn more and more about it. You want to live it, breath it, sleep with it. It consumes most of your waking thoughts, you may even dream about it. Eventually, sooner or later, the honeymoon wears off.. It isn't as interesting, it's now everyday and hohum. So you start to slip away, old bad habits come back to life, tedium asserts itself..
I have to admit that I am prone to catching these 'frenzies'. It is something I had to acknowledge when I found myself getting upset with my husband over it. He'd find a new hobby, invest alot of time and money into it, then when it didn't turn out perfectly, poof interest gone. I found myself getting anoyed when this little voice said in my head, "Hey there, you do this too..."
So now I find myself caught up in another 'frenzie', the raw food frenzie. I read, I post, I eat, I love, I learn.. yet that little voice is still back there saying 'Watch, just another phase.. You'll move on.." Yet I haven't always moved on. There are some things I've started that I didn't stop once the honeymoon was over. So what made the things I've stuck with different? Is it true love? Persistance on my part? I'm not sure. I love my parrots, and while I've gone through phases of interest like the waxing and waning of the moon, I still love them and enjoy learning about them. I love to read, that's never _ever_ changed. As soon as I learned about the written word when I was a child it is rare to find me without a book nearby. Weight watchers is another, I've had a love/hate relationship with that food plan. It is gone now, but it did help me loose 60lbs, I even managed to keep 40 of it off. I stuck with it, though sometimes much better than others, for four years. That is the thing most similar to raw.. so what made me stick with it?
I'm writeing this thought through, but the one word that keeps comming to mind is 'perfect'. I watch my husband and his pattern is when it doesn't come out 'perfect' it is gone. We've discussed this, he knows it is what he does, and he works on it. Looking at my own life I can see the same thing. We are raised to be 'perfect' children to one degree or another. In my case it was perfect grades, that got me alot of attention, it was something that I could do well. When it got hard and I didn't get perfect, that was a negative. A subtle one, not perfect for me was A's and B's, still very acceptable in my parents eyes. But even then I could detect the difference, all A's ment _very_ happy parents, A's and B's ment happy parents. So perfection is the goal that must be reached cause when my parents where _very_ happy I got alot of rewards. That starts the cycle of disappointment though, school got harder, spelling turned out to be a hurdle, and still is. It took alot of work to get a B in spelling, I almost never managed an A, sometimes I'd get a C. Those times were like the world comming to an end.. in my mind I was not a C student, that was not acceptable, and as far from perfect as could be. You'd think I'd flunked the class, but in my mind I just did!
Wanting perfection sets a person up for failure. I will never be perfect and nothing that I do or find will be perfect. Even on this journey there are contridictions and fustrations. When you buy your nuts, how raw is raw? To dehydrate or not to dehydrate? Sprouting grains? Juiceing? Alot to learn, and the learning is fun, but then the disappointments kick in. Like, "This cannot be the perfect diet for me, I'm not looseing weight fast enough!" Or how about, "This will never work, I cannot get perfectly raw/organic foods where I live!" Those thoughts kick in, the honeymoon is ending, failure or at least the apperance of is right around the corner soon to be followed by old habits and tedium... Right?
Wrong.. that isn't what I want this time! I want to be patient, I want to remember that this is a journey, that perfection is a dirty word and progress is the goal. One day at a time, one meal at a time, one bite at a time all the while learning and growing and becoming healthier every day. That is what I want when the 'frenzies' are gone and the manic interest has passed. Steady progress in a forward direction, even if that does mean straying from the path from time to time and having to forgive myself and allow myself to move away from the guilt to progress again.
So, my goal, in a nutshell... Progress, every day moving foward in this new chosen path of life... I hope it never ends, because when I can stop learning, that is when I will truely stagnate.
Jinx
P.S. Edited for spelling, I told you I couldn't spell *lol*
I have to admit that I am prone to catching these 'frenzies'. It is something I had to acknowledge when I found myself getting upset with my husband over it. He'd find a new hobby, invest alot of time and money into it, then when it didn't turn out perfectly, poof interest gone. I found myself getting anoyed when this little voice said in my head, "Hey there, you do this too..."
So now I find myself caught up in another 'frenzie', the raw food frenzie. I read, I post, I eat, I love, I learn.. yet that little voice is still back there saying 'Watch, just another phase.. You'll move on.." Yet I haven't always moved on. There are some things I've started that I didn't stop once the honeymoon was over. So what made the things I've stuck with different? Is it true love? Persistance on my part? I'm not sure. I love my parrots, and while I've gone through phases of interest like the waxing and waning of the moon, I still love them and enjoy learning about them. I love to read, that's never _ever_ changed. As soon as I learned about the written word when I was a child it is rare to find me without a book nearby. Weight watchers is another, I've had a love/hate relationship with that food plan. It is gone now, but it did help me loose 60lbs, I even managed to keep 40 of it off. I stuck with it, though sometimes much better than others, for four years. That is the thing most similar to raw.. so what made me stick with it?
I'm writeing this thought through, but the one word that keeps comming to mind is 'perfect'. I watch my husband and his pattern is when it doesn't come out 'perfect' it is gone. We've discussed this, he knows it is what he does, and he works on it. Looking at my own life I can see the same thing. We are raised to be 'perfect' children to one degree or another. In my case it was perfect grades, that got me alot of attention, it was something that I could do well. When it got hard and I didn't get perfect, that was a negative. A subtle one, not perfect for me was A's and B's, still very acceptable in my parents eyes. But even then I could detect the difference, all A's ment _very_ happy parents, A's and B's ment happy parents. So perfection is the goal that must be reached cause when my parents where _very_ happy I got alot of rewards. That starts the cycle of disappointment though, school got harder, spelling turned out to be a hurdle, and still is. It took alot of work to get a B in spelling, I almost never managed an A, sometimes I'd get a C. Those times were like the world comming to an end.. in my mind I was not a C student, that was not acceptable, and as far from perfect as could be. You'd think I'd flunked the class, but in my mind I just did!
Wanting perfection sets a person up for failure. I will never be perfect and nothing that I do or find will be perfect. Even on this journey there are contridictions and fustrations. When you buy your nuts, how raw is raw? To dehydrate or not to dehydrate? Sprouting grains? Juiceing? Alot to learn, and the learning is fun, but then the disappointments kick in. Like, "This cannot be the perfect diet for me, I'm not looseing weight fast enough!" Or how about, "This will never work, I cannot get perfectly raw/organic foods where I live!" Those thoughts kick in, the honeymoon is ending, failure or at least the apperance of is right around the corner soon to be followed by old habits and tedium... Right?
Wrong.. that isn't what I want this time! I want to be patient, I want to remember that this is a journey, that perfection is a dirty word and progress is the goal. One day at a time, one meal at a time, one bite at a time all the while learning and growing and becoming healthier every day. That is what I want when the 'frenzies' are gone and the manic interest has passed. Steady progress in a forward direction, even if that does mean straying from the path from time to time and having to forgive myself and allow myself to move away from the guilt to progress again.
So, my goal, in a nutshell... Progress, every day moving foward in this new chosen path of life... I hope it never ends, because when I can stop learning, that is when I will truely stagnate.
Jinx
P.S. Edited for spelling, I told you I couldn't spell *lol*