We have all been in situations where a friend has canceled on us last minute. Most of the time we understand - letting them off of the hook and remembering that they are going through a lot, their job is demanding, and/or being supportive of them taking care of themself and honoring a boundary.
But when the canceling becomes more than a once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence and feels more chronic, you can begin to lose trust in that friend’s word. We may even begin to question our relationship with this person. Eventually asking ourselves something like, “if I don’t have faith in this person’s ability to show up and be a good friend to me, why do I continue to prioritize them in my life?”
Now consider this same situation with our relationship with yourself. Every time that you don’t follow through on something that you said you were going to do, you are breaking your trust in yourself. Not going to the gym when you told yourself you would the night prior, procrastinating on the household chores you were hoping to tackle last weekend, or ignoring the alert on your phone when you have hit your daily screen time limit are all ways we subtly may be reinforcing that your word is unreliable.
If you find yourself in a position where you are habitually not achieving goals or following through with intentions, your trust in your own word may require some tending. Some ways to begin to repair this relationship with yourself are:
Set SMALL Goals. It is common to set goals such as, “I want to read 4 books a month”. And if this feel like a reasonably achievable intention, heck ya go for it! But for many of us, our goals are often bigger than our capacity. When you end up reading 3 books instead of 4 next month, you may feel discouraged and end up reading 1 or 2 books the following month… I recommend setting goals that are so small that they are easily achievable. If your desire is to read more, set a goal of reading one page per day. Some days, you may stop after the one page and can feel accomplished in following through with what you said you would do. But other days, you may find yourself reading entire chapters.
Be Clear on your “Why”. Sometimes we set seemingly arbitrary goals or agendas for ourselves. “I am going to go to yoga 5 days a week” or “I am going to save $10,000 this year” are great goals to work towards, your physical and financial health would most likely be significantly improved if these were to be achieved. But I encourage you to ask yourself a series of “why”s after you consider something you would like to accomplish. When we are connected to the reason why we want something, we are often much more motivated and able to follow through with the intentions we set. An example of getting in touch with the why is:
“I am going to go to yoga 5 days a week”… why? “Because I want to get better at yoga”…why? “Because I want to feel physically and mentally better in the day-to-day”…why? “So that I can keep up with my kids and not feel exhausted at the end of the day”…why? “Because my mom didn’t play with me much as a kid and I want to show up differently for my kids and be the best parent I can be”…
As Carl G. Jung says, You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do". I invite you this week to notice when you are breaking trust with yourself - building your awareness of how often this happens.
Listening: this conversation between Murphy (of Our Medicine) and Marlee Grace (of Monday Monday). I am a big fan of both of their newsletters and enjoyed this exploration of what it means to be an owner/steward of a home/land.
Reading: A new semester is beginning and I have been spending much of my reading time brushing up on psychodynamic theories and approaches. But I am thrilled that “Hell Bent” by Leigh Bardugo was released this week and I have it sitting on my shelf when I have the time for it.
I have been having issues with my left knee lately. For the first time, I have considered going to a physical therapist over this issue. I spoke about my knee with my acupuncturist and she told me that this pain in my knee was likely due to tightness in my quads and/or lower back. I sit for my work - writing this newsletter, seeing clients in my therapy practice, and teaching graduate-level students - it’s a lot of time sitting and as many of us know, prolonged periods of sitting can be tough on our bodies. I have been using my Theragun and a foam roller to try and counterbalance all of the sitting my weeks require. Fingers crossed that this helps.
I have continued to facilitate Ketamine-Assisted Therapy with clients residing in California. I am continually returning to a deep reverence for this work and for a person’s capacity to heal and move through challenging or traumatic experiences. If you want to learn more about my work with psychedelic-assisted therapy you can go here.
This month, I have reached over 100 subscribers to this newsletter! This obviously is a relatively small number compared to others’ followers, but it feels like a milestone for this little newsletter. I am grateful to all who subscribe, read my musings, forward the newsletter to their friends, engage in the comment section, reach out to me individually, and especially to those who have been willing to pay for a subscription to support my work. Thank you, thank you!
May your days and week be filled with whatever you are most needing,
Ellen
I’m an LCSW in WI incorporating somatic skills. So glad to have found your site!
Found this today. Thank you!