I have many control issues in my own life. I need to be in control of everything I am involved in, but recognize I am not always the expert and must defer to those who know more than I. (Which, admittedly, would be most everyone about most everything.) What I can't control are the things I have to learn to accept. Like the things you cannot change, if you cannot control them, you have to let them go.
Today, however, I chose to discuss something more personal. Control over ones body and mind has always fascinated me. It seems so easy to just KNOW what is right for you and what is wrong for you and then DO the RIGHT thing. Life isn't that simple nor is it that easy.
Example: I am a smoker. There it is. Shame on me. It's disgusting and dirty and completely unacceptable in the world where I live. I eat at home most of the time because I want to enjoy a smoke after I eat and can no longer do that in public. I actually choose NOT to go some places because I know there won't be any way to escape and grab a cig. That is rare, but it has happened. I have tried to quit with great sincerity several times, okay hundreds of times, because my life would be so much simpler if I weren't a smoker. Never because I just wanted to quit. I have 'succeeded' a few times in that I didn't have a cigarette for as long as 6 weeks. Then I light up one or two and in a week or less, I am a smoker again. I have never not wanted to smoke, just wanted to not NEED to smoke. I am addicted, no doubt. I am also done beating myself up over it because everyone else does a good enough job of that for me, no need to add salt to my wounds. I suppose I will try again one day to quit and I may even quit one day, but it isn't going to be today and honestly, I am okay with that. I like me and I know that I have this addiction and I also know that it's okay with me, for now. I do feel bad that others judge me by this fact severely and some see me as just a weak and nasty and stupid person who walks around smelling like an ashtray and doesn't care that I am polluting the air they are trying to breathe and doesn't care that I am killing myself. I think I am a fairly considerate smoker and wish non-smokers would be as considerate. I have NO control over either of these issues, though one would argue that I do. I do not.
Example: "You would be so beautiful~ if you would just loose some weight." I have heard this statement from people who were hurt by someone they love saying this simple sentence to them meaning to "Help" them get motivated to drop pounds.It makes me want to scream! I have said many, many times that I do NOT believe beauty is tied in anyway to the scales. Your weight, your hair color, your hair style, your sense of style, your eyes or your cute feet have nothing to do with your beauty. They are the things we try to control so that others think we are beautiful. Beautiful people are so because they have wit, giving hearts and an attitude about life that makes them glow. Beautiful people may or may not possess physical characteristics that others consider classic beauty. I think it is rare to find both kinds of beauty in one body, but it happens. Real beauty involves doing the best you can with what God gave you. This applies to both your external look and your internal being. If you strive to be YOUR best, you are on your way to winning the Beauty Contest.
If you are a few pounds heavier than you want to be or if you are morbidly obese, the choice to tackle that situation is yours to make. If you NEED to lose to be healthy, then get at it and whittle away until you achieve some measure of better health. If you need help to get there, get it. If you fail, accept it. Then decide if you wanna try it again or not. Don't beat yourself up for your weight! That isn't who YOU ARE. That is what you weigh. That's all. If dieting to make yourself "like you" more is important to you, ask yourself, "Why?", and then make a good decision that is right for you. Maybe just eating a healthier diet as a matter of lifestyle is a good choice for you. Whatever you choose to do, or not do, it will not change who you are. You either are a beautiful person or you can choose to be one. That is control we all have and can exercise at our will. What food goes in our mouth is always our choice, assuming the mental stability issue has been addressed. It just seems so unnecessary to brow beat oneself into dieting because one isn't a size 2! SO WHAT? Control who you are and what you do most of the time and call that good!
Our minds are not always so easily controlled, that's for sure. I very often know that I should be doing something in particular to better my life or someone I love's life and yet, I don't do it. I don't do it for a number of 'reasons'....too lazy, sounds like more work than I want to take on today, don't have what I need to do it so I'll put that on my list...I could go on and on, but the point is just knowing doesn't make me in control. My wandering mind sometimes just doesn't want to be controlled by right and wrong or even by good or bad. Sometimes it just likes to BE. I really don't have to control it, so far it has served me fairly well and I have no control over most of things in my life! It just is what it is.
I choose to control my faith and I choose to control my lifestyle and other than that, I choose to accept my blessings and my trials because this is the life I have been given. I do believe you get what you give and I have been given a tremendous amount of joy and good fortune with a minimal amount of pain. I'm good with that.
Jo
Learning how to control impulses and habits is difficult. I HAD to quit smoking when I ended up with an asthma attack that nearly killed me. Now even the sniff of smoke causes me to have to take breathing treatments. I wish you luck when you decide to quit.
ReplyDeleteMy GBE 2 Control blog: http://myheartblogstoyou.blogspot.com/2011/06/issues-of-control.html
Bad habits are hard to break. I eat too much but unfortunately I need to eat something to stay alive. It's easier to say I'm not going to eat any chocolate than to eat one piece and stop. The problem with smoking is that it's a chemical addiction that your body craves. But you don't need to smoke to live once you get away from the chemical draw. Have you tried the patch?
ReplyDeleteJoyce
http://joycelansky.blogspot.com
@Theresa...No health problems here so it is just a choice for me, at this point. I have made it.
ReplyDelete@Joyce...the patch, a step down program, hypnotism, subliminal tapes, pills of several types, pretty much everything out there. Some with greater success than others, but all failed to keep me off the smokes because I just want to smoke.
I understand the nicotine addiction part, not that hard to break that, the hard part is the mental addiction. It is the actual ACT of smoking that is part of my life. Every 30 minutes for the last 47 years I have lit and smoked a cigarette. It is part of everything I do. So...for non-smokers, I know, it sounds ridiculous, but quitting is just not in my cards or in my control.
It is different than eating, I agree. You can still eat a lot and just make different choices. I can't choose to smoke a safer or healthier cig. Although I do have an electronic cig that is nicotine free. It works for the times when I just cannot smoke. Very expensive to keep up with all the refills.
I gave up smoking a couple of years ago and haven't looked back. The simple reason I have stayed quit is that I WANTED to quit. No amount of advice, cajoling and pressure from outside was gonna make any difference. I wouldn't stop until I was ready.
ReplyDeleteWe can't control what other people think but we can learn to control our responses to those who taunt or make hurtful comments. We can turn them off, choose not to be hurt by their words. It is not an easy option and one many of us choose too late, but it can be done.
Loved this post for its honesty :)
This post really struck home for me. I have struggled with my weight ever since after my kids were born. Learning to control eating is hard, learning to exercise more is even harder. I try to be the best person I can, and hope the rest will come in time. Loved your blog and your honesty!!
ReplyDeleteKathy
http://www.thetruckerswife.com/
i'm good with that too : ) ((hugs))
ReplyDelete@Gill Mojo...Honesty, that's me! No filter to decide what should pass the lips and what should stay inside! Working on that, a little, but honesty makes me function better when given and when accepted. Thanks for the support and the encouragement. I can't help that people treat me like a second class citizen because I smoke, but I can most certainly refuse to be hurt by their words or actions. I choose that!
ReplyDelete@Kathy...I totally know what you are saying and I really get upset when people are so obsessed with the scales that they forget the most important part of who they are. Healthy weight is a good goal to be chipped away at while maintaining self-worth. It is never that you aren't good enough, it's always that you aren't perfect. I say, "Yes YOU are."
@Brenda...(((hugs))) right back atcha! Good days and bad days kinda equal themselves out and all in all, it's a good life.
What a great post. I am not a smoker, but I grew up in a family of smokers and it was as natural as drinking coffee with breakfast or watching tv with popcorn. It was just a part of the adult life in our entire family (exception of my Grandmother)...and when I became an adult it just never stuck with me. Conversely, I was worried my family would see me as odd for NOT wanting to smoke...and thankfully that was never the case. All that to say...I don't see smokers as evil or bad...it's just what they do. Kind of like my one Aunt who talks with her arms going every which direction...you'd never ask her to change that (unless she poked you in the eye or something).
ReplyDeleteI've decided to lose weight for me this time around. I was fed up in December and I've to date am down 29 lbs. I have a long, long, ways to go...but I'll get there...because I want to...no other reason.
Such a great post on Control...Cheers!! Jenn.
The mind can be a friend or foe and for me the only way to make it a friend is to meditate, do self introspection, contemplation and to write because all of these things make me clearer. I've learned that my habits are just ways that I mask my true self whether this is through over eating, under eating (yes, I've done that too), drinking when I should be contemplating, watching TV, on and on. I do these things in an effort to hide, but 'what' am I hiding? That is the question which is in the mind and which can be tricky to answer.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the pure Self can never be tricked and when the mind is clear and in alignment with the God within I make no mistakes and I don't tend to seek nonproductive ways to hide.
Great blog!
I doubt that there is a human out there who has no weaknesses, no 'bad' habits, so I'm often surprised at how some people feel untitled to give others grief about their specific brand of weakness. I have a thing about cigarettes--not smokers, but the bastards in big tobacco who produce and market a deadly product...and go so far as to purposefully add toxins and addictive components to what would otherwise be a far less dangerous product.
ReplyDeleteI watched my mom suffer with emphysema throughout all of my childhood and I lost her before I was seventeen. Yes, she chose to smoke, but as time has proven, it isn't as simple as that. The way that cigarette companies design their products is pure evil, and if I had the power to do so, I would shut their asses down and toss their CEOs in prison.
I've always been about fat positivism, it's the people who need a wall taken down in their house in order to get them out of the house and into a hospital where they can loose weight. That is faaaaaaaaaaaar from healthy lol
ReplyDeleteI gained a bunch of weight recently because of quitting smoking after a short relapse and the medication I'm on causes weight gain as well. I have a gym membership and I'm trying my best to get healthy again. I'll probably go back to my "regular size" (8,10) in a year, and that is fine by me!
The Kate Escape: Control
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I appreciate your honesty about smoking. I cannot honestly say that I am in completely control of myself, because I would be lying. There are things in my life I need to work on too. Great job!
ReplyDeleteThere are many facets to addictions that most people don't see or understand and even if they do if they haven't been in your shoes they can not grasp the pull of an addiction-even a broken one unless they've been there.
ReplyDeleteMy dad had a vision about "breaking the cycle" and he showed us his struggles with his addictions. He made it clear that once you start some types of addictions they will hold onto you forever. He found a reason to quit and to not start again. Quitting is not about will power it is about being ready and willing to do what it takes to overcome the "need/want" pull-every second of every day forward. {{{Hugs}}}
@Jenn...Thanks for the support. Addiction is one of those many things we cannot control alone and I obviously have chosen not to find the magic cure yet. (though I am aware it IS within me)
ReplyDelete@Marian...it's all about being in touch with God and having peace within, for me.
@Kate...the scales matter not, it's the healthy life and self-acceptance, I feel.
@JulieDD...Your dad was a wise and strong man.