Modes of self-sabotage

Last weekend, as I was doing errands, I noticed that my car's gas tank was less than a quarter full. It was a Saturday, I wasn't super pressed for time. I had the 10 minutes to stop and fill up. But I didn't. I thought, "I can do it tomorrow."

Tomorrow came and again I said, "I'll do it tomorrow."

On Tuesday, I was hurrying to get to an appointment for work. And, yes, my tank was nearly empty. I could probably make it to my appointment but I'd definitely have to stop right after. But I didn't know of a station near where my appointment was.

So, I had to stop before getting on the freeway and fill up, knowing that, to make it to my destination on time, I'd probably have to break into a sprint at some point.

I pulled into the station and wouldn't you know it? Handwritten signs taped to the pumps said they were temporarily out of order.

By coincidence, a friend was telling me the other day about how she, too, procrastinates when it comes time to fill up her gas tank. And then she absolutely must stop when she's in a hurry.

(As she was relaying her story. Is avoiding the gas station a girl thing? Or a typical procrastinator thing?)

She explained how she winds up gritting her teeth at other drivers whom she perceives are making her even later for her appointment. The rest of the day, she said, she feels stressed and irritated, mostly at herself.

"If there is any way to ruin my day, not filling up my gas tank when I have the chance is it," she said.

A lot of us engage in what the mental health and self-help types call "self-sabotage." When people talk about self-sabotage, they are usually referring to the big, bad self-destructive choices we make or patterns we get into: addiction, choosing toxic friends and marriages, making foolish financial choices, picking fights with bosses.

Right now, I'm thinking of the small, daily ways I undermine myself. I'm more interested in those because they are potentially the potholes of routine life that I can potentially avoid.

In my last post, I wrote about pushing back against the Brown, that scary overwhelming feeling that makes me immobile with fear and self-doubt.

I started to realize that some days I have to make a constant minute-by-minute effort to push back against the Brown. The way I do it is by taking action, even if it's as simple as making that phone call on my To Do list.

Another way the Brown sweeps over me is when I've done something--or not done something--that leads to stress. As in, not filling up my gas tank when I first realize I should and when I'm not in a rush, like on a Saturday when I'm running small errands.

Over the last 24 hours, I can think of several other instances of self-sabotage.

Last night, I came home from seeing Center Repertory Company's production of Smokey Joe's Cafe. Actually, going to see this show at the Lesher Center was the opposite of self-sabotage. Not only was the show entertaining, it was uplifting in the talent and energy the cast displayed. It left me pumped, inspired.

I could have come home and written a blog post. I could have settled myself down to go to bed and picked up the book I've put off finishing.

Instead, I got online, checked email, checked the news, then indulged in finding and watching old clips from the ABC soap All My Children (like the YouTube video above). Watching the show, which is coming close to going off the air, was a guilty pleasure back in my college years and early 20s. OK, there is nothing wrong with this kind of indulgence. But I stayed up until 1 a.m, which is really late for me, especially since I had planned to get up early and go to the gym.

Needless to say, I didn't get to the gym early this morning. I didn't do other things that are part of my morning to nurture my body and mind: write in my journal, meditate, make a To Do list.

Now, my brain's not quite working in the way I like, and I feel disorganized, unfocused, fat, out of shape And I feel the Brown licking at the side of my head.

OK, here is the plan for the rest of the morning, the rest of the day: As much as I can, I will ask myself if the thing I'm about to do--or not do--will make me feel better.

Pushing back the Brown

What is the Brown? It's this feeling that sometimes creeps in, or, at other times, sweeps over me like a wave. It is a mix of self-doubt, self-hatred, laziness and lassitude. At its core is fear.

I started calling it the Brown when I was trying to do that thing you learn in meditation: as it was cresting over me, I tried to feel where it was in my body. It seemed to rise up, not always inside of me, but beside me. I could feel it along my right shoulder, then swell up inside my head and over it. I tried to visualize it. The color "brown" instantly came to mind.

I had written previously of waking up some mornings with a black hollow feeling. The color "black" or the idea of "hollow" both described a sensation that was too clean to me, too pure, to easily deliniated. "Brown" is more descriptive and more accurate. Brown is mud. It's murky, thick, dirty, a mix of so many things. Brown is dirty water. Brown is shit. A dull orange brown is the color you get when you take the primary colors of paint or Play-Doh, and blend them all together.

The Brown was hitting me rather relentlessly for a couple weeks. The feeling would come over me first thing in the morning, as I was making coffee, trying to exercise, writing anything in my notebook, at work, trying to craft a sentence, before I had to make a simple phone call. It was this constant presence.

Then some ideas hit me. First, I thought, in each moment that I start to feel the Brown, I have a choice. I can let it come and give into it, and sit immobile. Or I can push back, and say, "no, not now."

I could take action. I felt this first desire to push back while I was at the gym exercising. I was in the middle of pulling up some weights in a bicep curl. The Brown seemed to rise up with the curl of my arm. It made me want to stop the set, put down the weights, pick up my keys and leave the gym. I'd go sit in the car and just sit. And ruminate, on all the reasons I couldn't finish the work-out, on all the reasons I couldn't get moving in life.

Pushing back: the solution seemed simple. Just finish the set of curls, and then move onto the next exercise, and the next, and finish the work-out. I had a choice. Give up and go sit in my car and stay immobile, or finish this set and the rest of the work-out.

I finished the work-out. The Brown went away.

It would come back an hour later, and a dozen more times over the rest of the morning. But I accepted that I had a choice, and each time, I said "no" to the Brown, and finished the small task I had started, or made the phone call that was on my list of things to do.

When I woke up this morning, I felt the Brown sweeping over me. Reading the newspaper made it worse. I sat down and started writing this entry. The first few sentences were hard to get out. "This is dumb," I told myself. "I'm not ready to write this. I can't write this. The words won't come."

I pushed forward a few more sentences. And now, I've written about my fight against the Brown. The Brown has retreated. For now.