Habits

I am amazed at how uneventful this has been so far. 

I feel like I should be either A) struggling more or B) learning great lessons about myself or C) both of the above.  The only thing I've learned so far is that my nightly wine habit was merely that, a habit, and one that was easy to break.  I've been to one holiday party where I normally would have had a glass or two of wine, and having water instead was no big deal.

Unfortunately there's this little lizard named Yes Butt who lives on my shoulder and whispers in my ear 

• ... you haven't really been tested
• ... things will be harder the longer this goes on
• ... you won't be able to resist a glass of wine on the deck in the spring
• ... you can't do this

You know what?  Here's the thing.  That right there is exactly what I have conditioned myself to expect.  I've lived a long time with that voice in my head but it is time to accept that Yes Butt is getting tinier and tinier every day.  If I pay attention to what I'm actually thinking and not what I expect to be thinking I barely hear him at all anymore.  

Have you ever had that happen?  You look at something that you have believed about yourself for a long time and ask yourself "Is that really true?"  Sure, it was probably true at one point, but somewhere along the line I changed, and those thoughts no longer line up with reality.

A year or so ago I was driving with my daughter.  We were coming home from meeting with a friend who had said something along the line of how I am an adventurous person.  I told my daughter that I was really surprised she had said that because I don't see myself that way.  She said "Mom, when are you going to stop being surprised when people say stuff like that to you?  How do you see yourself?  If you had to describe who you are, what would you say?"

Not too long after that I was in a class and one of our assignments was to write down what we were feeling before we ate.  The first day I started to write horrible stuff about myself and my food choices, only to stop and wonder "Do I really think that?"  Well, no, not really.  I had been living so long with the voices from my past that I didn't stop to re-evaluate them.  Ever.  I eat pretty well most of the time, so why was I continuing to beat myself up about it?

Habits - they're not just having a glass of wine every night.  Habits are also the way you think about things without really thinking.  They are programmed responses to stimuli.  I have a habit far worse than my nightly wine habit.  I have a habit of selling myself short.

That is going to be a far more difficult habit to break.

Or not.  I don't want to sell myself short.