Security

 I was surprised by the last sentence of my previous blog.  "It is time to let go of the security of snacking."  I have no idea where that came from - it never ever occurred to me that snacking was a security issue for me.  Obviously it is though because when I think of giving it up I feel an anxiety that borders on panic.  What will I do instead?  I'm stalled by indecision.   I sit and there are a million things I could do but for some reason I don't want to do them.  I can clean the house, I like the feeling of having a clean house, but while I am cleaning I have a string of negative thinking going on in my head.  Instead of celebrating that my house looks nice I look for every little imperfection.  The job is never good enough, the house is never clean enough.  I feel helpless and disgusted with myself.  

Okay, that's enough of the self pity.  But as I write this I believe it is totally true.  I can clean a room and find a hundred more things wrong with it.  Intellectually, I know that there is no way to get the room perfectly clean.  There is no way to get anything perfect no matter how hard someone tries because perfection does not exist.  What I need to do is to stop holding myself to the perfection standard because when I think in perfectionistic terms I retreat to a snacking. It's not surprising that I do either  because here is an example of my thinking:  Once I start cleaning I need to completely finish it. If I get all the  surfaces clean, them the floors need to be swept and mopped, after that the windows need to be washed, and after that the stove and oven need to be cleaned, oh, and don't forget the refridgerator, and after that the drawers need to be cleaned out, and after all of the bathrooms, and bedrooms are clean, then the garage needs to be cleaned, then the basement needs to be cleaned.  And it all needs to be perfect every single day because if it isn't it proves that I am a slob.


With a thinking process like this it is no wonder I interrupt that type of thinking with food.  Its no wonder I never want to start a project because there is no way I can finish it.  This type of all or nothing thinking needs to end because it forces me to numb myself with reading a book and snacking just to shut out the endless string of self criticism.  Because  of the self criticism I never start the projects, I simply retreat into the comfort of reading a book and eating.  It is incredibly stress producing think that I am powerless to do a job well.

So first, I need to consider what kind of standards I want to set?  How do I define clean, how do I define when a job is finished?  I'm going to try to set small, manageable goals to accomplish every day.  I need to tell myself a hundred times a day that perfection does not exist.  The whole job will never be done and not just because I am perfectionistic, but also because I don't live in a vaccuum.  I live in a house with 2 other people,  And we live here, we cook meals, we watch tv, we sort the mail, we forget to hang up our coats, we have a dog and a cat.  It's the nature of life, the cycle of living as it were, we are always having to balance our time and responsibilities.  

It will be interesting to see what the next few weeks hold.  Right now, I think I just want to make sure the surfaces are mostly clear and the floors are swept, and the dishes are in the dishwasher on a daily basis.  That doesn't seem too much to me.  It's a good place to start.  Any thoughts?