You Didn’t Mean to Design the Dysfunction

When was the last time you looked in the mirror and said “I love you”?

If ever!?

And REALLY meant it about ALL of you?

For all that you are AND all that you’re NOT?

I include “all that you’re not” because we do that all the time. We see deficiencies or inadequacies in ourselves. We compare ourselves to others. Someone else has a skill that we don’t. Someone has a feature in their appearance that we wish we had. We’re obsessed with what we don’t have instead of recognizing what we do. The irony is, while you’re obsessing about someone else, someone is looking at you and thinking you’ve got something better than they do.

Maybe this is an oversimplification of what mental health boils down to: self-love.

I remember my light bulb moment when everything about my history clicked into place and I had the stark realization that I had been taught to hate myself. I’m not saying that it was done deliberately or consciously, but that doesn’t matter, either.

It was a moment when I witnessed the mask I had become accustomed to wearing was just that; a mask that I had identified with over time. The laughing at the right moment, even though I didn’t find anything funny, but I had become so well practiced at avoiding drawing attention to myself.

Laughter is an expression of joy. But the joy I expressed was hollow. Unsustainable. If I was laughing and it was faked, then I wondered what made me happy? Did I ever laugh when it was genuine? And so, I began observing myself, in response to life. Was that genuine or conditioned?

The journey to self-love can begin anywhere with anything. It doesn’t have to be any huge dramatic change - like divorce! Oftentimes, it’s not even noticeable to anyone but yourself.

Understanding who you are requires self-reflection, which involves observing yourself and questioning what drives your behavior.

Mental health is entangled with the stories we tell ourselves. The story we accidentally get taught and then continue to believe as adults creates the reality of what we experience. It’s what we accidentally repeat in our behaviour.

I was a finger nail biter. I also chewed at the skin around my nails and made them bleed terribly, which certainly didn’t make my hands look or feel more attractive.

With that sudden and painful realization that I had been lying to myself about my happiness, I began questioning every belief I had and where it came from.

For example, I was told my hands were not feminine. As a teenager, I had been compared to my friend who had slender hands, and she grew her fingernails long.

I didn’t fit the model of femininity in many other ways, too. But the point is, these were the hands I was born with. I cannot change them, but I was taught to judge myself negatively.

I hate long nails for myself. They get dirty easily. I don’t care if others have long nails unless they’re touching me!

Twice in my life, I tried artificial nails and I hated it. It felt so fake and wholly unnatural for me.

What was my motivation to try fake nails? I was trying to change how I was perceived while still holding the belief that I had ugly hands.

What good does that do?

None.

Since my divorce and my dedication to caring for myself, I have experimented with nail polish and discovered I like how my hands looked with nail polish. To my surprise, I don’t have to have long fingernails to wear nail polish. I can keep my nails short and wear nail polish. Yes, I know how silly that sounds. But we really do get locked into these simple childhood constraints without reevaluating them.

Doing my nails now isn’t about changing how I’m perceived. Instead, it’s how I take time to nurture myself. I am not trying to convince myself that my hands are pretty. In the act of caring for my hands, I have grown to appreciate them. They are good, strong, and pretty hands.

Is this kind of thing (perhaps petty) going to change the world for the better? On the grand scheme, no. So, does that automatically mean it’s not worth doing?

You see, that’s how I evaluated whether doing something for myself was worth doing. Did it benefit someone else? If it didn’t, then I denied myself the pleasure.

Learning to question how I was showing up in the world, and honestly, realizing that I was wearing a mask, really showed me that I wasn’t showing up at all! So, yes, I understand that doing these little acts of self-care, like doing my nails, isn’t a radical movement that will change the world. But it changed MY world.

The following post from The Autistic Rebel takes my ramblings and puts them into a simple and coherent formula.

"The System You Accidentally Built"

Hook:

If you scroll every morning, stall every afternoon, and spiral every night…

that’s not a flaw. It’s a system you accidentally built.

Shift:

Most chaos is a design problem with no designer.

Truth:

Contrarian Law #18: Every repeated action has a root cause. Trace it. Rewire it.

Reflection:

You didn’t choose these behaviors. But you rehearsed them into existence.

Actionable Insight:

Reverse-engineer your defaults:

• What triggers them?

• What rewards them?

• What system are they simulating?

Closer:

Design beats discipline. Especially when you didn’t mean to design the dysfunction.

Those lines:

“Every repeated action has a root cause. Trace it. Rewire it.

You didn’t choose these behaviors. But you rehearsed them into existence.”

In particular, for me, they are worth contemplating.

Bonus, Mr. Joe offers you actionable steps.

It works, folks. It’s what I did, very deliberately, I re-designed my life by tracing back the origins of my beliefs and I re-wired new beliefs through my actions.

P.S.

I asked for his permission to use his phrase and post for my article. Thanks Joe!

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Thank you.

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P.P.S.

I’ll leave you with another one of Mr. Joe’s posts that, if you sit with it, maybe, just maybe, how you view your scars will shift like mine did about my hands.

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Newsletter Update

For the next few months - summer and fall - my personal goals are shifting priorities. I am unsure if I will be publishing every week.

I have multiple writing projects, including my other publications, Remember Me and Pawsitive Love. I also need time to complete the books I have been working on.

Last year, while my mother was in hospital care, I postponed home improvements that were already underway. Now that winter has come and gone, I am eager to see these home projects completed and enjoy the great outdoors while leaving time for relationships.

I’m not abandoning my writing. It just will happen as time and weather permit.

I have many articles in development, so there is no shortage of material. This is more about taking off the pressure to perform and to remove expectations of a weekly publication.

I appreciate your understanding and support.