Keeping Your Promises To Your Self

Keeping your promises to your self feels better than not, and yet sometimes it feels so hard. My clients tend to struggle with this particularly around food and eating, but trust me it’s about more than that!

I just got back from my infamous hills-of-Harvard walk and I’m feeling incredibly clear and energized. It’s a magnificent crystal clear and dry day- exactly the kind I treasure and that my cells sing and dance for. Feeling good feels soooo good.

I know that part of what contributes to this feeling for me is being able to keep my promises to myself. To say I want to do something and be able to follow through is satisfying on so many levels. And yet so many of the women I help struggle with this in many areas, not just around the food.

I hope you enjoy today’s musings below.

Today’s Intuitive Musings:
Keeping Your Promises To Yourself

I’ve found that there can be a lot of drama around the whole notion of commitment. It often plays out around the food and eating, but there is way more going on. The eating piece is just the “battlefield”!

When you begin each day making rules for yourself and then break them, often within minutes, your self-worth takes a huge hit. You start to really feel badly about yourself and this tends to spiral in lots of negative self-judgment and harsh inner chatter.

I bet you’ve been there, I know I have.

And you feel stymied by why this all has to feel so hard. Why can’t you just keep these promises or commitments?

It’s not just around the food either. You may find yourself canceling plans with other people, or just feeling “squirmy” overall each time you commit to yourself or another.

In my experience this may originate from a few different things:

1. An overly authoritative controlling parent when you were younger

2. Fear of failing, or of not doing it right- also known as perfectionism or all-or-nothing thinking

3. Feeling depressed or maybe even hopeless that doing anything will feel better

Getting Relief:

As with anything, it helps just to become more aware of the struggle and what your own personal “battlefield” looks like. Think about where you get stuck and are unable to follow through on your commitments.

If it’s always around food, you may be setting yourself up with harsh diet rules or going for too much change all at once.

If breaking your promises to yourself tends to happen more around relationships, you may have some fears around feeling controlled or maybe discomfort around being with other people. Relationships may not have ever felt particularly safe for you.

If you notice that you can’t commit because you are depressed, please trust me that you can feel better but that it’s essential that you find a professional that you trust to help you find your way clear.

Struggling around any of these is painful and you want to feel better- being able to follow through makes us feel more powerful, more competent, more worthy.

You really do deserve all of that and more. And of course I want that for you.

xox
lisa

**I can help with this- a single individual session with me can cover a LOT of ground and give you really personal strategies and insights-check it out here for more info.