Week 5 Day 35: 5th LL meeting; crooked thinking; scale inconsistencies

Just got back from LL group.

According to their scales, I've lost 1.4lbs this week, which mean I've now lost a stone. But according to my scales, this morning I'm 17lbs down from the morning before I started LL - and even the jeans I had trouble getting into before are now at serious risk of falling down.

But I've not been doing very well with water consumption - yesterday I was travelling and barely drank any because I didn't want to be caught out on the train. However, this week I'm really going to make a project of drinking water - and aim to drink and refill my 75cl bottle twice in the morning, twice in the afternoon and once after I'm home. That'll be my project and I'll see if it makes a difference to next Sunday's weigh in.

I'll fill you in on my week later, but I wanted to note what we talked about in group today. Crooked thinking - we looked at this in more depth, according to this template:

1. The event
2. The crooked thought you might have / the balanced thought you could have
3. How you feel given either option
4. Action you might take in either option
5. How you feel once you've completed either action

We were asked to think of something that had happened this week, and apply these rules to it to see what we thought/felt/did, and how we could (or actually did) make it more balanced.

I thought I was doing pretty well in isolating my black/white thinking, but actually something else happened this week that made me feel severely emotional (which I then buried and forgot about, but which influenced my mood for the rest of the week).

So. This isn't at all food related, but as you may or may not know, I do some freelance work on top of my regular job....

EVENT

I learned that a friend of mine - another freelancer - landed a really cool freelance gig.

CROOKED THOUGHTS

"But how! I'm so much better than her!" / "That's really mean and bigheaded of me to think, I'm supposed to be her friend! Why can't I just be happy for her?" / "I'm a rubbish friend and she's always nice to me."/ "I'm so disorganised that I probably wouldn't have landed it anyway" / "She deserves it more than me." / "I'M RUBBISH.' (I have that one a lot)

EMOTIONS

Jealousy / anger / self-loathing / despair.

 

ACTION

Withdrawal. 

Congratulate her in the most sincere way possible then crawl away feeling awful about myself.

 

EMOTIONS

Sad / self-loathing / lack of confidence.

But what we talked about in group is that this was actually about my own lack of confidence when pitching for freelance work. This particular friend is an amazing self-publicist, whereas I try to let my work speak for itself - which, luckily, works quite well at the moment, but I am dreading the day that I have to pitch to someone as I expect I'll get tongue-tied and lose my nerve.

But with all that in mind, my thought process could have gone like this...

EVENT
I learn that my friend has landed a really cool freelance gig.

BALANCED THOUGHT

Gosh, that's impressive. I wonder how she does it. I'm a bit jealous, and this is an area I don't really feel comfortable in. Maybe I should follow up on the freelance stuff I've yet to do (BECAUSE **ALERT ALERT** I HAVE SOME FREELANCE STUFF I'M ALREADY DOING, WHICH I CONVENIENTLY FORGOT ABOUT WHEN I WAS FEELING ALL SELF-LOATHINGY). Maybe I can get some tips on pitching and confidence from my friend.

EMOTIONS

Inspired.

ACTION

I look at my own schedule to see what can be improved, and get some useful advice from my successful friend.

EMOTIONS

Accomplished / hopeful.

This really opened my eyes.

My LLC said "Bea, your default setting is 'I'm rubbish'. All roads lead there - and it's where you're comfortable. But that's not the logical conclusion of every situation. You have a small crooked thought, then it snowballs into bigger and bigger ones so that by the time you're finished you're upset about something to do with yourself (being a rubbish friend) rather than facing and dealing with the thing you were already upset about (being nervous about pitching). It's a clever sabotage trick - but that's all it is. It's not THE TRUTH, and the way to deal with it is to realise when you're having that LITTLE crooked thought and question that before it becomes the big thought."

See? They're all wizards. Wizards, I tell you!