Duality, or disagreeing with myself
So I've found myself discussing issues of weight and self-image with a couple of people lately, and I've realized that the root problem I have with this, as with my opinion of myself in general, is that I can't reconcile what I believe should be true with what appears to be true.
Or, put a little differently, what I understand on an intellectual level is completely different from what I understand on an emotional level.
Which, as you can imagine, leaves me terribly conflicted. I'm a feminist, I believe in health at any size, and I can look at people of all sizes and think they look wonderful. And yet when I look at myself I can't see past the now ingrained message that I'm just overweight and ugly.
It's the same for all the negativity in my life, really. I know enough psychology to understand why I feel the way I do, and why my thought process is a little less than logic. I had a psychology lecturer once who maintained that this sort of awareness was the key to overcoming our own issues, and my question to him was basically how - what process comes after the awareness to smooth everything over and make it right.
He said that was different for every individual and I'd figure out my own path on my own. But I can't help feeling I've somehow gained too much awareness of my own thought processes and not enough enlightenment, or something. I can identify all the patterns but I'm not one bit closer to changing them.
Maybe it's because I'm such an emotional person naturally. Being a bit more Vulcan might help ;) but I'm not any good at that either.
Ok, enough ranting for one post, I think.
Or, put a little differently, what I understand on an intellectual level is completely different from what I understand on an emotional level.
Which, as you can imagine, leaves me terribly conflicted. I'm a feminist, I believe in health at any size, and I can look at people of all sizes and think they look wonderful. And yet when I look at myself I can't see past the now ingrained message that I'm just overweight and ugly.
It's the same for all the negativity in my life, really. I know enough psychology to understand why I feel the way I do, and why my thought process is a little less than logic. I had a psychology lecturer once who maintained that this sort of awareness was the key to overcoming our own issues, and my question to him was basically how - what process comes after the awareness to smooth everything over and make it right.
He said that was different for every individual and I'd figure out my own path on my own. But I can't help feeling I've somehow gained too much awareness of my own thought processes and not enough enlightenment, or something. I can identify all the patterns but I'm not one bit closer to changing them.
Maybe it's because I'm such an emotional person naturally. Being a bit more Vulcan might help ;) but I'm not any good at that either.
Ok, enough ranting for one post, I think.