Coping strategies: Keep your Abstinence mentality

(LighterLife Route to Management – Week9 Day5)

Finding myself in reflective mood this week. A fellow LighterLifer said something in our LL meeting on Friday that I woke up thinking about the next morning. We had a couple of new girls in the group just starting out on Route to Management and we were asked to give our best tips. She said stick to your abstinence mentality to help you keep focused.

I then said something about the importance of planning etc. but that’s all really just detail on top of the mentality bit. You see, at first I meant to disagree and say that Route to Management shouldn’t be about tunnel vision or not looking back, forward or around you. But somehow the realisation then hit me just as soon as I had finished thinking the disagreement thought: she’s right. It’s all about FOCUSING ON THE NOW.

I remember – and I actually re-read my Jan/Feb posts last weekend – that towards the end of Abstinence I was getting panicky and obsessed about stuff that would only need to concern me AFTER Route to Management, i.e. life without rules without being on a diet. And everything that comes with it: how do I eat, why do I eat like that, how will it affect me, what will I do with all the SUGAR in the world, what if I keep not exercising, etc. etc. etc. It was hard to focus on what I actually needed to be doing. Which, essentially, was PLANNING (see yesterday’s post). What goes around comes around, eyh…

So is it just the planning? Well, to me, looking back now, even into last week, let alone back to the first weeks of Route to Management, it does seem that if I hadn’t been really willing to sit through those feelings – whatever they were at any one time – then I would’ve been REALLY screwed. And by that I mean more screwed than just having now gotten this far and gone through some bingey nights along the way… I mean along the lines of maybe I would’ve never even gotten this far. In fact, I know I wouldn’t have.

So the focus, like it was in Abstinence, when I think about it, should be oneself. Me me me me ME. And THAT’S what it really means to me, the ‘Abstinence mentality’ – a relentless focus and attention on ME. Which in turn of course means everything that makes ‘me’. All the shit and greatness and weakness and whatnot. And yes, that’s where all the pain is. But you know what: no pain, NO GAIN. Not in this life.