Re: I Understand Smoking Now

November 9, 2010

I love the reminder to sit with the discomfort.. A daily challenge for me...

I had a boss like that, Josie. She assigned a huge volume of work yet had an ability to zoom in like a hawk on any little mistake I made or thing I neglected to do. It completely undermined my self confidence, even though in previous jobs I had felt like a pretty competent and hardworking employee. I wound up resigning on the spot one day when she was berating me for something. It took a while for my confidence to rebound (but it did, and now I have a job where I do feel valued - yay!). Even though I knew she herself was stressed and unhappy, it was hard to not internalize her criticisms.

Some people turn to food, others to cigarettes, and then there are those people whose release is making other people feel like sh*t, right?

Alice

Subject: I Understand Smoking NowTo: IntuitiveEating_Support Date: Tuesday, November 9, 2010, 11:21 AM

In my college and grad school days, I was something of a smoker. Never very serious about it. For the most part, I'd call it more of a social thing. I.e., if I was at a party and others were smoking, I'd bum a cigarette from them. Rarely would I buy my own pack. But every once in a while when I was really ticked off about something, I'd find myself angrily puffing on a couple to calm down. But since I was never that hooked, they were expensive, and I didn't think it was worth cancer, I stopped a long time ago and have rarely given them a second thought. Fast forward to today. I'm like seriously wound up. Just feeling really stressed and tired. Too much going on at work and no possibility for a break for the next couple of weeks. Add to it that I've been traveling for work for the last couple of weeks, so in addition to the stress of travel and the project I'm

working on, I'm working in my hotel room at night to try to keep up with everything that's going on in the office. This last weekend I was supposed to have a three day weekend, but spent two of the three days working on a report virtually all day. As I've mentioned before, my boss is a task master and it feels like every message I get from her these days is about something else that I've done wrong. For the most part, these are valid issues, but part of the problem is that we are just so swamped with work that little stuff falls through the cracks because it's just not possible to keep up (she's like some sort of alien in her ability to catch all this stuff. I don't think she sleeps!). I'm not the only one who reports to her that experiences this. Still, I hate it when I don't get things right. It eats at me, makes me feel incompetent, and when added to everything else, I just feel fried. Like I

don't want to be in my own skin. Like I can't focus on what I'm doing. So, oddly, the last two days, I've had the *most* overwhelming urge to have a cigarette. Like if there had been a drugstore nearby I seriously would have headed in and bought a pack and huffed away. This isn't something I've even thought about for probably 20 years. But for the last two days, I can't get it out of my head. I've been doing pretty well with eating the last two weeks since my first visit with the therapist, so I think I'm realizing that this is normally a time when I would have found something to eat, but since I'm not doing that now, it has become an urge to smoke. It reminds me of when Geneen was on Oprah and Oprah said that people always used to ask her if she was stressed and she always said no because she never felt stress, but she realized through Geneen's book that she never felt stress because she'd have

something to eat at the first sign of discomfort. I guess I've been doing that, too, without even realizing it.All in all, I think it's a good realization, but I will say, I HATE this feeling. I did try to take a 10 minute break and take a little walk outside to get some air, which helped a bit, but I'm still wired. Made me also think of one of the things Geneen said at her workshop, which is that if you are willing to feel discomfort, you will be successful with IE. If you're not, you won't. (that's a paraphrase) This is the discomfort that I don't want to feel and I'm not digging it, but I know I have to work through this to get to the other side. Grrr....Josie------------------------------------

November 9, 2010

Hi Josie,

This sounds like a horribly stressful, exhausting time for you! Poor you!

If you were the mother to you that you wish you had (nothing against your actual mother!), and not yourself, what would you (the ever nurturing mother) suggest to you (the sufferer) for managing this hard time?

This is not a rhetorical question -- I'm curious as to your answer! -- but I bet you would start by being awfully sympathetic. And maybe also curious if there are any things you could do to prioritize your own self care? or even a different way you could view the situation you are in?

also... i remember something in geneen roth's book about a woman who was frustrated because she had to work crazy hours and do unfulfilling work in her law firm in order to climb the ranks, so she ate in frustration... geneen talked about given the situation, was there a way that the woman could make peace with it and not resist the situation? and then the eating would resolve itself because she wouldn't be fighting her situation. (at least, i think this was geneen... if not, sorry for the confusion!) anyway, i don't mean to suggest your situation isn't awfully hard, because it sounds like it is, but i wonder if there is a way that you could frame it to yourself that might make you feel more in control of your situation?

As for your manager... can you talk to her? As someone who is new to the managing role and clueless about how I come off as a manager... it seems like not always as the sensitive and caring person I feel myself to be!... what if you talked to her? It sounds like her feedback is acting as evidence to your own suspicions that you are not doing the quality of work that you feel you need to do?

If so, it sounds like you have two issues, getting her to be less strict or hard on you... and getting your ownself to do the same thing!

I think it's awesome that you identified the impulse to smoke. Is there anything else appeals? If it were me, I might think about a good hard run, even if for only ten minutes, if that was all I had. A good way to get that aggression out... especially when I least feel like it! Or if not running, anything that is good and vigorous? punch a punching bag, swim laps as hard as you can, pedal an exercise bike as fast as you can????

anyway, i hope that some of this might help, and that none of it offends... let us know how it goes!abby

In my college and grad school days, I was something of a smoker. Never very serious about it. For the most part, I'd call it more of a social thing. I.e., if I was at a party and others were smoking, I'd bum a cigarette from them. Rarely would I buy my own pack. But every once in a while when I was really ticked off about something, I'd find myself angrily puffing on a couple to calm down. But since I was never that hooked, they were expensive, and I didn't think it was worth cancer, I stopped a long time ago and have rarely given them a second thought.

Fast forward to today. I'm like seriously wound up. Just feeling really stressed and tired. Too much going on at work and no possibility for a break for the next couple of weeks. Add to it that I've been traveling for work for the last couple of weeks, so in addition to the stress of travel and the project I'm working on, I'm working in my hotel room at night to try to keep up with everything that's going on in the office. This last weekend I was supposed to have a three day weekend, but spent two of the three days working on a report virtually all day.

As I've mentioned before, my boss is a task master and it feels like every message I get from her these days is about something else that I've done wrong. For the most part, these are valid issues, but part of the problem is that we are just so swamped with work that little stuff falls through the cracks because it's just not possible to keep up (she's like some sort of alien in her ability to catch all this stuff. I don't think she sleeps!). I'm not the only one who reports to her that experiences this. Still, I hate it when I don't get things right. It eats at me, makes me feel incompetent, and when added to everything else, I just feel fried. Like I don't want to be in my own skin. Like I can't focus on what I'm doing.

So, oddly, the last two days, I've had the *most* overwhelming urge to have a cigarette. Like if there had been a drugstore nearby I seriously would have headed in and bought a pack and huffed away. This isn't something I've even thought about for probably 20 years. But for the last two days, I can't get it out of my head. I've been doing pretty well with eating the last two weeks since my first visit with the therapist, so I think I'm realizing that this is normally a time when I would have found something to eat, but since I'm not doing that now, it has become an urge to smoke. It reminds me of when Geneen was on Oprah and Oprah said that people always used to ask her if she was stressed and she always said no because she never felt stress, but she realized through Geneen's book that she never felt stress because she'd have something to eat at the first sign of discomfort. I guess I've been doing that, too, without even realizing it.

All in all, I think it's a good realization, but I will say, I HATE this feeling. I did try to take a 10 minute break and take a little walk outside to get some air, which helped a bit, but I'm still wired. Made me also think of one of the things Geneen said at her workshop, which is that if you are willing to feel discomfort, you will be successful with IE. If you're not, you won't. (that's a paraphrase) This is the discomfort that I don't want to feel and I'm not digging it, but I know I have to work through this to get to the other side.

Grrr....

Josie

November 9, 2010