Right now I am sitting on a plane heading to San Francisco. I am beyond excited to go to California as I hope to live there one day in the near future! Not only am I excited for this reason, but I am just excited to travel and see different parts of the world in general.
Over the last five years I have truly grown to love traveling. But I remember a time when a simple forty-five minute – one-hour commute each day to school, to downtown Toronto, felt like the most unpleasant and dreadful experience of my life.
At the time I was utterly convinced that the reason why I hated the commute each day was because of the time it took to get from the suburbs to downtown through taking public transit. Yet, the truth was when I moved downtown in my third and forth year of university, for numerous reasons, one being to save me from the commutes, school did not just magically get better or transform into what I wanted it to be.
For years I blamed hating school on the fact that I lived at home, yet when I was living downtown in my third and forth year of university, it didn’t change anything, I still “hated school”. I put quotations around, “hated school”, because truthfully I didn’t “hate school” – what, or should I say, who, I did hate was – myself.
So if I look back to that time and question my thinking that, “If I move things will get better.” The truth was and what I didn’t realize at the time was WHEREVER I WENT – THERE I WAS.
As I just mentioned above, school wasn’t terrible because it was actually terrible, it felt that way because I felt terrible about myself, terrible about my body and I had a very dysfunctional relationship with food. Not only that, but my relationships around me were filled with a lack of authenticity, dishonesty and a lack of vulnerability. This combination was a recipe for disaster and disaster was surely what I encountered and experienced each and everyday.
I am not sure if you have ever heard, but your outlook on life is a direct reflection of how much you like yourself. I first heard this quote when I worked at lululemon a number of years ago and it has always stuck around in my mind. It makes so much sense to me.
When you are happy with who you are, the world around you seems different; it is a much brighter, happier place compared to what it seems like when internally you are not feeling so good about yourself.
This way of thinking is related to a quote I spoke about a few blogs back, in regards to how your outer world is a reflection to your inner world. If we take these two sayings and now include in wherever you go, there you are it all starts to connect and furthermore, can be linked to my next point.
Have you ever been told you are running away from your problems? I know I have. Not just running away by avoiding the discussion or keeping busy with something else, but literally moving to different places in hopes that things would shift and ultimately disappear.
Now I am not going to disregard the belief which states that often times distance from our, home base/the triggering event, is a very good component in the healing process and/or an amazing thing to do if you feel like you are on a personal journey on self-discovery – or if you are simply just wanting to explore the world.
Regardless, I think the important thing to note in whatever instance you are in, that you do when you are “running away” is to ask yourself the following questions
Once you figure out your TRUE intention, then I would ask you to ask yourself
Do you or did you on any level expect a different version of yourself to show up with this move?
For example, as I mentioned earlier, at the age of 20 I moved to downtown Toronto, not just because my school was there, that was just a convenient excuse as to why I moved. The real intention of mine was to break away from the chaos that became my life within the suburb where I grew up. Truth be told, I wanted to be out of my house, away from the all-to familiar streets, the known too well neighborhood, which during that time was entirely filled with memories of heartbreak, disappointment, sadness, and a complete lack of sense respect.
Now I just assumed that by moving downtown all of these things that I truly felt about myself in my neighborhood would just disappear. Even though deep down I knew better, at the time I felt like it was the best option for me. I did hope though that by “running” downtown everything would get better.
So, when I got to the place it was all better right?! Wrong!!!!!
Not only did everything I was trying to run away from not go away, new forms of self-hatred and self-disrespect showed up. My ED got worse as a result, covering up everything that was going inside of me – a lack of self-worth.
So why I am sharing all of this with you?
Well to sum up everything that I have touched upon within this blog, no matter what you think will happen when you get somewhere whether that be a new physical location like moving to a different city or country, or reach a certain weight (cough, cough – don’t you love how I was able to add that in!),
It’s so easy to fantasize about how when we are in that new place everything will be great and wondering and perfect.
Similarly, we can adopt this same type of thinking to our shape and size. We can fantasize about how when we lose the weight or get into the size of pants we think we “should be able to fit” that we will be so happy with ourselves and everything will be great.
I am here to say that even though you may feel “great” for a week or two, after the shallow “greatness” fads away from the initial high that your EGO –which is always founded in fear – receives from the new place your living in or the new body you have, what is really sitting inside of you – how you truly feel about yourself and your life will creep up. This is where the whole saying wherever you go- there you are comes into play.
You can change the outside world in whichever way you like.
New hair. New clothes. New boyfriend. New girlfriend. New job. New subject to study at school. New body. New apartment. New car. New house.
OK, I am sure you get the picture of where I am going – new things.
So you can change all of these things, but if you don’t learn how to
For it is who we are inside that we need to focus on looking at and polishing up. Taking that person for a check-up, clean up, file and buff. For when that person gets not only acknowledged, but addressed and given the proper attention she/he needs that is where the lasting changes take place – because remember wherever you go there you are.
I would love to hear your feedback on this idea that I just presented to you! Looking forward.
PS. LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW – I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS!
Paula Galli, Hons. BSc. Psych, CNP, RNCP, ROHP
MOTIVATIONAL COACH, NUTRITIONAL COUNSELLOR & EATING DISORDER EXPERT
