Sometimes, it’s not about the food

Hey Mare–

I had a horrible day at work on Friday–tears, panic attacks, heart palpitations, you name it. My immediate supervisor gave me a list of things to accomplish that would require a rare and amazing feat of endurance. I only got through 85% of the list by quitting time. I tried to talk to my boss about how unrealistic it was to assign so much in one day and he said that it had to be done and that we’d all better get used to it.  Even after I got home, I felt traumatized by the day and couldn’t stop crying. But this morning, it made me think of you and how stressed you get about doing things right, doing them well, and doing them timely.  HERE’S WHAT I THINK:

1. For some reason, we both feel the need to push ourselves too hard sometimes–either because others expect it of us or we expect it of ourselves.

2. We are largely the source of the suffering we experience in those situations.

3. We would suffer less if we could acknowledge that we expect too much of ourselves, that we force ourselves to rise to unreasonable demands–those placed on us and, more often, those we place on ourselves.

4. Life is too short, too precious, to get so worked up over most of the stuff we get worked up about. It’s not healthy emotionally or physically. After all, what’s the worst thing that could happen if we don’t try to do too much? Really? What could possibly be worth having a stroke or a nervous breakdown over?

Did I get fired because I didn’t finish the tasks I’d been given? NO,

Did I feel like a failure at the end of the day? YES. Why? Because I am way too hard on myself.

What actually might happen is, since my bosses KNOW what a hard worker I am, they will, when we bring this up at the next department meeting, HAVE to listen to us when we tell them they were unfair and unreasonable to put us through what they did.  If I had worked through lunch, I probably would have completed my list, but I forced myself to take at least that much time to detox as best I could; it didn’t help much, but god only knows how much worse I would have felt if I hadn’t done that.

Okay, I hope all of this makes sense and makes you think. Think about your mom having a meltdown because she expects too much from herself the next time you’re in the same kind of situation–maybe you can feel more empathy for me than for yourself, which may help you slow your ass down and give yourself a break!

I love you, girly.

Mom.