This I Believe...

Y’all. Let me start by saying that it is Monday, and I spent most of my day still hungover from Saturday night. One of my good friends and previous coworkers is moving to Colorado at the end of the month and Saturday was his going away bar crawl. It started at 2pm. It ended at 2am. I am not built for these kinds of things, people. I haven’t been out for a night of debauchery in a looooong time and I more than made up for it this weekend. I wore a neon crop top and rainbow light up tutu, I drank my body weight in gluten-free vodka, I danced like I was getting paid for it. Someone accidentally put their cigarette out on my arm, I kissed a cute paramedic, I ate a pound of turkey lunch meat, and I bumped into my therapist at the bar in the midst of it all. It was a shit show.

So anywho, moving on...last week I came out and let the world know that I, Adam John Weaver, am a control freak. This is a shocking admission…for no one. Anyone who actually knows me knows that I am constantly trying to account for every possible outcome life might throw my way. I mean I don’t have a doomsday bunker set up or anything…yet, but you get my drift. I ended last week’s blog by talking about how I’m trying to break these controlling habits by realizing that the perceived comfort I get from said controlling behaviors is not worth the toll they take on me or those around me. My recent home purchase, then, became life’s way of testing whether or not I was ready to walk the walk of the talk I’ve been talking. Which brings us to this week’s topic: belief systems. Get on board as we take the long way ‘round...

So several months ago, I had one of those breakthrough moments in therapy. You know, that moment when you have this epiphany about something your therapist has been telling you for over 2 years straight, but you are just now seeing it and think you came to this conclusion completely on your own? It came shortly after my appendectomy, which was in early December. The surgery was, of course, a surprise. I woke up one day and within 24 hours had been admitted to the hospital, been diagnosed, went through surgery, and was discharged. The surgery, while minimally invasive, was very difficult for me as a result of my chronic pain disorder. To make matters worse, I had previously had a surgery (about two years prior) where I had two portions of my ribs removed on the right side. While these surgeries were vastly different, the feeling afterwards was very much the same. And let me tell you, our bodies’ ability to associate emotions with physical sensations is VERY STRONG.

So I had a bit of a breakdown after that surgery. It brought back all the memories of where I was two years prior, which was not a good place physically, mentally, or emotionally. I have had many breakdowns before, but this was like a full on, sobbing on the floor of my therapist’s office kinda gig. And despite being a HIGHLY emotional person, I rarely allow myself to cry in these scenarios, and so when I do cry during a session, my therapist knows shit is getting real.

In the midst of my sobbing, I said, “I just can’t believe this is happening to me again...I am right back where I was two years ago…” It was then that my therapist said the thing that caused my epiphany that I subsequently took all the credit for coming to realize. She explained that when we ask ourselves the question, “How/why is this happening to me again?” what we are encountering is the manifestation of one of our belief systems.

Belief systems, she went on to explain, are formed early on in our adolescence and serve as the foundation that guides all of our interactions, reactions, and experiences in life. Our belief systems are influenced by a multitude of things: religious affiliation, socialization, self-perception, and essentially any and all the messages we have received in our lifetime. Since these systems are formed early on in life, they are often not the most logical or rooted in objective truth, but they are, however, INCREDIBLY strong and stay with us for a lifetime unless we analyze and challenge them. If left unchallenged, these belief systems leave us saying, “I can’t believe this is happening to me again!” Because if we never challenge they way we handle and interpret all that life throws our way, how can we expect to come to different conclusions. We invite what we believe into our lives (this is a frequently stated pearl of wisdom from my therapist - I think she should trademark it).

So, the next step in the process of working through my breakdown and subsequent epiphany was to identify what belief systems have been directing my life thus far. We identified several, but the most pressing and damaging belief systems that needed immediate attention were as follows:

• I deserve to be sick and to experience chronic pain. My ailments are righteous punishment and I do not deserve relief.

• I will never get better. I will suffer pain and anxiety for the rest of my life.

• I am flawed to the point that I will never find someone who will love me. I am incapable of developing and maintaining a meaningful/lasting relationship.

• The only valuable thing about me is my body and now my body is useless.

WOOF, am I right? Holy fuck. No wonder I’m in therapy! This is what I believe about myself? Shiiiiiiit. That’s some intense ass stuff right there.

Here’s the thing, these belief systems had become so ingrained and so reinforced over time, that I couldn’t even see that they existed. And yet every experience and interaction in my 26 years of life have been influenced by these beliefs. I can recall being about 12 years old and realizing I was gay and making the conscious decision to never tell anyone and never pursue a relationship. I hoped, secretly, that I would maybe just live the Professor Snape life, ya know? Like I would secretly fall in love with someone who would be brutally murdered by a source of great evil and then I would just live a solemn, tormented, but ultimately heroic life of internal suffering. Seemed pretty solid to me.

And while I eventually came out and while I eventually started dating, this belief system continued and continues to impact my relationships today. I can thank this decision made over a decade ago for every time that I ever broke up with someone because I was sure that if things continued I would royally fuck up and hurt the person’s feelings, or for every time I gave up on a person of interest because I figured I would only disappoint them in the end or because I believed they weren’t the type who could handle dating someone with chronic pain. Ugh. Life is SO FUCKING COMPLICATED SOMETIME, AM I RIGHT?

And as if all of that wasn’t crazy enough, here comes the real fucking kicker that my therapist suggested and I, to this day, refuse to address: she asked me to consider if my chronic pain disorder could be a manifestation of these belief systems. WHAAAAAAT!?!?!?! INSANITY! But insanity with some logic in it.

I have had to start considering some things here. If I have always operated with the idea that I don’t deserve happiness, then it follows that I would think I deserve sickness and discomfort, right? If I believe that I am undeserving of love, then I would deserve circumstances that make it harder to find love. If I believe my body is the only valuable thing about me, how ironic that my body becomes riddled with pain. Let’s take that conspiracy theory one step further into the realm of intimacy, if I believe that my body and sex is the only thing I have to offer that is worthwhile, how ironic is it that my chronic pain disorder affects my hips and my pelvis. RIGHT!?!?! It’s like that scene in The Da Vinci Code when Tom Hanks starts seeing Illuminati symbols all over the fucking place. RUN TOM HANKS, RUN!

And so as we round back around to where we started we come back to the transition from last week’s blog: life presenting opportunities to walk the walk. I have learned in my three years of therapy that when you start to identify and challenge negative habits and belief systems, life starts throwing what seems to be an endless train of tests your way to see if you are really ready to give up on your negative habits and belief systems. In reality, what is happening is that you are shedding one set of habits and beliefs and so now every experience and interaction becomes an opportunity to either enact the old or enact the new. Simple enough, right?

I’m bummed to say that in the past few weeks, more often than not, I have chosen to employ old habits and beliefs. Because of the move and the work on the house lately, my body has been a mess and I have been finding myself more and more worn down by constant pain. And with that, I have found myself slipping back into a space where I believe that this is how it will always be and that this is what I deserve. I have also turned down several opportunities for dates or experiences wherein I could pursue getting to know someone better because I figured what’s the point? Who is going to want to date someone like me? Someone who’s always getting sick, someone who can’t sit down at dinner, someone who can’t sit long enough to travel for vacation, someone who has to be very careful and intentional about when they have sex, etc. etc. Who the fuck wants to deal with all of that complication?

Yea, so it’s not been the best couple of weeks, but I am happy to say that I can at least see these things, ya know? I know this is happening, I’m admitting it, and I’m working towards a change.

So with that in mind, I challenge you, all four of you who read this blog. What belief systems are at play in your life? How do they serve you? How can you start to challenge the negative and shift to the positive. It’s tough shit, y’all. I won’t lie. Breaking beliefs and habits you’ve had since you were a kid ain’t easy, but it is so worth it to try.

Until next time…

Peace and love,

Adam