Excuses.

I have some really complex ones that I have created for myself.

I have built them up over time.

They are a complex system of reasons why I should or shouldn’t succumb to urges for the sake of my comfort, and at the expense of my growth.

Excuses.

The one thing that I know about excuses is that they are part of growth that we don’t like to talk about… they are the death of growth.

Excuses are the death of growth.

Mine are anyway.

My excuses for why I do not do the things that I know need doing are alarmingly good at targeting my little bit of willpower and obliterating it with a single thought!!! One little sentence in my head- can kill my motivation with laser precision- and nothing even needs to happen, just a thought.

I have “watched” myself process as part of the mental health exercises I have completed throughout my healing journey.

I progress through the goal setting stages, and then build the motivation that I need to propel me forward, and in the beginning , and still more often than I like- I can be defeated by an excuse that comes from a negative thought. Then I beeline for the comfort that I know is bad for me, but need the comfort so badly that I don’t care in that moment. Then the regret and the building upon the self sabotage happens. This is the cycle of addiction.

If you watch closely you can match the cycle of addiction to every single human. whether they identify with it or not- we all have things that we need to be “addicted” to. I can assure you that the person who has the addiction to drugs and the person who has the addiction to food and the person who has the addiction to working on their body for a building competition, all have the same emotional struggles they have made different choices as to how they cope.

Coping is a survival tool.

Coping is necessary, sometimes… it is what we need to do to carry our bodies from trauma to restoration. There will be times when coping seems like it is the only thing available, because sometimes it is.

I think we have taken that sometimes and run with the feeling that the coping gives us. Coping is a form of instant relief- but it is ultimately a band aid that actually causes many many other problems.

Coping kills progress and coping of any kind is addicting.

I have noticed that there are so many ways that we cope without even realizing we are coping. That was the astonishing or shocking part to me. The fact that we all are sitting around coping as best we can, kind of just spinning around all of our cycles as we go, making them all move more quickly as you build upon them with the entanglement of reasons why you think that you can or can’t do something… creating, you guessed it… excuses.

My life only began to change when I stopped making excuses for myself, when I started challenging my excuses disguised as “reasons” for my apathy.

Excuses, are you using them to cope? Coping is sometimes required, but coping is not thriving it is important to intend to tip the scales to healthy resourcing over unhealthy coping when you can.

I am striving for thriving, with healthy coping strategies, not excuses and harmful things.

I try not to let excuses or coping be the death of growth these days, wherever I can. It is a learning process.

-B.