Rachel’s Room🛋️

Happy Wednesday. Cadre crew. Hello. Hello. I'm opening my energy drink. Oh, God. I just got my nails done. I don't know if I can do it. Oh. Oh, gosh. My. Oh. Got it. Having a little Celsius, little midday. Pick me up. Let me pull up my blinds. It's so bright. I don't know. We'll see. I speak wonder. Happy Wednesday. Hello. Hope you're doing well today. It's sunny, sunny, sunny here, which always improves my mood, so. Oh, my God. This is the most disgusting color I've ever seen. It's like, I wish you guys could see.

It's like, ew. It's like a yellowy green. Smells good, though. It's supposed to be like a blueberry. Oh, blueberry has the lemonade. That's why it's yellow. Okay. That's pretty good, actually. Okay, so. Hi. Hi, Andrea. Today I am going to kind of talk a little bit about what I talked about last week, because it seems to be a major theme in my life right now. But I have to tell you a story first to kind of loop you in. So this weekend. So I drive a 2004 Honda Civic. It was my grandmother's car. She gifted it to me right before she died and has, like, 50,000 miles on it.

And, like, probably. Probably a week ago, I started to notice that when I would drive and, like, go. It's an automatic car. So, like, when I would go at low speeds, getting into, like, another gear, the car was, like, working really hard to get into it to shift gears. I could, like, hear the engine, like, really, really trying to get into a second or third gear. But it wasn't in a way where I was like, this is bad. Then this weekend, I was driving up to visit my mom parked in a parking lot, and when I got back in the car to try and leave, I couldn't move.

I couldn't shift my gear. Like, the button to shift the gear was stuck at a park. So then I had to do this manual override. I got the, like, manual out. And, like, there's a way to, like, put the key inside of a little hole next to the gear to, like, manually get it out of work. So I was able to fix that problem. But as soon as I did that and started driving again, two things happened. One, my check engine light came on. Two, it was, like, I would floor, like, pedal to the metal on the gas, and my car would not go over 20 miles per hour.

Like, it was working so hard to get above those low speeds. So I was like, okay, something's really wrong. I need to go get this fixed. The other, the other part of this little lore here is that I, my, my, I should have changed my oil probably three years ago. I have not gotten an oil change since I got the car, which was three years ago, and that's my bad. So my mom was like, you should probably A, go get an oil change, but B, like, you need to find out what's happening with this light that's come on.

So I went in yesterday and got an oil change. And when I did this, I kind of thought to myself, like, why do I do this? Like, I, I do this kind of everywhere in life. Like, I wait until, like, there's something really, really wrong before I fix something that if I had just taken care of when it needed to be taken care of, there wouldn't be an issue. And this is like, this comes down to, like, small things too. Like, waiting to pee until I literally cannot hold it anymore. Like, I don't listen in the moment when my body says, you got to go to the bathroom.

I'm like, I wait and I wait and I wait and I wait to the very last minute until it's an emergency. And then I'm like, in, like, struggling because I have to go so bad. Or maybe I'm not near a bathroom. Like, I'll wait exit after exit after exit and then not go do it right away. Like, I do this in so many places in my life. And I was talking to somebody about this yesterday and we're like, why do we do that? Like, is that like, self sabotage? Is it like, you know, like, what's the reason that we're not doing these small things that obviously would make life a lot easier and waiting until it's at a point of like, like, possible destruction.

And my, what I said to her was like, you know, I really do think that in some ways it's a small form of self harm. In some ways, not doing these small things that will set me up later for success or to not be hurt. The absence of doing those small acts is a little bit of self harm, and which, you know, is coming from a place of not loving myself. I'm acting in a way that is not loving towards myself. Whereas, and I don't want to say this, like, it's a, like it's a if then, but like, because I do love myself and I'll kind of get to this point in a bit, but, like, if I loved myself, I would take care of things that would help me if I loved myself.

I would listen to my body. If I loved myself, I would get an oil change when the time was right so that I didn't get into a situation where my car might break down. Like these might, it might not make a connection of like this having to do with loving myself. But the reality is that when I'm in a scenario where my car is potentially going to break down on the side of the road or I have to go to the bathroom so bad that I might literally pee my pants in a public space that's not very loving to me.

I'm, I'm. I have created a scenario in which I'm going to have a bigger problem and be in a lot more pain and, and have to deal with something that's going to cause me stress or anxiety or, or shame, right? Like I'm creating scenarios where I feel ashamed or guilty or embarrassed or irresponsible. And it reinforces these beliefs about myself that I'm not capable, that I'm not smart, that I'm not responsible, that I'm. Or that I can't take care of myself. And so this cycle becomes this reinforcing cycle of I'm not good enough, right?

So I was talking to this person about this because it's really interesting. In the last, you know, five or five to seven years, I can fully say with a hundred percent truth that I love myself. I really love Rachel a lot. And I did not always love myself. I, I really hated myself for a very long time. I just did like the person that I was. And it was very difficult for me to imagine a world where I loved myself. And I'm so proud of all the work I've done in therapy. And I'm so grateful for all of the people that have helped me to get to this place where I really do love myself.

But I'm still not acting like it. In many ways I am. There are so many behaviors that I have that have changed in the last seven years that are new and different and exhibit self love. I act in ways that are in alignment with me loving myself. But in many ways there are still all of these things that are automated around that come from the belief or the feeling of not loving myself or of hating myself that are still like my mode of operation. And so I was talking to this person and saying like, I have to remind myself and be, and be really self compassionate because while I've worked so hard to feel differently about myself, I'm still now beginning to practice acting like I love myself.

And they're two different things. And sometimes one can come before the other. Sometimes by acting like we love ourselves, by doing small, small things that are kind, by doing self care, acts of self kindness, by acting in those ways, we can build a feeling of self love. Right? The opposite is true in both directions. I have just worked so hard to believe that I love myself with my mindset, with affirmations, with journaling, that I haven't necessarily worked as hard on changing the actions. And so those things are gonna take time.

And I'm realizing that those are things that are still catching up to the feeling. So there's this misalignment right now in my life of I love myself a lot and there are still ways that I'm not acting like it. And making the choice to act differently is gonna take time because my brain is so used to doing the other thing. And even though that thing is not helpful, it's harmful. Even though that thing is not necessarily the safe, healthy choice, it's still the most familiar. I still at least know what it feels like.

I know what to predict. I know what's going to happen. So my brain is going to keep moving towards that. Even though my heart might say, yeah, but Rach, you know what? If you just did this thing, it would feel really great later on. And so managing that has kind of been like what I've been working on a lot. And I just like, I don't know, I really love going live with you guys and kind of talking to you about things I'm working through, hoping that maybe like, it resonates a little bit with you. But I think that we're all, we're all very similar in a lot of ways.

And that I don't think a lot of us give ourselves grace when these kinds of things happen or are reoccurring. I think we can really beat ourselves up and say, well, like, I've done all this work in therapy, so why do I still do this stuff? Like, why do I still act this way? And the truth is, because we're literally rewiring our brains. We're literally trying to teach our brains to do something new and different. And new and different is for our survival. Brain, for our lizard brain dangerous. So even though, like, rationally, logically we can say, like, oh, no, I know that it would probably be better for me to do this thing because I know logically that I will feel better after I'm gonna do this thing because I know how to do that.

Like, that feels safer. And so I just want you to remember it takes time for that stuff to get rewired, and it takes making that new choice many, many, many times. Like, just doing it one time isn't going to be like, I'm rewired now. Like, it takes a lot of practice and a lot of repetition and willingness to do that harder thing, even though it feels like, why. Why is it so much harder for me to just do it this way? It takes time. So give yourself a lot of compassion, a lot of grace. Yes. Thumb holes.

We love thumb holes. I'm literally online shopping right now for a new one of these because this one smells so bad. No matter how many times I wash it, it's just. It's just permanently rank. So I'm literally looking at a new one right now because I love having these. But this one is too sticky, too stinky for public. We gotta get rid of this one. Okay, my loves. I. I hope that that was in some ways helpful or interesting. And if not, that's okay. I still love you. I'm glad you're here showing up for yourself.

And I will see you same time, same place, next week. Happy Wednesday.