Stop Telling Yourself Lies

Stop Telling Yourself Lies

The lie I have been telling myself for a long time is, “I love to cook’. Truth be told


I HATE COOKING.

There you have it. Black and white, dead honest. I have been seemingly torturing myself for years, trying to convince myself I do like to cook. But gosh, it feels so damn freeing to say I hate cooking. I am sorry if you thought my revelation might be more dramatic than this
but more me – it was profound.

On a subconscious level, I want to enjoy cooking. Afterall, I often proclaim ‘food is medicine’. Wholesome food that comes from the earth is so nurturing and I truly believe it can heal a person completely.

But I hate cooking.

The idea of spending two hours of my Sunday doing meal prep sounds as appealing as trying to nail Jell-O to a wall, and just like cooking, the idea of cleaning up the damn Jell-O after attempting the act is even more repulsive. It is not so much the act of cleaning, because I love to clean
it is more of the idea of spending countless hours in the kitchen with little reward. At most I get other family members eating and then running away, sometimes with a thanks, quite often not, and more often with an attitude of, “What is this, Mom?”. Or, ‘Why do you keep making this stuff Mom?’ Okay, maybe the lentil/kale/butternut/quinoa casserole with the crispy tofu and vegan alfredo sauce was a bit of a stretch 
 but I try so hard! I get on a mission to come up with new recipes because perhaps, in my mind, I will finally find the best recipe: one that is super easy, super tasty, probably hitting all colours of the rainbow (got to get those phytonutrients, nutrient dense, super foods in there) and so on.

“The more we get curious about ourselves with unconditional love, the happier we get.”

via @luellajonk

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So, it seems then, there are parts of us that we admire and perhaps proud of, and then there are other parts that we do not particularly care for
 Have you ever wondered why? Why don’t you like this characteristic about yourself? After all, there is no one description of the ideal human being, is there? I don’t know who that person would be
do you? Sure, we could all likely describe that ideal person in our mind – but that is YOUR perception of the ideal person and similarly, a perspective of how the world and your environment SHOULD be. This reminds me of what one might be searching for in a soulmate, and I am quite sure that your version is different from mine. So who is right and who is wrong?

The answer is neither because that is just our perspective, our culture and grooming of the mind. That is our belief. I want you to start challenging these beliefs more. Are these truths or lies that you have been telling yourself? If you like this about yourself, then continue to believe it and celebrate and reward yourself. If you don’t, then start being honest and behaving differently to feel differently. A feeling that may bring you more joy in life.

Now, back to the question of why you might not like these character traits? The most likely reason is that your experiences shaped you in believing not to celebrate that trait, characteristic or behaviour. Research in child development has demonstrated self-programming (thoughts, habits and beliefs) are established prior to the age of 7. This is why the Jesuits say, “give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.” Realize as well, this trait CAN be very culturally based.

That Jesuit quote is the formula/program/protocol for how we think, feel, and behave throughout our lives. Some of it is genetic, but most of it is through learned behaviour. The behaviour was either modelled to us or taught to us in another form, perhaps from the words we heard spoken around us. If I was raised by a tribe of Ugandans, I doubt that I would have an obsession for peanut butter sandwiches, which happened to be a staple in my elementary school lunches. I would also have completely different religious beliefs, fears, needs and desires. My habit formation would be like those of other Ugandans. According to the current society I live in, my behaviours (tendencies and habits) would be viewed as good, bad or neutral.

I’ve tried meal kits. You would think I might embrace them, right? When that box first arrived on my doorstep, I already felt a sense of dread about what might be lurking inside that box (even though I chose the meals – likely in haste). I needed to push myself to open it and when I did, what I found stressed me out even more: colorful recipe cards that described how to make each meal step by step, along with a suggested time frame to complete. This stressed me out even more. What if I didn’t complete it in this time frame, would that count as a failed attempt? What if I wanted to do step 3 before step 1 – then what? I was tempted to bury the box in the backyard to hide all evidence of it, but the food waste guilt would be too much for me. I’m the kind of person who will still eat the leftovers off my children’s plates rather than throwing it in the bin when cleaning up after a meal.

My husband has a completely different relationship to cooking. It baffles me to hear him whistling in the kitchen while preparing a meal. What, I think to myself, are you actually enjoying yourself? How is this possible?

I am always trying to analyze my behaviour – one of the drawbacks of being a therapist, I might add – so I wondered ‘what is it about the act of cooking that I dislike?’ Besides the lack of gratification from my children that is.

I came to realize it might be that I am not a big rule follower, so the whole idea of precise measurement and ‘steps’ does not bode well with my psyche. I discovered this about myself in first year psychology class at university. When the professor spoke of different theories of development or behaviour formation, I always thought to myself, “Just because this old dude from way back suggested this theory doesn’t mean we have to still believe in it, come on people!”. I love a good thought challenge. I also got C+ in that class, which was my lowest mark in post-secondary studies ever. Ha ha!!

It also may be because I don’t like doing acts or behaviours that ‘create disarray’. Just as Gretchen Rubin proclaims, ‘Outer order, inner calm’, so too is my motto. So, organizing, cleaning, tidying, etc. is my jam. Oh, I don’t make jam either, by the way, as you will have likely guessed. I don’t can garden produce and you will never see some sourdough ‘starter’ or something ‘sprouting’ in the corner of my kitchen. I prefer to buy it instead or, if it’s too expensive, do without. Everything I do in the kitchen needs to be very basic, quick, and simple.

The more we get curious about ourselves with unconditional love, the happier we get. However, it is equally important to look at our weaknesses (e.g., cooking) and figure out a solution. Lacking a love for cooking is a weakness, despite what I said about societal pressure. Why? Because cooking food at home is a skill that you do need to teach your children if you want them to succeed in health and wealth. Going out to eat is both costly and unhealthy. Restaurant food will always be loaded with more sugar, salt, fat, and processed seed oils because they need to make a profit and they aren’t going to do it with olive oil and pure maple syrup.

So how do I deal with these conflicting realities? My solution is to first admit this to my family and myself (with no apologies!). I am not going to pretend I am Wonder Woman in the kitchen when I am not. Secondly, I need to compromise. This may include me desperately bargaining/begging my husband and seeing what duties we can swap out. Need me to clean toilets? No problem, happy to do so! Also – when I do cook, I stick to the basics, which means I cook like my mom did. Stop attempting recipes you find in those NYT cooking videos or on the YouTube channel of some social media food goddess.

(That is the other ironic thing, I frick’n love watching cooking videos 
 what is up with that? Maybe it is me being fascinated with the well-organized and beautiful meals. I feel like a 5-year-old walking into the Magical Kingdom for the first time. Seriously, I feel like Peter Pan in Never-Never land – because to me – this act of cooking is truly Never-Never land.)

What is my idea of a great Sunday? Writing, finding a way to be in nature, cleaning, organizing, learning (usually through podcasts), perhaps grabbing a coffee, perhaps a bit of shopping, spending time with friends, family, etc. You’ll notice cooking isn’t on that list, and I shouldn’t have to apologize for that.. It is NOT me – and that is okay. I realize that the idea of loving to cook it is so culturally fixed in women’s psyche. It is at these times that I think of my own mother and say ‘Wow, how did you do it with 9 kids mom?’ Momentarily I feel incredibly guilty
 but then I stop that thought habit and challenge it.

I remind myself that those were different times with different expectations, and honestly, I think my mom feels she is more fortunate than I because that life was a lot less complicated then. I think June Cleaver would agree. It is okay because my life is/was not her life, or any other woman’s life. Yes, culturally we are taught that we as women should embrace cooking food for our families. God knows I admire those women. But I am not one of them. And that is okay.

Intuitively, you may have noticed this post is a continuation of last week’s post on how to bring more joy in your life. I started to write to gain awareness of my thoughts. I realized that the before and after thoughts of preparing a meal put me in a place of dis-ease. I realized that after watching cooking videos, I felt guilty, bad, and useless. All these clues came through by allowing myself to slow down and gather my thoughts. I hope you can do the same this week.

Steps to Bring More Joy in Your Life

Steps to Bring More Joy in Your Life

The formula to bring more joy in your life is super simple. Here it is.

Move away from things that cause you distaste and do more things that bring you joy.

How is that for some mind-blowing insight? As you can see, you don’t need a PhD to figure this out.

So why do we find ourselves lacking joy? My guess is that we are not honest enough with ourselves. What are our likes and dislikes? Again, I ask you 
 What brings you joy? Sit with that question for a while and then begin writing. The act of writing should bring you closer to authenticity. It certainly has helped me and has helped many of my clients. As a therapist this is one of the biggest pitfalls my clients fall into. Often we find ourselves faking being someone we are not. Perhaps these are the do-it-all women that fake happy marriages or the executives that seemingly have it all together leading their team but end the day with a bottle of booze. What a horrible way to go through life. Honestly, I can’t think of something much worse than this.

Think about it. When we behave in a certain way that causes a pulling away from ourselves, rather than a pushing towards, we are not being our authentic self. This is what I meant by ‘causing a distaste’. You may not even realize how much of a pulling away this is for you. Later on, next week, I am going to tell you how I discovered something about myself that caused me a lot of ‘pulling away’, and I ignored it for years. I was trying to ignore it and push through it, rather than be authentic and face the truth.

I was having a conversation with a potential guest for my podcast (sort of an interview before the recorded interview) and he noted the same. He said that for years
 he felt somewhat ashamed for being optimistic. (Can you imagine? Being ashamed that you are positive in nature?) The guest tends to always see ‘the bright side of life’. What some others view as ‘toxic positivity’. Then, one day he woke up and realized ‘I don’t need to apologize for this anymore!’ This is who he is – and no one has the right to call him down for it. It is a strength of his, yet there must have been a belief that had been instilled in him that told him it is not normal or natural or right to always be happy. This could have been caused by a parent who is highly irritable and angry at life, or it could be a ‘friend’ or ‘partner ‘who constantly made him believe it is wrong to feel what you feel. I use quotations because anyone telling you not to be authentic is neither a friend nor partner in life.

“Move away from things that cause you distaste and do more things that bring you joy.“

via @luellajonk

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So, it seems then, there are parts of us that we admire and perhaps proud of, and then there are other parts that we do not particularly care for
 Have you ever wondered why? Why don’t you like this characteristic about yourself? After all, there is no one description of the ideal human being, is there? I don’t know who that person would be
do you? Sure, we could all likely describe that ideal person in our mind – but that is YOUR perception of the ideal person and similarly, a perspective of how the world and your environment SHOULD be. This reminds me of what one might be searching for in a soulmate, and I am quite sure that your version is different from mine. So who is right and who is wrong?

The answer is neither because that is just our perspective, our culture and grooming of the mind. That is our belief. I want you to start challenging these beliefs more. Are these truths or lies that you have been telling yourself? If you like this about yourself, then continue to believe it and celebrate and reward yourself. If you don’t, then start being honest and behaving differently to feel differently. A feeling that may bring you more joy in life.

Now, back to the question of why you might not like these character traits? The most likely reason is that your experiences shaped you in believing not to celebrate that trait, characteristic or behaviour. Research in child development has demonstrated self-programming (thoughts, habits and beliefs) are established prior to the age of 7. This is why the Jesuits say, “give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.” Realize as well, this trait CAN be very culturally based.

That Jesuit quote is the formula/program/protocol for how we think, feel, and behave throughout our lives. Some of it is genetic, but most of it is through learned behaviour. The behaviour was either modelled to us or taught to us in another form, perhaps from the words we heard spoken around us. If I was raised by a tribe of Ugandans, I doubt that I would have an obsession for peanut butter sandwiches, which happened to be a staple in my elementary school lunches. I would also have completely different religious beliefs, fears, needs and desires. My habit formation would be like those of other Ugandans. According to the current society I live in, my behaviours (tendencies and habits) would be viewed as good, bad or neutral.

James Clear, the writer of Atomic Habits, also states similar propositions in his book. He suggests if we really want to study our habits, we should write out our routines and behaviours and then rate good, bad, or neutral. The point being that if we want to get rid of the bad, we need to dissect what reward we are getting by doing a behaviour which is considered bad. He provides all different suggestions as to how to minimize or undo the patterning that was established attached to the behaviour we once felt rewarding (but now somewhat despise). The easiest example that comes to mind is smoking. I haven’t met one smoker who loves the idea of identifying themselves as a smoker, but despite this, continue to smoke. Thus smoking is a great example of a behavior once viewed as desirable and a somewhat sexy behaviour, to now very undesirable due to societal influences. 

There are many many other more subtle examples of what society or your culture (friend culture, family culture, religious or work culture) is telling you what is right and what is wrong, and if we follow someone’s else’s beliefs  we often feel a lack of joy and deserving of punishment. Smoking is a clear example of how societal pressure plus scientific research shifted our way of viewing this behaviour. The use of seatbelts and bicycle helmets are other examples of how society shifted our beliefs towards a behaviour. 

However, there are other practices that we do daily which make us feel unhappy which are not based in science, but we do it largely from cultural and societal pressure. Deep down inside ourselves, we feel pulled to do it – or not do it, but the push against it is so strong. Yet we ignore it. We ignore the fact it will bring us more joy because our experiences have groomed us to believe otherwise. This is what I mean about challenging yourself and STOP doing the behaviours that you believe you SHOULD  be doing – while still being law-abiding citizens. 

I will give you a personal example  regarding my own thoughts – it was a thought that kept pulling me away from my authenticity. It is a thought I need to stop believing and seek forgiveness towards myself for thinking this crazy notion, that is highly culturally based. It came to me in a gobsmacking sort of way. This is the realization I made


Yes, a cliff-hanger indeed. â˜ș Meet you here next week. 

Stop Making it So Personal

Stop Making it So Personal

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I don’t normally plan my posts. When I allow my mind to wander, it plans my posts for me.

The title ‘stop making it so personal’ is what that voice in my head often speaks to me, both on a personal level and for all the complainers around me.

Hey, not to say I too can get in a thought rut. As I write this, it is January in Manitoba, Canada. Days are short, the air is, as we like to tell ourselves here in the north, ‘nice and crisp’ which is another way of saying ‘do not expose any part of your body if you want to keep it’. Not to mention we are still dealing with Covid-19 restrictions, post-Christmas blues, and so on and so forth. We can ALWAYS find a reason to be ‘down’. But how about finding the ‘ups’?

Life – in its true sense, has its ups and downs. Think of life as falling within a bell curve. Sometimes you are headed up, and sometimes you are headed down. But what is important is that we find the mean. A normal day (when you are at the mean) is a good day. Cold outside? Go ice fishing, snowshoeing, or my personal favorite…a meditative walk…whilst listening to how the snow crinkles under my feet. You will instantly feel better. There is always a silver lining to every dark cloud, and it is our duty to find it.

Yes, we all need to find that silver lining. ‘Stop making it so personal’ is all about that. It takes you out of your head and into the present.

“Yes, we all need to find that silver lining. ‘Stop making it so personal’ is all about that. It takes you out of your head and into the present.”

via @luellajonk

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As a therapist, I give clients the space to do this, to process their feelings. However, after our sessions, it is okay to process those feelings a bit more (maybe the odd journalling entry for example) but not much more than that. Instead of saying “What if?” Or “Why me?” ask yourself instead “What now?” What do I need to do right now?

People talk about MY depression, MY situation, MY trauma, My, My and MY. Oh my!! Get out of your head. How do you know what your neighbour is dealing with or that barista at Starbucks? The barista who greets you with a friendly smile she greets every single customer that enters the frick’n establishment just because it is her job. She signed up for it, and she made a commitment to smile to every miserable customer that complains their $5.00 latte doesn’t have enough foam.

It is your job to do life. You might counter with “I didn’t ask to be born” and depending on how you perceive the universe and the powers at be, that may or may not be accurate. However, my rebuttal is
 it is a privilege to experience life. This world has so much beauty and wonderment, but we are often too much in our heads to experience it.

It is sad to hear my clients speak of how they may feel ashamed of their mental state. They speak of ‘their mental health’ like no one else has these same feelings or emotions. Are you kidding me? So, are you telling me no one else wakes up on a dull January morning and thinks “another day of the same old same old?’ or “It’s Sunday? Augh, that means Monday is tomorrow, that means work, that means 
 throw the covers over my head and make it all go away”.

Come on!! Everyone has these days. Don’t think you are so gosh darn special that it is your own thoughts. Sure, you own your thoughts but countless of others own those thoughts too. True, you are unique, but you are just experiencing some of life’s hardships. We all do. No one gets the ‘get out of jail card’ in life. And if they are telling you that – or their Instagram or Facebook platforms are telling you that – they are straight-out lying to you. In fact, the best thing you could do is get off the social media. Many of my clients speak about how much better they feel when doing so.

Are you still feeling like this is a bunch of BS?

Maybe you wake up to anxiety staring down at you. Dread. Fear. Despair. Those are all heavy emotions to feel and acknowledge, but again, you are not the only one feeling like this. Therefore, you are part of a community and just knowing that might help you get through it.

Support is ALWAYS out there. You just need to get your ass out of bed and make some advancement towards getting it. You need to make the decision that ‘you are not doing dread anymore’. You need to call a friend, a family member, a helpline, a therapist and just be honest. You will find out that you are not alone. Speaking out loud and processing those feelings will feel good. Trust me on this one; this is not my first rodeo.

Best of all – you did something. You made an advancement. You did the baby step. You did it! That is all you needed to do so thank you for doing that.

Want more baby steps? Try these 5 steps to get out of your head.

Get out in nature. I don’t care if it is minus gazillion, sleet, pelleting rain or gale force winds. Suck it up and get out there. Nature reminds you are not alone and there is something greater to admire and adore.

Do a random act of service. Random is important point here. I don’t want you picking up your teenager’s underwear from their bedroom floor. That doesn’t count. Do it for someone or something that appreciates it. Even watering a plant makes the cut.

Bust a move. Play your favorite song and dance. Crank up the tunes. I didn’t want to particularly work out this am, so rather than muddle my way through the workout app, I turned to Spotify and typed in ‘brown -eyed girl’ and well, the rest is history.

Laugh at yourself/crack a joke. Smiling is a way of biohacking your body to feel differently without necessarily changing the environment around you. When you smile, you ‘trick’ your body into believing it is safe and the world is a happy place. Hormones start communicating and chemistry starts to happen.

Deep breath. Another bio hack. You are again telling your nervous system that you are safe. To simplify, you can’t be running away from a tiger when you are taking slow, deep purposeful breaths. It is literally impossible.

There are many more I could list. Journaling, meditation, getting off of social media, etc. These are all proven to be helpful. All these tiny changes are great, but they might not be what floats your boat. So keep trying. What works for you may not work for another person. Experiment. Also, what worked for you 3 years ago may have run its course and it is time to do something different. Variety is the spice of life, right?

Final word.

As far as I am concerned, Nike has one the best slogans out there. Just Do It.