I need to lose some (mental) weight

Being hard on myself is so not working!

I am a really heavy girl.

Not physically—I’m fairly small and I try not to look at the scale.

Mentally, though, your girl is like a bag of bricks.

This may come as a surprise to some. When you meet me, my boyband-listening, longboard-dancing, youthful ass comes across light as hell. But spend a bit more time, or read literally any of my blog posts, and it becomes very obvious very quickly that there’s always a lot weighing on my mind.

“OMG, I think my colleague hates me. I should’ve worked more free overtime. I know I just started one month ago, but I can’t believe I don’t know everything yet.”

“You’re not allowed to watch T.V.! Go work on your podcast or post something on social media. Be productive now!”

“Kaitlin, these problems are so small. People are dying, you selfish bitch.”

That’s a little glimpse of what you’d hear if you spent just one minute in my clouded little head. I am constantly telling myself all of the ways that I suck and how I should be doing better.

One of the main reasons why I am so, so hard on myself is because for so long, this mindset has seemed to really work.

In school, I stressed and pulled countless all-nighters because anything less than an A meant that I was a failure. And in believing this and in studying myself sick, I found myself getting academic awards.

*This speaks to me. lol. Also, makes me think of when I cried at recess after getting 9 out of 10 on a spelling test in grade 2.*

On the soccer field, whenever I messed up a pass or missed a shot, I apologized endlessly to my teammates and told myself I was shit. Then I worked so hard to make it up to my team. And in playing like this, I often found myself being chosen as captain.

In every work situation I’ve been in, I’ve worked overtime, skipped breaks, and lost sleep stressing, all in an effort to do a good job. And in working like this, I’ve always received great feedback from my coworkers and bosses.

I could go on and on with examples, but the point is, historically, being hard on myself and good results have seemingly gone hand in hand.

The older I get, though, the more I’ve been thinking that, contrary to what I’ve believed for my whole life, meanness and success are actually a real shitty pair.

Let me tell ya why.

First of all, and most importantly, my mental health and self-worth are way more important than any potential, fleeting, external reward.

All of the results I referred to above have come in the form of external validation. So basically, I anxiously work tirelessly, lose sleep, and tell myself I’m dumb in hopes that in the end, someone else will give me a prize for it. It’s guaranteed misery and the potential positive outcome is out of my control.

I’m realizing that if I want to live a peaceful and happier life, I need to redefine what success is so that I have the power to give it to myself, and I need to rejig the route to said success so that I’m not spending my life being miserable.

Peace and happiness are big enough reasons to adopt a nice-to-self mindset. But if I need more reason to ditch my inner bitch (I do because I’m trying to undo 27 years of practice), the next realization should do it.

The second point against my meanness-leads-to-success belief is: It’s just wrong.

I know I’ve thought this for my whole life, but in reflecting on recent examples, I’m really thinking that meanness doesn’t actually lead to better results.

Last month I went on a surf trip to Tofino. Whenever I told myself that I sucked after missing a wave, I continued to not catch anything. But when I brushed off the losses and reminded myself that I was out there to have fun, soon after I’d find myself riding a wave.

Same thing happens on my longboard. When I get pissed at myself for not landing a pirouette, I continue to not land any pirouettes. But when I’m peaceful and aiming to enjoy myself, I easily land a bunch in a row.

Similarly, with my years-long struggle with binge eating, being nice to myself led to significantly better outcomes than when I was putting myself down (check out “How eating junk food helped me lose 10 pounds” for the full story).

To sum that up, I used to be extremely strict with my diet. And every time I ate just a tiny bit more than what I allowed in my perfect plan, I told myself I was a piece of shit, then I ate everything in sight, then I told myself I’d be better the next day. I did this every day for years.

Then one day I realized I couldn’t live this way anymore. I decided I was going to eat whatever I wanted, and even if I got fat, I didn’t care because that would be better than having food run and ruin my life.

And in relaxing my diet and the meanness associated with it, I became mentally (and physically) healthier and lighter.

Right now, I feel a similar heaviness with my career, with my life’s next steps, and with my blog and podcast.

I get mad at myself for not having everything figured out, for not being more ahead, and for not being perfectly productive. And, let me tell you, that anxiety and meanness hasn’t been advancing me; it’s been holding me back!

Zeroing in on my blog and podcast, I have created so many plans outlining how I should be using every single hour of my day to ensure that I’m always creating something new and always posting on all the social platforms.

But, similar to when I binge ate, whenever I miss one tiny thing in my packed to-do list, I get pissed at myself then avoid working on Learn With Lels for days, weeks, even months at a time. And I’m left with no new content and a low self-esteem.

It sucks for my blog and podcast, and it sucks for my mental health!

With this heavy, dwelling, bitch-to-self practice instilled in me from decades of practice, I do fear that loosening up will result in me turning into a bump on a log.

But with all these examples proving that kindness is better than nastiness, and with my self-esteem at stake if I don’t change, I think I need to at least try the nice-to-self route.

I’m not sure what tactical tools I will use to do this—maybe I’ll write about it in a future post. At this point I’m kind of just writing down what I think I need to do to progress my current areas of focus and to live a better, happier, lighter life.

Heavy Lels achieved external success, but now I gotta make some changes so that light Lels can achieve some internal peace.

What I’ve learned/some realizations:

Ur girl is mentally heavy.
Contrary to what I’ve grown up thinking, being mean to myself is not a good game plan!
Lightening up will be good for my mental health and for my goals.

I don’t know if anyone will relate to this post. Like, I want people to, so they know they’re not alone in how they’re feeling, but I also don’t want people to feel shitty about themselves! Anyway, if you’re feelin’ this post and if you have any advice on how to shed my stubborn mental weight, or if you’re trying to shed some mental weight yourself, hit me up so we can go on this mental weight-loss journey together!