How to you treat yourself?

I've never really followed the concept of "how you treat yourself".

I mean (apart from schizos ) we're only really ONE person. But a few times, I thought about it, and the concept began to make more sense.

So anyway, would you say you are thoughtful and kind to yourself? Are you a hard taskmasker and demanding of yourself? Do you get angry with yourself?
Do you have high moral expectations of yourself? Do you "give in" to yourself eg having extra hours sleep, drinking lots/taking lots of drugs etc? Do you think "wow I'm lucky to be me" or are you ever disappointed with yourself.
Do you enjoy thinking about your past or future a lot, or do you stop yourself when thinking about it?

Do you ever plan to change the way that you treat yourself?

 

Other than staying alive I have no expectations of myself.
Oh and ofcourse to post thoughtful posts at the Hipfora.

 

At the end of the day when I'm done all of my school work and everything I need to do around the house, I reward myself with a bowl or a joint.

If I do particularly well on an paper or exam I'll stop off on the way home and buy a nice bottle of wine or some more expensive beer than I usually buy.

 

I treat myself well. At the end of the day I try to treat all others with respect and dignity and leave it there.

How we treat and view ourselves will correlate with how we deal with others.

 

I actually do many of those things. I am hard and demanding of myself when it counts. I have a job that demands constant perfection and I thrive on it. But I also let myself slack off when it doesn't matter. It's like allowing myself to breathe and chill out. Sometimes I'm proud or angry or disappointed with myself. But I have a certain moral compass in my own mind that I always try to follow whether in high gear or low gear and as long as I do that I'm generally pretty happy with myself. I think all of that is probably pretty normal.

 

I get really down on myself whenever I'm being lazy or not doing what I'm supposed to do so I feel like I'm always in a race against myself. Part of the race entails maintaining balance and feeling in control of my life so I take care of myself in that regard; I eat well, exercise my body and mind, keep my environment clean, etc. On the flip side, I rarely give myself time to take a break and I don't sleep nearly enough. I could probably stand to pamper myself a little more.

 

I treat myself pretty well. Hedonistic comes to mind when I think of it.

But at the same time, I feel guilty sometimes, about living an 'easy' life.

But I don't know...... I don't think it's so wrong to do what you want. You only get one life. Plus when it comes to working, making money, helping out others, cooking, cleaning, etc - I am very responsible. I just let myself drink whenever I feel like it. I pretty much completely stopped smoking cigarettes though, which was something I felt guilty about for a while.

 

I wouldn't feel guilty about living an "easy" life. I'd like to think I live an easy life but I don't much of the time because of work. I enjoy a few nice things but I work my ass off for them. But my family probably does have an easy life because of what I do and I don't feel bad about it at all. I'm willing to go to hell and back for them to have the life I never got to have growing up....and by that I don't really mean money in the bank as much as time to do what they really want to do....and maybe the money to do it also but it's more about comfort and happiness than money.

 

I just mean an easy life like I'm 24 and live in my parents basement... am just getting back to college, and don't really give a fuck even though there are people my age who work in the city and make 80 grand a year, and have lived on their own for a while. I guess I'm just more simplistic.

 

goddamn since I mentioned that I haven't smoked a cig in a while... I'm about to smoke a cig. Fuck meeee.

 

I'd tell you to not do it but I'm about to do it too. I've only quit about 10 times....going on 11 so there's that.

 

I haven't been addicted to cigs in a while. I only smoke when I drink... which I wanted to give up for good - but I guess I'm not ready.

1 cig so far in 2014 ain't so bad.

 

I can take or leave the smokes. It mostly depends on how bored I am. I know that's not a reason or excuse.

 

living with your parents into your 20s isn't really uncommon anymore. I didn't move out of my mom's until I was 24, she was all alone in a big house and everyone in my family wanted me to stay with her for as long as possible so I did. Also if you're getting back into college you can have a 4 year degree by the time you're 28 or sooner depending on how many credits you already have, which isn't really bad at all. I think with the economy the way it is there isn't really a pressure to do things in a certain time frame anymore. The people who completed their degrees at age 22 sometimes still end up living in their parents basement well into their upper 20s because well paying jobs don't really exist for recent college grads anyways.

 

Sometimes, some people, yes. But does it always? I don't think so.

Yeah, this is the sort of thing I'm thinking about. But suppose you make yourself a promise to do xyz on something, but your performance doesn't match it? I mean would you call yourself names, that type of thing? Or would you just decide "well so what, I dont care now..."?

Its interesting a lot of responses about treats - monetary, drink, drugs etc.
But do you have dillemnas as to how you actually view or assess yourself too?

 

I don't always treat myself well. I have to remember to give myself a break.

My mother always tells me that I punished myself too much. And I know she is right I do punish myself a lot. But sometimes its the only way to feel better and remember not to repeat mistakes.

Remembering to lighten up and go easy on myself helps


With regard to food, drugs etc. I have TOTALLY treated myself well for a few years now. I used to booze beyond belief. I would smoke til I passed out. I tried drugs that passed by me. It was definitely living to excess.

 

I really toned down the drinking a few yrs back. Because I found it was very counter-productive.

I've also found that more recently, I've had a tendency to be angry with myself. If I drop something I might say "clumsy prick" rather than just "shit" or something. Or if I'm running and I feel genuinely worn out, I'll think to myself "lazy prick".
Looking at that objectively, I don't think its very healthy. But there again, I can't ever see myself become some sort of inner peace Buddhist hehe

 

Sooo agree with this.

I went to women's group counseling for a year, once a week. My counsellor was not very studios, very down to earth guy with a lot of common sense. He used to say that we are our own best cheer leader or our own worst enemy. He emphasized "negative self talk" and using "I statements". For example the things you sometimes say about yourself - I've also tried to remove those things from my internal monologue. Why beat myself up? The world does that enough. With that said, I've also stopped listening so much to what others say to me about me. They have something to say that speaks about themselves. A nice segue into using "I statements" and taking ownership of the things I say. For example "you don't know how awful that is" when the listener just might know how awful said situation is. What I should say is "I don't know how awful that is" to describe my own feelings instead of putting the responsibility on the listener.

Sidebar to convo: he also got us every time we say "you know?" because that also removes responsibility from the speaker and puts it on the listener to fill in the blanks. Not effective communication.


I used to seek the booze and weed to celebrate, and escape. Those were my two main ways of treating myself. But I always wallowed the next day, or few hours after smoking. Thats my personal experience with it. When you have to spend extra time recovering from the "solution" its no longer a solution but a problem.

 

Yes, I think its not just our thoughts and intentions that create situations, but also the way we phrase them. Both to others *and* ourselves. Its easier when we can look in from the outside. The harder part is actually *getting* on the outside, IMO.

I sometimes use NLP, even hypnosis type stuff. They're very good in these situations, I think.

Drugs have always been a once in a while type thing for me, as I've seen how powerful they are. Drink, I think I was always trying to recreate that "hit" ie euphoria I'd get drinking as a kid. Once I knew I'd never recreate that hit or the perceived social benefits attached, I found it much easier to control, or even reject.

I remember having all day hangovers at college, and how it just killed off whole days of productivity. No more haha!

 

I take multi vitamins. every day.