My mother’s words to me, very casually one day as we cooked and watched tennis on tv. There’s nothing as good or as sweet as a good egg pan, the eggs don’t stick and the eggs are nice and fluffy because there’s no scraping and chopping. I heard her and thought, oh yes, I do have an egg pan and I rarely cook something else in it, and the eggs are perfect.
Over the next few days however, I noticed that I did cook a few other things in my egg pan; my plantains, my sausage, my … and as I was cooking it, I noticed… oh you’re cooking something other than eggs in this pan. Hmm I guess I wasn’t as adherent to the teaching as I thought. And if I was going to follow the sage advise I need to stop doing that, because I definitely don’t want to mess up my egg pan!.
Now what does this have to do with mental health you ask? I was surprised to find that when my mother said it to me, I thought, “Yes I know that and I am already doing that,” only to discover in real time that I’m not. It was interesting to me that when I was put on notice about a behavior, I thought I was compliant with, I started watching for it, and then discovered, I wasn’t. You know how when the physical trainer says, you should do a food diary. And you say, ok, no problem. And then when you actually start writing down the things you eat you are like… OMG, I thought I was better than that.
We think we are better than we are. When you really start paying attention, we can find (if we’re really interested in looking) there are behaviors that creep up in our days and our ways that aren’t so helpful and can actually lead to dismay and destruction. So, when someone mentions it or suggests a change is needed or someone comes out more directly and says “Please stop doing this” or “That thing you do is not really working” watch for it instead of dismissing the suggestion… you may actually find it. Then you can recommit to changing it. Good Luck!
Signed: Watchful Eye