I almost lost it last night. I was scheduled to be a receptionist substitute at a “traveler” WW meeting; ie one in a remote location, not an official WW Center. At those locations, they use all manual/paper tallies to track everything, instead of the groovy computer system that is now in place at Centers. I only did a few weeks worth of those before they did the switchover, and boy was I rusty. In fact, I ended up forgetting to do a very important step – marking down all product purchases on the product sheet. This is super important for reconciling the $$ at the end of a meeting. When the other receptionist counted up the money and checked it against the product sales, it was like $80 off. Because I forgot to mark it down. This resulted in everyone having to stay almost 45 minutes later, to fix the problem. I felt terrible. I felt like slinking under the carpet and dying. The other staff members were pretty nice to me about it, but to be honest, I sort of messed up their night. Everyone ended up going home late, after a lot of stress. Caused by me.
I don’t deal with this kind of thing well. AT ALL. Guess what it makes me want to do?
I drove home down this main road I used to take, after teaching evening classes several years ago. Back then, I didn’t normally have huge problems, but it was still stressful to teach on some level. There would be ONE student who had some kind of issue, or some thing I’d forget to do, and all the way home I’d be beating myself up about it. One night I stopped in at a Jack in the Box and looked for the most anesthesizing thing on the menu: Bacon Cheddar Potato Wedges!! (omg, I just looked those up: 720 calories in a serving, 432 from fat! O boy!!) Soon it became a habit to just pull in to the drive-through on the way home and inhale a box of those. When I think of that now, it makes me really sad.
So what did I do with my stress last night? I started the evening with a full hand of nice fingernails. They’re down to little nubs now: chewed and torn away. Ah well, I didn’t EAT them so it didn’t cost me any calories.
All night I had recurring dreams of being horribly inept at one thing after another: I had to give a speech, but had brought the wrong one, and then I lost the pages, then I couldn’t work the AV equipment, and then and then…. AUGH I hate messing up!!! It upset me so much I couldn’t even do my regular Biggest Loser liveblogging last night. I did get home in time to watch the final hour, but I pretty much sat here and watched it like a blob. I didn’t really care one way or the other.
This morning, I went to my trainer and had a fantastic workout. THEN, FINALLY, I felt better. Much better.
I am glad that I did not veer into the Jack in the Box and take up old bad habits. I’m glad it didn’t really even occur to me, like it wasn’t a struggle to not do that. I just made a mental note as I drove past. But I still felt terrible.
I need to find ways to not freak out so much when I make a mistake.
foodfoodbodybody 
October 21, 2009 at 6:38 pm
What made you feel better? A workout! It’s really about managing energy vs staying stressed (blocked). Instead of waiting until the next day, try this: as soon as you get home, put on your favorite songs and do some easy Nia moves. Even if it feels a little silly or forced at first, I bet in a few minutes you’ll be rockin’ and feeling better. Sometimes, I don’t even wait ’til I’m home–I have CDs in the car and I sing along and do some upper body moves (shoulders are a great place to loosen)–of course, being careful in traffic.
I share this making mistakes and freaking-out feeling. Especially the playing it over in my head. A good friend told me to creatively “imagine the extremes” for a limited amount of time, then laugh and forgive myself (assuming apologies and any repair work has been done) and then mentally “close the book”. In other words, mindfully think it through and then stop the mental “story”. It’s abuse. It’s made-up. Once you recognize it you can stop feeding it! Give yourself credit for being more aware of old habits that you are changing for the better.
October 21, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Jane, thank you. This is perfect. Yes, I need to do something positive RIGHT away instead of stewing in yucky juices all night. I just ordered 2 Nia CDs which I am going to put in my car! (Oshun and Velvet)
SO true what you said about the mental story – yes, it’s abuse, and yes it’s made-up. Thank you for giving me another option for when this happens. I was glad not to go straight to the FOOD but still it felt awful for way too long.
October 21, 2009 at 7:33 pm
I do this too and it’s so not helpful. Seems to be human nature though. How completely lovely that you have figured out better ways to respond– even if it’s just to accept that you feel bad sometimes without falling for the false idea that self-destructive food will improve matters.
Sometimes I think it would pay to be a better externalizer (what a silly way to run a meeting! Paper! the idea!)
October 21, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Jane—too funny, that is what I was thinking (doing some Nia).
Lovely comment, Jane. I am so moved by it, I am going to say nothing.
But I am going to give Foodie a big virtual HUG!
October 22, 2009 at 12:28 am
You may not have been at your best last night, but you run circles around most people with all your skills and energy. So, yeh, it felt bad, but I imagine next time will be fine because you are of so capable of doing it well. Just not last night. And, yes, exercise seems the perfect antidote to being down and beating yourself up over messing up. Again, congratulations on another accomplishment (passing the WW training).
October 22, 2009 at 6:58 am
We can be so hard on ourselves sometimes! Good for you for regaining your perspective!
October 22, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Good job Foody!! Another perspective is to imagine how you would have handled it if someone else had made the mistake. Would you have been as hard on them as you were on yourself? Anyway, it always feels great to have made the right choice!
October 23, 2009 at 1:19 pm
I find exercise always helps me. Dreams are very interesting, they are the language of our subconscious mind!
Next time you feel like you want to beat yourself up over something, write down all the good things that you have done/achieved in your life – this can help to put things in their true perspective.
October 23, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Linda–thank you for that suggestion.
I learn so much on Foodie’s blog!
I recently was talking to someone about this sort of thing; concentrating on what you have accomplished and not what you haven’t yet. So it can be applied to concentrating on what you have achieved to put the “mistake” in perspective.
AWESOME!
Foodie you have the BEST readers!