Difficult Relationships

I'm a member of this message board comprised of real-time friends/acquaintances, numbering around a couple of hundred. We've been going since 2002, when we all first started getting to know each other and we have all followed each other's ups and downs from the trivial disagreements that most bulletin board communities have to births, marriages and deaths of our loved ones.

Back in the beginning I used to post every day, several times per day and felt reasonably confident in doing so. I was a more regular part of the community back then and had the confidence in the relationships I held with people to believe anyone was actually interested in things I had to say. Fast forward 9 years and I've stepped back a lot from the social scene associated with the board (nicknamed BBB) and now my confidence is pretty low. Due to having 2 young children to run around after and a house to maintain I get precious little time to sit and relax these days, and since the advent of Facebook most of my relaxation time is spent catching up with my WHOLE social network, as opposed to the micro-network of BBB which, while people tend to be a little more open about certain things on there (it's a closed invite-only forum) is vacuous enough to take up one heck of a lot of time that I don't have.

Every now and then though there comes a thread that induces thought to the point I need to develop it further somewhere, so I am going to use this post to do so. Anything I say at this stage is nothing more than a musing, a means of ponderment (ponderation?!!!) so I'll leave the conclusions for later.

The particular thread in question was referring to detoxing and addictions. It was started in December, possibly in readiness for the January resolutions. I have only read a few posts but it was enough to get me thinking about my own life and my relationships with things. I'm not ashamed to admit I have tried most things, and have never become dependant on anything more than a cup of tea and a cigarette. I always thought I didn't have an addictive personality until it came to 2 things, nicotine and food. The nicotine I managed to (more or less) knock on the head. I have come to the conclusion that I'll always have a smokers brain and no matter how long I go between cigarettes (20 mins or 20 years) I'll always have to be aware that I will never shake off the shackles of that addiction.

The thing is, I can handle quitting smoking, because I can just stop and not touch them again unless I choose to. It's a totally different ball park with food because we need it to survive so I can't just not touch it again. Being the main cook in the house I cook and plan all the meals in our house and Rob has little interest in developing this role any further, much to my chagrin.

So this leads me to the conclusion that because I can't just "quit" eating, I will have to change my relationship with food. What I'm going to find difficult is actually changing my relationship as I love the stuff - too much. How can you fall out of love with something that brings you comfort and pleasure ANYTIME you want???

I am struggling to find my motivator here. I can't tell myself it's for aesthetic reasons, because I'm not programmed that way. I can't tell myself it's for health reasons because I'm philosophical about the "trade-off!" I just don't know - where do I start??? I know I have to start somewhere, I have 2 children that I need to set an example for and I don't see the model of self discipline in the mirror when I chance a look...

Maybe that's it - I have to post up a couple of photos of the kids on my mirror to use as my motivation to take better care of myself (I usually come last as time is not on my side). Step One accomplished!

Now for the next step in changing my relationship - but I'll leave step two till next time - it's late now.

Good work, g'wan Mama!