Are you covertly Self-Harming?!

Are you covertly self-harming? Now, I know that's a pretty strong question, and for some of you, maybe a bit sort of in your face, but the reason I ask is because many of us are without even realizing. Now, the reason I say this is many of us choose to continually partake in activities which work against our health. We know that they're not good for us, but yet we continue to choose to do them anyway. Now, I know we can argue, "Well, I'm not choosing it. I have a lot of shit going on and then I end up sort of in these subconscious loops and so on, and I end up self-sabotaging and it's not necessarily a conscious choice in the moment." So I get that it's not a choice from that perspective, but the problem is once we've recognized that something isn't good for us and then we choose to partake in that thing anyway, well, now we are consciously choosing it. So it's like, if we know that takeaways are bad, for example, like the bullshit like McDonald's, Burger King, etc., if we know that they're bad, if we know that processed food is crap and takes us away from health, then unfortunately that is now choosing to partake in an act of self-harm. You can argue, well, I don't get immediately injured, as in it's not like taking a blade to yourself or deliberately burning yourself and things like that. I get that it's not at that same extreme, but at the same time, if you are deliberately choosing to work against your health, you are essentially self-harming. Now, if you are already healthy, there is of course this thing where, well, I can get away with it. My health is so robust that it doesn't matter if I have an odd thing that isn't perfect and so on. I can do that, and my, my body, my physiology has the resilience, the robustness, the adaptive capacity to overcome and deal with that thing. Absolutely fine. That is not a problem at all. The catch for most of us when we're caught in this cycle is we are not at that level. We're actually unhealthy. Our body is technically degenerating because we're gaining more weight. Inflammation is increasing. Our body is becoming stiffer and achier and so on, and we're losing the ability to operate at optimal levels. So if our health is slowly declining over time because we constantly choose to engage in activities or engage in eating foods that aren't leading us to our, to our goals, if we constantly engage in late nights and binge-watching shows on TV when ideally we should be getting our rest and recovery and so on, if we keep doing those things knowing that they're not working for us— now they work in the respect that they serve that immediate emotional need, but they don't work in the respect that, well, here's my health goals over here and I'm actually drifting away from them. So from that perspective, we are actually choosing to move away from health, which is ultimately, as I just mentioned, an act of self-harm. Now, we can fluff it up and bullshit and go, well, it's not that bad. You know, it's not like I'm trying to cut myself or I'm not trying to get attention and commit suicide or whatever the extremes might be. but we have to get real with ourselves. We have to be honest. At the same time, I'm not exactly choosing to honor myself, am I? Which would be the opposite end. We've got self-harm at one end and self-honor at the other. Well, if I'm choosing to eat these things consistently or regularly, well, then I'm choosing to not honor myself, which of course is not going to get me the goals that I want. It's impossible for me to be healthy or to remain happy if I'm constantly engaging in things which are taking away from me. Yes, they might feel pleasurable in the moment, but they never lead to long-term happiness because we always end up in this vessel that is essentially drifting away from health. We have less and less trust and faith in it because it feels less and less capable of dealing with the stresses of our everyday life. And when our physical being starts to break down and degenerate, that starts to affect our mental being as well, because we see it, we recognize it. Oh shit, this aches, that never used to ache, what the hell's going on there? Oh, every time I do this movement or I engage in too much activity, I hurt for days afterwards, and so on. So from a mental perspective, I've now recognized the physical deficit, which then causes mental stress, which cascades into emotional stress. So again, we've now got multiple layers of stress and and inoptimal performance within the body. We've got a physical issue, we've now got a mental issue, we've now got an emotional one. But now, because the emotional sense is so heightened and needs to be soothed in some way, that makes us even more likely to continue engaging in the things that we know we shouldn't be doing, because we need that immediate quick fix for our emotional state now. So, if I have the thing I shouldn't be eating, this food which is essentially harming me over time, Well, if I have that, that's going to help address the emotional state that I'm in. So, in that moment, I've fixed the emotional problem, so it feels like I've done something good for myself. Until, of course, we then come along with the guilt, the shame, the blame, and so on, because we've now engaged in something we know we shouldn't have. Shit, my goal was to lose X amount of pounds this week. I've now eaten off plan and screwed up my opportunity to get results, so now I need to to go into this guilt cycle for it. And because I'm now in that guilt cycle, that will now cause me to want to eat more of this shit as well, because again, I need that pickup. So we end up in this loop, like I mentioned in previous videos, where we constantly are searching for a way to soothe our emotional need, but we end up doing it in ways, unfortunately, that in the long term actually harm us. They move us further away from health. Because all we're concerned about is feeling better in the moment, not actually producing a long-term result. Now, of course, I get it. Like, long-term results never feel sexy because it takes time to get there. So there's far less motivation or inspiration or drive for me to chase it because it seems like it's over there. It's like, yeah, I've got to do this thing now, I need to sacrifice now, but I don't actually get the result for maybe days, weeks, months, or potentially even years. So where's the incentive? The incentive, of course, is there, but it's hard for us in the moment to reframe that when I can have this immediate pleasure right now. But what we have to remember is that quite often the immediate pleasure in the moment will lead to a detrimental long-term effect, whereas if we can make the sacrifice or the exchange in the moment and delay our gratification, we can actually have the long-term success, which will actually also produce happiness, not just a moment of pleasure. Because if we put in the reps required to build those habits, those behaviors, etc., that lead us to a long-term result, not only do we get the result and therefore are happier with that, we also get the opportunity to change as a being. And then by the time we're there, we have a totally different perspective about how we show up and how the world is around us. Because the catch for most of us is we experience very similar things on a day-to-day basis. So for example, my daily experience might be relatively similar to many of my friends. The catch is we can all feel as though life is totally different. And one of us might be like, "Oh yeah, loving life, life is going great." The other one's like, "Oh, everything's shit, I just wish someone would fucking kill me now," and so on. Because it's not necessarily the things that are going on outside of us that are the problem, it's the way we perceive them. So we need to go, okay, well, if I want to change what I'm experiencing, it's actually me that needs to change in this thing. I am the non-changing variable. So if I change who I am, then the world around me changes also. One of the quotes that one of my previous coaches used to always mention was, if you change the way you perceive things, then essentially you change your reality. Because our perception ultimately dictates our experience. You know, it's like one person can jump out of an airplane with a parachute, of course. One person could jump out, do a skydive, absolutely love it. The next one jumps out and is terrified the whole way down. Now, this is— they've both experienced the same thing, but this just shows how perspective and perception alters the mental and emotional response to a given thing. So we need to get better at controlling our immediate emotional responses so that we can make better decisions and not continually take part in these actions that essentially are harming us over time. Now, I know, like I've said earlier in this video, that idea of self-harm seems extreme, sounds extreme, because we're not actually familiar with, or we don't necessarily notice the immediate effect of that harm because it's accumulative. It builds up over time. Which is one of the blessings, but also one of the unfortunate effects of nutrition. It's accumulative over time. It's not like, oh, I had one, one bad meal. Now I've got cancer. It's weeks, months, years, decades, even for some people of repeating these poor behaviors. So often we don't even realize that we are accumulating a debt to an extent that's actually going to require a big payback in terms of illness or disease later on, because it tends to happen very slowly. Fortunately, we have a physiology that's designed to adapt and do the best it can to obviously adapt to the stimulus that we give it, to the input that we give it. But the catch with that, of course, is over time, health declines, we begin to move into a degenerative state, which then alters the way we think, alters the way we feel, and alters the way that we're able to show up for ourselves. And of course, because that altered mental state, that altered emotional state, based on the altered physical state that we experience in the body, we become less and less likely to show up for ourselves because it feels like we've moved further and further away from the goal. We feel less and less capable mentally, emotionally, and physically to step up and do what we need to do. So therefore, we get stuck and it becomes easier to continue taking those habits— sorry, taking those actions which were actually harming us in the first place, because now we're stuck in this place of despair and essentially we're in this this mental and emotional pit that makes us want to feel good in the moment. So to feel good in the moment, again, we keep partaking in these habits or these actions which are actually harming us and again, still moving us further away from health. So we then just end up stuck. Now, of course, many of you may be sitting here watching this and thinking, oh, actually I've done similar things to this, and others may be going, well, actually I'm lucky, I haven't got any of these problems, which is awesome. In that case, if you don't have the problems, then of course you carry on doing the thing you're doing. But if you are one of the people watching this and you're thinking, actually, I have probably been engaging in health life in this way and trying to serve immediate emotional needs and not necessarily long-term wants and goals, then now's the perfect opportunity, of course, to kind of sit with yourself and analyze why that is. Why is it that it's more important for you to serve this immediate emotional need than it is for you to delay that gratification and then move forward to a bigger, brighter future that actually provides long-term happiness, long-term success, long-term goals. Of course, like I said, I know it doesn't sound as sexy to do a thing for a period of time before getting a result, but you'll feel much better for having done so, and you'll feel much more powerful in yourself for having made that decision and being disciplined enough with yourself to follow through on that decision you've made, rather than say, "Yeah, yeah, I think I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna do this and that this year," and then actually get started and fall off the bandwagon every other week because you're not really committed. You're committed to feeling better, but not necessarily to getting good results. So, that's what I'll leave you guys with tonight. If you have any questions on this, or you want me to dig a bit deeper, because we can go off on various tangents if you wish, Or if you've got experience with this type of thing yourself, or a new perspective, a different perspective than in the way that you see this, drop your comments in the comments box below. And if not, I look forward to seeing you all in my next video tomorrow. Take it easy, people.