060517

So I've pinpointed one of my BIGGEST obstacles to treatment.
I don't know how to be "casual" in my choices in treatment.
If I'm not PERPETUALLY "challenging" myself, I feel like a failure.
If I don't CONSISTENTLY choose the MOST DIFFICULT OPTION, I feel worthless.
Therefore, when I've conquered ALL my "available" challenges…
…I make more.

THAT'S what Team is concerned about: obsessive perfectionism.
It's a lose/lose; I'll NEVER be OK with peace & healing if my addled brain is still scared that such "taking it easy" is WRONG… that not battling demons unendingly means I've BECOME one.
To my current distorted mindset, a lack of "challenge"-- no; a lack of something BAD to actively battle & conquer, "betrays" weakness & "unwillingness to do what's RIGHT." Slacking off. Being lazy. Chickening out. Disappointing GOD by not living up to my full Good potential. By irresponsibility.
If I'm NOT "fighting the Good fight," then I'm saying I don't care if Good loses.
It's SO distorted. It makes me nauseous.
Why does my brain view the PEACE that COMES from VICTORY as a PROBLEM???
BUT every time I do something easy, or comforting, or enjoyable-- EVEN IF said thing WAS once a huge challenge, like all my food-victories here… once it becomes "non-challenging," I feel like a morally corrupt, uncaring, overindulgent, hedonistic, devil-may-care slacker who couldn't give less of a care as to their state of conscience. Once I do the "easy thing," I feel like I'm being PROUD, selfish, lazy… evil. A saint once said that humility, that holiness, lay in always choosing the most difficult option.
What if NONE of the options are a challenge?
What if I'm so full of LOVE that nothing is a struggle anymore?

…Then my damaged brain makes it a struggle again.
It resets progress. It perpetuates challenge.
I HAVE NO FEAR FOODS, but "that's not a challenge," so…
I keep forcing myself to be afraid of foods.
And if THAT'S what's going to keep happening, I will NEVER let myself "be healed" OR "STAY healed." Because that's slacking off.

THAT'S A LIE.

The true challenge, paradoxically, is learning to stop trying so terribly hard to win a war that's NOT EVEN REAL.

And THAT'S the DEEPER huge problematic root to this compulsion: to me, to my poor distortion-plagued mind, the very CORE QUALITY of a challenge is that it has to HURT. It has to be a STRUGGLE. And on the flipside of that lurks the corrupted core belief that, if I like something… that's wrong.
WHY???
I freak out at EVERY snacktime because, by my loving nature, ALL the options are enjoyable; ALL the options are pain-free.
My challenge-obsessed mind sees that as a PROBLEM.
We're SUPPOSED to "challenge distorted behaviors," right?
Well, what if, at the heart of me, I don't have any??
If I am SO ultimately determined & indomitably willing to LOVE EVERYTHING & EVERYONE, myself included…
well.
Then I'm at odds with my own mind.
Then I have to PUT OBSTACLES IN MY OWN WAY, just to "prove" to others that I CAN overcome them.
But. And this is the REAL problem:
If I would ENJOY the challenge, if it would "feel good,"
then it's NOT an option.
"Challenges have to HURT," remember.
So I'd feel that refusing happiness was a "VICTORY" because it would mean that I SUFFERED in the refusal… but "I made it through."
Therefore, I "challenged myself."

It's all a disgustingly distorted mess.

I need to eliminate the word "challenge" from my vocabulary at this point.

…

…And I need to heal my view of "progress," too.


-The REAL "challenge" is FEARLESSLY LOVING EVERYTHING in joyful courageous victory OVER this mindset, AND regardless of what other people REFUSE to love-- CHALLENGE THAT!!!