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SELF IMPROVEMENT JUNKIE COMING THROUGH

Written by: Deborah Kimmett

Article Overview: Have you thought outside the Box? Pushed the Evelope? Moved the Cheese? And Cut it? If you've aken so many self help seminars, Anthony Robbins is getting a restraining order then read this article by funny business woman Deborah Kimmett. She's witty and wise.

SELF IMPROVEMENT JUNKIE COMING THROUGH

SELF-HELP JUNKIE COMING THROUGH


For years I’ve gone from pillar to post trying to improve myself. I am a self admitted self-help junkie going down the dark alleys looking for my next big fix. Always in search of the next book, the next DVD, class or teacher that is going to provide me a magic bullet. I thought it took a village to raise a neurotic. Or run a small business. So I did madenla, visioned prosperity, got my colours done, explored the power of positive thinking until I got so depressed. I found out what colour my parachute was. I pushed the envelope, I thought “ outside the box” moved the cheese and once in awhile I cut it. I saw Anthony Robbins so many times he got a restraining order. If I were a reality show I would have been called Extreme Make Over.

My life coach called it perfectionism. Perfectionists call it having standards. This was the same coach who said I needed to love my self. Which infuriated me. It’s like someone saying, “ Will you calm down?” You just want to ram them with your car. I fired her and got a new one who recommended I stand naked in front of a mirror and say I love my body. So I started to take my shirt off and he said no wait until you get home. See. Even he wasn’t committed. I don’t know why this coach was in such a hurry for me to love myself. It’s like a minister saying, “Go and sin no more”. If people like me weren’t sinning there would be no bums in those pews would there? So me loving myself would be bad for business. In fact if I wasn’t a seething morass of low self esteem these people would be unemployed. And that would be bad for the economy. I am pretty certain my OCD helped my third therapist buy her new house. I said I am pretty certain my OCD helped my third therapist. Oh never mind.

Its bad enough I thought I was broken but I tried to fix others. I spread the joy around. I tried fixing people who thought they were perfectly fine until I came along. I became a motivational speaker. I motivated everybody. Maybe that old lady didn’t want help across the street. Maybe she was just hailing a cab. I motivated my hairdresser so much he became my landscaper. Instead of trimming my bangs, he now trims my bush. My kids didn’t escape either. I dragged them from harp to piano to soccer lesson. Meanwhile the physical exercise I got was lifting the Timbits to my mouth. I made every event a Kodak moment until I was exhausted and now if they ever do thank me, it usually for some darn thing I don’t remember doing for them in the first place. I tried to improve their genetic lot in life. I enrolled them in French Immersion. I can’t speak French. Some of my family don’t speak English that well eh? But I wanted them to be bilingual. Now I can’t understand a word they’re saying. They should come with subtitles. After all of that sacrifice they ran away from home. Sure it was to start university but they never even said good-bye. Because they’re mimes. French Mimes. Just doing that walking against the wind thing as they headed off to the theatre school. Now I’m left alone by myself In the empty nest that I have to clean myself because I motivated the cleaning lady so much she’s in med school. Maybe she’ll support me in my dotage because the kids aren’t going to be able to. What do you call a mime with a bachelor of arts degree? Living with your Mom.
I am not worried about it. No. I dno’t worry as much as I used to. In the old days there was worrying to be done and I was the one to do it. I worried on behalf of everybody. My favourite activity was something I liked to call preventative worrying - where you worried ahead of time so when it did happen you wouldn’t be surprised. Now, I can’t be bothered because everything that I thought could happen to me actually did. Shakespeare may have said: “ Life is but a stage and we are merely players”. But I say by the end of life you’ve played all the parts. I have been a jerk, been treated like a jerk, been jerked around by the jerk.

So I now am making friends with my vices. I like the fact that I do yoga after I chug a Red Bull. I find it makes the alternate breathing go by faster. I don’t mind that when I do Tai Chi my instructor says I move so fast it looks like I am disco dancing. As a survivor of the Donna Summers era I take it as a compliment. I do move too fast. My friends say I have attention deficit disorder but they’re wrong. I have attention surplus disorder. I can hold a grudge for years. I don’t tolerate fools gladly. My rule of thumb is I can think they’re fools but they’re not allowed to think I’m one.

There is a release in knowing I have no untapped potential. I have stopped hoping others have any either. Like when people tell me who they are I believe them. I wasn’t always like this. When I was young when a boyfriend said hey I am bad news I thought he was kidding. But today I would believe him, because I have found men are like cigarettes. The warning is right there on the package but we go ahead and light them up anyway.

As an aside, I’ve noticed that there is no self-improvement section in the bookstore for men. No book called Men Who Love Too Much. Men tend to fix things not people. They seem to like themselves just the way they are. Women have condemned this in the male species but I will say this on record: I think their self-acceptance is truly wonderful.

So at the dawning of the new year I've decided to embrace my inner man. I am going to accept myself as I am. Some may call this denial. But I think denial has had a bad time of it in this society. If I can accept myself so can you. Go into the bathroom right now and take off your clothes and look in that mirror and say, “ Hey You. I might as well love this body the way it is because ten years from now this one’s going to look pretty good.”

After you do that a few times without puking, you can try it with the lights on.

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Article Tags: anthony robbins, bums, cheese, dark alleys, hurry, life coach, low self esteem, magic bullet, morass, motivational speaker, ocd, parachute, perfectionism, perfectionists, pews, pillar, power of positive thinking, prosperity, reality show, restraining order



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