A couple of weeks ago, something bad happened. I was confused, scared, and angry.
The amazing thing is that it never occurred to me to eat, overeat, or binge over it. None of these things crossed my mind. And that is unbelievable. A sign of growth and change for me.
Here’s what happened:
I was paying bills online, and decided for some unknown reason to check my checking and savings account balances. I didn’t mean to check my Visa account balance because I don’t owe anything on it. While I was looking at the balances, I noticed that my Visa balance was over $15,000! What!?*%@!???
At first, I was confused. It didn’t compute. I didn’t understand what I was seeing. But as I continued to examine my account details, I realized that someone had stolen my Visa account information. Over the course of three short days in mid-March, someone had made four purchases totalling over $15,000 using my card. As I realized this, I felt violated and vulnerable. Fundamentally unsafe. A few minutes later, anger settled in.
That’s when I did something revolutionary for me. I allowed myself to feel violated, vulnerable, scared, and supremely pissed off. I didn’t tell myself that I shouldn’t feel these emotions. I didn’t fight these emotions. I didn’t tell myself to get over it.
I let myself feel negative emotions.
I didn’t resist them.
I let them be.
I processed every one of those feelings.
I paused. I didn’t rush to do things in order not to feel them.
I identified where I felt each feeling in my body.
I described them to myself.
I breathed into each of them.
I reminded myself that my feelings are vibrations in my body caused by my thoughts.
So, what was I thinking?
“This shouldn’t be happening to me.”
“I cannot believe I have to deal with this.”
“This is unfair.”
“Bad things always seem to happen to me.”
“I don’t need this.”
I was able to question these thoughts.
“Is this thought true?”
“Do I want to think this way?”
“What else can I think?”
I came to the realization that what happened wasn’t personal. Someone stole my credit card number. No one stole the actual card by mugging or robbing me. Unfortunately, this isn’t an unusual story. Many people have their credit card information stolen on a daily basis. This doesn’t make it ok, but it did provide me with some perspective.
The result is that I was able to deal calmly with the situation. I did what I needed to do. I spent A LOT of time on the phone talking to credit card and credit union people. It will be resolved.
The silver lining… the big takeaway is that I didn’t need to eat, overeat, or binge to buffer against this event. None of those things would have changed the circumstance. I would still need to take care of it. And the truth is that eating, overeating, or bingeing over it would have made it worse. Not only would I not have dealt with the situation calmly and rationally, but I would have pushed the negative emotions aside. The “shouldn’t be happening” thoughts would have persisted. Days later, I would still be mentally thrashing about, reliving the experience over and over searching for resolution.
I have resolution. I am calm. I am not taking it personally. I am taking care of myself. I am moving forward.
Keep moving forward.