Guy Reams (00:01.516)
I don't know if you're like me, but this is day 38, self-destruct mode. If you're like me, occasionally I'll get into self-destruct mode, where I just start to do things that are destructive. It's like reversing great improvements I've made. Why do I do that? If I walked into a room and I saw a ticking bomb on the table,
my natural instinct would be to go disable it, turn it off, right? Or if I saw somebody skiing, if I skiing with some friends and I saw somebody about ready to ski off a cliff, I would yell at them, stop, right? So I have an observation that there's a definite contrast between external threats and internal struggles.
Like if I were to see somebody else doing destructive behavior, I would tell them to stop. Like, don't be stupid, right? But when I do it, when I'm doing destructive things, I think I have a consternation about it. If I was faced with an external danger, my instinct would kick in immediately. I think it's because the problem is clear, tangible, urgent, know, such as that ticking clock or skiing off a cliff.
It's like an act now or suffer the consequences moment. But when it comes to my own personal behavior, my own self-destructive behavior, the situation is much murkier. So I was trying to think of how I can look at this differently so that I could clearly see the behavior that I'm doing and stop it immediately, just like I would stop in an external danger situation. Like if I saw a snake on the ground, I would not like,
go past the snake, would stop immediately. So it's like, how can I convert internal struggle behavior in the same fashion so that when I start thinking a certain way, I can immediately stop it? It's like, no, that's bad. Don't think that way, right? So in order to deal with this problem, I started thinking about why I do this. Why is it that internal struggles,
Guy Reams (02:23.635)
mental cycles that I go through or discouraging thoughts or negative feelings or things like that, destructive thoughts. Why aren't I able to see those clearly? So first off, thought, lack of clarity. These oftentimes emerge gradually, like an immediate threat you can see right away, but my negative thoughts will sometimes gradually come upon me.
and I will rationalize them, I'll minimize their impact. I'll tell myself that I have time to deal with this later. When in reality, the second I start thinking something negative, I should deal with it immediately, but I don't.
I also think there's a bit of an emotional attachment to things. Like there are certain behaviors that I have an emotional attachment to. Like a friend of mine who was having a hard time quitting smoking said that they had this attachment to this idea that after a certain thing would happen, like a moment would happen that was good,
they would have this instinctive reaction to celebrate that moment with a lighting a cigarette. And that was, there was a significant emotional attachment to that idea. Or like, you know, when you make a long drive to somewhere, there's an emotional attachment to eating some snack along the way, or sitting in front of the TV and eating a bowl of ice cream. Like there's an emotional attachment to certain behaviors, right? So sometimes that purpose
of emotional attachment can be healthy or it can be unhealthy. Comfort eating, procrastination, holding on to toxic relationships. know, most people that have a toxic relationship, they get benefit out of that relationship. That relationship probably provides them some temporary soothing or helps them overcome some pain or some fear.
Guy Reams (04:29.505)
that toxic relationship long term is not good for them at all. So when you let go of these behaviors, these destructive things, it can feel like you're letting go a part of yourself. So I think that's one of the reasons why I would hold on to something destructive. know, a lot of people talk about cognitive dissonance. I think there is a part of us that recognizes that some of these behaviors, these mental attitudes are doing us harm.
But another one clings onto it because of the perceived benefits or the comfort it provides. We think, I really need this. It's providing me comfort. I really need to eat that bowl of ice cream, or I really need to smoke that cigarette, or I really need to sit and binge watch some show all night long, or whatever. Some things that are not good for us to do, but we feel like we need to do that.
The internal conflict between this belief that we need to do something and the knowledge that it is wrong is dissonance and that internal conflict can paralyze us from making any decision.
Also, I think we normalize things. We get into these patterns of thinking, patterns of thought, and we normalize them. don't realize that a small habit can grow into a destructive behavior without setting off alarm bells because we think over time that behavior becomes normal. If I start thinking negative about myself or I draw a negative conclusion and I start small, but then over time I continue to do that,
eventually I'll start to feel like that's normal and I'll continue to think that way. And then it's really hard to reverse it because you've just gotten used to thinking that
Guy Reams (06:23.681)
I think also there is a bit of fear of change. Sometimes it's uncomfortable to realize that you're doing something destructive to yourself. And for me, it's nothing outward. Like I've pretty much resolved all the major vices in my life. I I'm old enough now where I've gotten past any of the obvious things, right? I mean, I eat pretty clean. I don't do any illicit drugs or anything. And I have really good relationships.
doing any amoral behavior that would be destructive to the relationships around me. So I've gotten all that figured out over time. But there's still a lot of destructive things that I'll do to myself that only really hurt me. But the problem is, is I think these things are, you know, they just become part of you after a while. So it's really hard to confront this uncomfortable truth that maybe that is just not good, right? It can be something simple like,
Slowly every once in while I'll get in this habit of scrolling through news feeds at night before I go to bed, which is not good behavior. I've already proven that I know it's not good. Keeping your mind active like that or putting negative thoughts into your brain before you go to bed is not good sleep practice. But then I feel like, I need to do that so that I can sleep. Well, that's just not true. I've proven that that's not true. But yet you still want to do it. So there's this uncomfortable
choice you have to make, right? Like one time I decided I would no longer carry my phone upstairs with me at night. I would leave it plugged in downstairs. And that was actually a good time for me because I could not ever look at the phone when I was upstairs. That simple idea kept it away from me. And as a consequence, I improved my sleep dramatically. So I know that's true.
But it's uncomfortable, right? It's uncomfortable to make the choice to change that, right? So sometimes the process of overcoming even a simple change can feel so daunting because we've gotten comfortable with the status quo.
Guy Reams (08:36.439)
So, you know, and then finally, I think the last one I thought of was shame and guilt. Sometimes I judge myself too harshly for self-destructive behavior. And for some reason, guilt or shame about it leads to avoidance of dealing with it, which is a weird combination. You know, it's a weird, it's a weird thought that I feel bad about doing something or I feel bad because I'm acting a certain way.
So instead of dealing with it, my shame causes me not to do anything about it and just continue the behavior, which is weird. I don't know why we do that. Why do we do that? Finally, when you stop somebody else from doing something bad, we're acting as an external accountability mechanism for that person. But when it's our own behavior, we lack outside perspective. It's hard to objectively recognize our own destructive patterns.
without someone to reflect them back to us. So I think it's a good idea to recognize this disparity between external and internal reactions and to address it. think the first step is to talk it through with other people so that you can get perspective on what you're doing because somebody else can see the destructive behavior much better than you can. So I think that's important. I think it's also,
Just like we would stop an external threat, think it's, you can train yourself over time to get to the same level of urgency and clarity when confronting your own internal destructive thoughts and patterns. You can get to that level where as soon as you recognize you're doing something like thinking negative, you immediately change it. And I've gotten actually pretty much better at that now. Like if I start thinking a negative thought pattern, I now know
There's a trigger that caused that. And I now know to go do something different. And that prevents this downward slide of negative thoughts that occur over a period of time. So anyway, I think it's important to learn to know what destructive things that you do. What are the internal destructive thoughts that you have on a regular basis? What are the destructive behaviors that you have?
Guy Reams (10:59.456)
Identify them and treat them just like you're walking up to a snake or treat them just like you're about ready to set off a bomb or do something bad. Treat them like an external struggle even though they're only internal. Thank you.