Earlier this week, I made a stupid mistake, and that mistake cost us our dental and vision insurance for the year 2024.

You see, I had my COBRA from my old job that I had planned to keep, as the kids still had braces, and switching midway apparently resulted in non-coverage. So, I spent a lot of time researching it and setting it up so we would retain the dental component. It was all set up. I spent X amount of hours figuring it out, learning more things about dental insurance than I care to know. Unfortunately, the way it was set up, I couldn’t do automatic pay (like most of our bills were), and I had to make sure to pay each month.

So, my logical brain had it all set up – a reminder on our shared calendar to pay it monthly. I also had the option to pay for months at a time, which I had done one time but didn’t do for some reason the last time.

In mid-March, I realized I hadn’t paid for February, so I hurriedly paid for it online and did three months. A few days later, I received a notice that we lost our COBRA because we missed the February payment.

It was a stupid mistake. I had put all that time into ensuring we would have it. And because of an oversight, because of trying to do several things at once, because of calendar notification fatigue, because of so many legitimate reasons, I missed it. By two weeks.

And the self-judgment began. How can I be so stupid? How can I make that idiotic oversight? The inner critic just went on and on. I ate my feelings, buffered and watched Netflix, and ate cake.

I was acting out behaviors that I knew I didn’t want to be doing, so that led me to pause and really think about why I was buffering. What was so wrong that I reverted back to the default settings of dopamine-seeking behavior?

By continuously asking myself “why” I was upset, I came to the pretty big realization that I had the idea that “I don’t make mistakes.” Like I truly believed that I could not make mistakes.

It sounds really surreal even typing it out, but I realized through this experience and deep diving that “I don’t make mistakes” is a belief I have held onto. Certainly, my past proves it. The reason I got to where I am in life is that I was meticulous; I had a backup plan for my backup plan. I have a well-reasoned method of figuring out and fixing things. Now, intellectually, I understand that everybody makes mistakes, but if I were being honest, a small voice in my head would say, “But you don’t.”

Now, I want to be very clear: This is not good, and it is not healthy.

Can you imagine the weight and responsibility of that definition? I was holding myself to an impossibly perfect standard! And I was doing it without realizing it, which blew my mind.

Apparently, for the last 47 years, I have told myself that I can never make a mistake. And to make a mistake was a disaster.

In retrospect, it makes sense why I would always get so upset when some plans go awry or upset at my husband for having what I deemed was a stupid mistake, too. However, I always seemed to be more forgiving of others than towards me. I thought I was upset appropriately (a mistake was made, after all), so I never gave a thought to what I was actually thinking. I didn’t realize that was the standard I held myself to.

Now onto my discovery:

Current thought/belief: I cannot make mistakes.

Situation: I made a mistake.

Feeling: upset and angry at myself, so much self-judgment, beating myself up for it.

Resulting behavior: Defaulting to old dopamine (a.k.a. feel better) seeking behavior, which is not in line with my goal; it was not in line with how I define myself now.

Hard stop.

So how do we go from this thought-feeling-behavior cycle I just shared to get a different result? More importantly, how can I stop eating the cake? How can I stop eating my feelings?! How can I stop?

I realized that it started with the thought.

All the misery and downward spiral started with the lofty thought that I do not make mistakes when the reality is 1) we all make mistakes because we are human; 2) I am human like everyone else; and 3) mistakes can be redefined as part of a larger journey I can use for growth and learning. See, I intellectually know how to answer that!

Step 1 was the practice of self-compassion. It is being kind to myself when I feel inadequate instead of berating myself with self-criticism. It is being warm and supportive when confronted with imperfection rather than harsh and cold. It is being helpful and encouraging. The inner support allows me to feel safe and in a better frame of mind to cope and make needed changes. This is copied exactly from Kristin Neff’s work. If you have not heard of her, she is amazing, and you should look up her work.

So, I am changing the above situation to:

Situation: I made a mistake.

New thought: Everybody makes mistakes; I am human like everyone else; I am not defined by my mistakes but by how I recover from them and use them as fuel for change.

New behavior: I stopped eating that damn cake. I recognized I was looking outside myself to make me feel better when I could, I have the ability to make myself feel better by just being kind to myself and quieting the inner critic.

Did the change happen right away? No, it’s not magic.

Am I all fixed? Of course not. The thought still pops up. After all, it’s a default thought I’ve had for many years (aka its neural pathway in my brain), so trying out a new thought will require repetitively actively thinking about it and being mindfully aware of it.

Am I improving? Heck yes. The old, not-as-mindful me would have taken weeks of self-judgment and dopamine-seeking behavior before just pushing it down in the back of my brain.

This is what self-awareness and mindfulness are.

This is what pausing and understanding why we think is important.

I was/am on autopilot for so long. A lot of the actions/behaviors I do are based on these thoughts that I had that I was not aware of until I actually paid attention to the whys of my behavior.

I am sharing this excerpt of my life to show you a few things.

Pausing and asking why is important. If you find yourself doing something in an “I know I am not supposed to do it, but I am” situation, ask yourself why. What is driving that behavior? You likely have your own automatic thoughts.

The process of how we can go from autopilot to intentional living.

Mindfulness is a skill. It is learnable! This event was an exercise of mindfulness and self-awareness for me.

Let me know if you need guidance on this and if you are a perfectionist like I am/was. That perfectionist mentality is what got you to where you are, but if it creates dissonance between your goal and where you are today, it might be time to re-examine that thought and change it.

Caissa Troutman is an obesity medicine and family physician.