I'm just your average, everyday, divorced 38 year old girl -- overweight, tragically unhip,
and trying to make a life for myself. I live with two furry beasts, Dave and Abby, whose
feline mission in life is to choke me with their fur. Nothing special.
Saturday morning. I've noticed myself feeling tired and going to bed much earlier of late. Always in the past, it's at least 11pm before I go to bed, but now I start getting sleepy by 9:30 and I'm generally in bed and ready to sleep before 10pm. Amazing! Accordingly, getting up at 6am is no longer a chore and that's nice. This week, I've either done yoga first thing or listened to a "be in your body" meditation before breakfast, before CNN goes on, just sitting comfortably in my big, velvet chair. I also read my Lighter Way class materials and think about ways that I block my feelings and what I can do differently to get different results.
This morning, in class, the yoga was still hard (I'm not particularly flexible, I have a huge stomach to work around, and that same stomach throws my balance off) but not as hard as last week. I weighed in with the other girls and actually looked at the number this week (I wouldn't look last week). And, as we sat together in the small room where we talk or do hypnotherapy as the last part of every class, I felt so much love and support for and from the other four people in the room. Never, never, ever have I felt that way in real life weight loss situations. So connected, so supported, so loved. And it wasn't just from them to me...it was from me to me, too.
Self acceptance is something I finally "got" last year, but self esteem has been so elusive in my life. It's always been all or nothing: I'm focused on me - fixing me - or on others, never both simultaneously. Now I'm feeling the warmth of this positive energy inside me and it flows through my body but it can also go outside of me to others, too. Hard to describe adequately, it's just a first for me and very exciting.
p.s. Didn't lose any weight this week and I'm OK with that. I've done so many good things for myself this week and that's enough.
Wednesday afternoon. I feel sick, have been feeling sick for the last day or so. My stomach hurts, my head hurts, my digestion is terrible, and I'm sitting in my armchair trying to figure out if I'm going to get sick or not. And yet I'm still considering whether I should eat the leftover steak and egg burrito in my fridge.
I haven't worked out today at all. I know that I should. I know that I feel better when I do. I know that I've got cool iFit video workouts that I can do. And yet I still sit here and ponder my next move.
There's a terrible, fierce battle going on inside me and I can see and feel it in every part of me. The digestive issues are just the most obvious signs, but I feel it coursing through my veins, too. I know that the path I'm embarking on by going inside me isn't going to be as easy as previous weight loss attempts - I can't just restrict my food, exercise diligently, and get where I want to go. I'm a champion of that route, having successfully employed it to lose more than 50 pounds four times now, but that's not the story.
No, losing it isn't the journey...it's just a weensy part of the road I need to travel. And restricting my food, exercising, that's just hiding from the underlying issues that keep putting me right back here again. Right back to 262 pounds. Right back to pissed off, confused, and frightened. Frightened, yes, but not because I don't think I'll ever be able to lose this weight, rather it's about unearthing all of the ugliness lying underneath the surface and wondering if I'm strong enough to sit there with it and not go over the edge.
And so I keep abusing my poor body, hiding from the truth, and, ironically, keeping myself weak and submissive to the whims of wildly fluctuating emotions. The answer, the key, the thing that will help me is starting to take care of myself, to esteem myself more than the food. And really, it's not the food that I love, it's the anesthetic effect of eating and eating and eating and no thinking and television and stopping the pain, even if just for a moment.
So again it comes around to hiding from myself. Or not. What if I could learn to stop hiding and start loving myself...not just accepting, but loving? Loving myself as I do others like TCB and Alcott and my family and my cats. Can I overcome the lack of love my father showed me when I was a little girl (NOT my daddy, but my biological father), the way he put me down, scared me, made me want to shrink away until he couldn't see me to yell or hit? And, if I can, what other areas of my life would be changed forever?
But there's no magic light switch for this transformation. No grand plan that I can roll out and make a huge hullabaloo about. No, this is about small steps, quiet introspection, and patience. Patience has never been my strong suit and perhaps that's not an insignificant part of this journey. Figures.
For now, a 30 minute treadmill walk sounds like a good way to take care of my body. After that, we'll see.
In which I share a cool quote which summarizes much of what I'm feeling
Monday afternoon. I'm reading Seven Spiritual Secrets to Natural Weight Loss and found this awesome quote: "Can I have the courage to trust uncertainty?" (Gonzalez, 2001-2005, p. 15)
Monday morning. Well, of the four things (I missed one in the list I wrote down here on Saturday) that I am working on, I did well on the three that I've had occasion to practice. Specifically, I...
* Had nothing sugary/sweet for breakfast yesterday * Talked to TCB about what I'm trying to do and how he can help (this was not a ringing success - he's obviously quite skeptical about my new approach to losing weight. Oh well, as long as he doesn't work against me, it's all good) * Talked to TCB about going to church together (this was not a ringing success, either, which sort of surprised me because he's mentioned wanting to start a church relationship before - maybe I just surprised the heck out of him?)
And the fourth thing that I'll be doing as part of my program is driving home from work on the freeway to avoid passing as many fast food joints which tempt me to eat poorly. That will get its first test this evening, so we'll see how I do then.
Now it's time to try one of my yoga DVDs. It's not specifically stated, but I've got to start doing this stuff during the week, too, because it totally kicked my butt on Saturday. For anyone that thinks yoga is just about gentle stretching and relaxation, you seriously need to come and experience Gloria (my teacher) and her version of yoga. Seriously, I was sweating and panting like a dog. After yoga! In any case, I'm going to shoot for yoga in the morning and treadmill in the evening.
