I create a new life with new rules that totally support me. - Louise L. Hay
Food is hard to quit. Yesterday I wanted ice cream, and I wanted it bad. I asked myself what I really wanted. I stepped back and looked at my life. "Eat whatever you want when your hungry, feel whatever you're feeling when you aren't." I wasn't hungry. But I was being impatient. I was feeling impatient with finding a house, selling this one, getting full-time status, losing weight, and having a baby. I was feeling impatient more than anything, not hungry. I've been spending time listening to my body lately, asking what it needs and giving it that. Honestly, I've been feeling things like yoga, rest, fresh air. I've heard patience, stillness, and quietness. My body needs me right now to be honest, open, and surrender. Nurturing more than ever, not so much pushing or beating. There is still about 10% of anger left there from my relationship with Angie, I'm working to release it. Bitterness and blame to be more specific. I've decided to be free. The nurse at the fertility center called to tell me yesterday I was bordering on hypothyroidism, and said she'd call me in a pill for it to reduce my risk of miscarriage. I looked up the metaphysical source of hypothyroidism in Louise L. Hay's "heal your body" book to find out hypothyroidism has to do with feeling "hopelessly stifled." Now that resonated with me. I've spent a decent amount of time in feelings of hopelessness and stifled-ness the last 5 years, reminding me I still held onto some bitterness.
Years before I ever lost a pound when I began what I often refer to as my weight-loss journey, I was told by an intuitive woman whom I trusted that I would lose a lot of weight one day. It would seem to fall of my body, and never come back. I thought that was a find idea but really didn't think too much about it and took that as a means of doing whatever I wanted because one day the weight would just fall right off! Ridiculous, I know. At my heaviest I weight 319 pounds, at my lightest I weighted 214. It took a lot of work, and some weight has come back.
There is always something beyond the weight. It's never about the weight, actually. The weight-loss is truly a by-product of a spiritual surrender. Letting-go, moving with life and not fighting against it. It's emotional, it's mental. The what's and why's of each piece of food I put in my mouth almost always has a deeper meaning. Geneen Roth says everything we feel about God and life can be found on our plate. You know what's typically on my plate? Easy, fast, of decent quality, lots of variety, and with little effort on my part. That explains a lot of why I was so impatient the other day with the house stuff.
This coupled with my recent focus of releasing judgmental thoughts, continuous angry thoughts, and overall bitchiness has me feeling like I'm moving in the direction I need to go. My past mistakes must remain in the past. Something else I read recently that shifted something inside of me was that you truly can never go back in life. I just doesn't work like that, even the little things. Going back to your favorite dinner 10 years later will not be the same as it was then. Life evolves and everything changes. Sometimes so slowly, it's hard to notice it while it's happening, but it's happening. We can truly never go back, to anything, to any stage of life. We must always be present where we are and move with the changes occurring right now.
With Grace & Gratitude...
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Sunday, July 16, 2017
Life Happens Fast
Life happens fast.
I sit here reflecting on the time I've spent here in this home as I stare at the for sale sign in the front yard. It's bittersweet, to say the least. Life happens fast. People say that, but it often doesn't feel like it when your waiting to hear good news, test results or awaiting a new opportunity - school, a pregnancy, whatever it is your "waiting on." Time seems to slow down, but it doesn't really. I suddenly feel this place vanishing from my life, falling through my fingertips as if it suddenly turned to sand. The ceilings are finally painted white, the wicker furniture I've wanted since I bought this place finally fills the porch, all the light switch plates match, there is Mediterranean bronze sprinkled throughout via light fixtures, faucets, and handles. It's been three years. Moving has always happened fast for me. Leaving my Uncle's house, I packed what I could into my 2009 Nitro and headed to a one bedroom apartment with another person over a hundred miles away. Before that, I left my Mother's house, swiftly, with boxes that had been stacked and filled before she ever kicked me out. Neither time, did I grasp the reality of that being the last time I would live in those two places. Two places I called home.
I have loved this place. I picked out every color, painted every wall, scuffed and re-painted every piece of trim. I've buried animals outside my window and created memories with my family.
I'm not sure where we'll end up next. We are still waiting for me to get full-time status so we can get pre-approved for a mortgage in the price range we are searching. We've put in two offers and been denied. It's exciting to know Sabrina and I will pick out our next house together. That every memory will be ours and a new adventure will unfold. The older I get the more I understand about how precious it is to enjoy and be present in each phase of life.
With Grace & Gratitude...
I sit here reflecting on the time I've spent here in this home as I stare at the for sale sign in the front yard. It's bittersweet, to say the least. Life happens fast. People say that, but it often doesn't feel like it when your waiting to hear good news, test results or awaiting a new opportunity - school, a pregnancy, whatever it is your "waiting on." Time seems to slow down, but it doesn't really. I suddenly feel this place vanishing from my life, falling through my fingertips as if it suddenly turned to sand. The ceilings are finally painted white, the wicker furniture I've wanted since I bought this place finally fills the porch, all the light switch plates match, there is Mediterranean bronze sprinkled throughout via light fixtures, faucets, and handles. It's been three years. Moving has always happened fast for me. Leaving my Uncle's house, I packed what I could into my 2009 Nitro and headed to a one bedroom apartment with another person over a hundred miles away. Before that, I left my Mother's house, swiftly, with boxes that had been stacked and filled before she ever kicked me out. Neither time, did I grasp the reality of that being the last time I would live in those two places. Two places I called home.
I have loved this place. I picked out every color, painted every wall, scuffed and re-painted every piece of trim. I've buried animals outside my window and created memories with my family.
I'm not sure where we'll end up next. We are still waiting for me to get full-time status so we can get pre-approved for a mortgage in the price range we are searching. We've put in two offers and been denied. It's exciting to know Sabrina and I will pick out our next house together. That every memory will be ours and a new adventure will unfold. The older I get the more I understand about how precious it is to enjoy and be present in each phase of life.
With Grace & Gratitude...
Friday, July 14, 2017
If Ever I've Made a Mistake, It Was This
My clothes fit tighter than I'd like and two days ago I found myself sobbing to my wife over stir-fry about how "disgusting" I felt standing in front of a mirror. I am tired of weighing 275 lbs. But more than that, I'm tired of being so damn angry so often. I'm tired of being short-tempered and overbearingly opinionated. I'm tired of metaphorically throwing my weight around to get what I want and being afraid of not being in control. I'm tired of being impatient and silently judgmental. I want so much to be free.
I'm not sure when it began. I don't remember all these things being so evident the last time I weighed 275 lbs. As far as I can remember, I remember being angry. A decades worth of self-help books, talk therapy, hypnotherapy, strength-training, yoga, meditation, etc - and anger was what I always came back to. Angry at this person or that person, myself, God, WHOMEVER. A fire of anger always felt like it burned no matter what I did. Like a gas pilot-light, small but present, potentially dangerous if blew out. Who would I be without the anger? Without that fire? Is there another fire? Can the gases be exchanged? It used to be rage, I have come a long way and dimmed it down to anger; it's an offspring I can examine with a little more curiosity and less fear. Had I healed the anger prior to 2012 and fueled another after that time? Maybe. I've never been one to believe in mistakes. Instead, I always seem to find good among the suffering, but after some deep reflection I came to the conclusion a few days ago that I think my moving to Saint Johns in 2012 was a mistake. Maybe the only mistake I feel I've ever made. One that cost me years worth of progress, self-love, and relationships. She was a mistake. My staying was a mistake. The only one good thing I came up with was meeting Sabrina. Some could argue that if I hadn't moved here, I wouldn't have met my the love of my life. I have thought that myself. However, in my gut, I feel I would have met her without moving to Saint Johns, our paths would have crossed somewhere. Our journey always felt destined, as if we were always suppose to be.
It seems no sooner that we feel we've mastered a skill, the Universe always presents a final challenge - a test of our new found acquired skill and resources. I think Angie was a test, and I failed. I know I ran to her as a means of escaping the pain of losing someone else, and the memories that surrounded me there. She always knew that, as did I. One of us should have stopped it. But it took me 3 1/2 years, something like 16 break-ups, countless fights, secret emails and phone calls to ex's, and an all-out affair for me to utter the words "I choose her." It took way to long for us to end that relationship. and apparently, I'm still bitter about the things I lost - pieces of myself, relationships, my community, my connection to God. It's all coming back now, and I'm ready to be done being angry. It's just kind of there and unproductive. I am ready to for joy and gratitude to fill those angry spaces.
I'm getting ready to leave this town (presumably). Today, my wife and I listed the house Angie and I bought together but the home her and I built. Today, we listed the house we came home to as newlyweds; put up-for-sale the walls that saw me fall in love with the most perfect little girl in her cadillac pink bedroom, and made public the yard that will forever hold two of the animals I have loved most in my lifetime (among a couple others.) Our sign will go up Sunday. Parades of people will walk through through these rooms with new aspirations and new dreams. They will step across bare hardwood floors that will never tell the story of how much I loved and fought for them to show their bones. I am ready.
I'm not sure when it began. I don't remember all these things being so evident the last time I weighed 275 lbs. As far as I can remember, I remember being angry. A decades worth of self-help books, talk therapy, hypnotherapy, strength-training, yoga, meditation, etc - and anger was what I always came back to. Angry at this person or that person, myself, God, WHOMEVER. A fire of anger always felt like it burned no matter what I did. Like a gas pilot-light, small but present, potentially dangerous if blew out. Who would I be without the anger? Without that fire? Is there another fire? Can the gases be exchanged? It used to be rage, I have come a long way and dimmed it down to anger; it's an offspring I can examine with a little more curiosity and less fear. Had I healed the anger prior to 2012 and fueled another after that time? Maybe. I've never been one to believe in mistakes. Instead, I always seem to find good among the suffering, but after some deep reflection I came to the conclusion a few days ago that I think my moving to Saint Johns in 2012 was a mistake. Maybe the only mistake I feel I've ever made. One that cost me years worth of progress, self-love, and relationships. She was a mistake. My staying was a mistake. The only one good thing I came up with was meeting Sabrina. Some could argue that if I hadn't moved here, I wouldn't have met my the love of my life. I have thought that myself. However, in my gut, I feel I would have met her without moving to Saint Johns, our paths would have crossed somewhere. Our journey always felt destined, as if we were always suppose to be.
It seems no sooner that we feel we've mastered a skill, the Universe always presents a final challenge - a test of our new found acquired skill and resources. I think Angie was a test, and I failed. I know I ran to her as a means of escaping the pain of losing someone else, and the memories that surrounded me there. She always knew that, as did I. One of us should have stopped it. But it took me 3 1/2 years, something like 16 break-ups, countless fights, secret emails and phone calls to ex's, and an all-out affair for me to utter the words "I choose her." It took way to long for us to end that relationship. and apparently, I'm still bitter about the things I lost - pieces of myself, relationships, my community, my connection to God. It's all coming back now, and I'm ready to be done being angry. It's just kind of there and unproductive. I am ready to for joy and gratitude to fill those angry spaces.
I'm getting ready to leave this town (presumably). Today, my wife and I listed the house Angie and I bought together but the home her and I built. Today, we listed the house we came home to as newlyweds; put up-for-sale the walls that saw me fall in love with the most perfect little girl in her cadillac pink bedroom, and made public the yard that will forever hold two of the animals I have loved most in my lifetime (among a couple others.) Our sign will go up Sunday. Parades of people will walk through through these rooms with new aspirations and new dreams. They will step across bare hardwood floors that will never tell the story of how much I loved and fought for them to show their bones. I am ready.
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