Lightbulbs

So, some of you may remember a wee post I did the other day when I wrote a letter to my inner child.  I thought she was hurt, and scared, and acting out... and I was determined to get to the bottom of why she acted out with Food, and what I could do to help her... I thought we'd come to an understanding. Well since then, ALL HELL HAS BROKEN LOOSE. 
I'm talking no exercise, bulk chocolate & lollies, and even Pizza... HOLY CRAP!


I was just in the shower, berating myself for letting this happen again.. and BAM! out of nowhere it hit me. It wasn't her after all... it was me.


You know as a child, and any of you who are Mum's will know even better, than when a child is hurt, scared, tired, ratty.. we try to soothe them. The crying or screaming sounds are painful to us, we don't want to hear it, so we ssshh, and rock, and sing... and when they don't stop, we revert to treats.


Yes Folks, it dawned on me that it is not my inner child craving th chocolate, or even wanting the chocolate. My inner child in calling out, crying, screaming for me to hear her, and I find it uncomfortable so I shove a pile of junk food down her throat in hopes it will quiet her down for a while, because I DON'T WANNA LISTEN.

What is it that I don't wanna hear? What is it that I don't want to face, or take ownership for? She is stuck in time warp where she believes the things she heard as a child.  Let me make this clear right off the bat, I am not about to start bashing my parents for anything they may have said or did when I was growing up. This is not their doing. 
I developed my own beliefs, and my own self worth, from my own perception of what I saw around me.  I will say that there are a few people that over my childhood (and I'm counting up to the age of 18) that definitely skewed my take on the world, and I somehow let them convince me that I was not worthy of the life that I dreamed off.... and she still believes it.  I still believe it.

I have to convince this little girl that this body she was given is worth respecting. That her mind has got the capability to take her anywhere, and she is loveable no matter what.  Everyone makes mistakes, and it's how you rise from them that determines how far you go. 


So, we are making progress. I now need to recognise when I want to scoff a bag of Jelly snakes, that it is not the Snakes that I want, its that she is having an emotion, and expressing something that I don't want to hear or acknowledge - and I need to take time everyday to listen to her.


I am a bit scared of what she is going to say. I mean it's easier to blame so and so from when I was 14, than it is to acknowledge my own part in the whole thing. 

Ok, so now here is the hard bit. The actual putting it out there. Please don't judge me (Wooooah as I wrote that I realised that THAT IS what I am afraid of - being judged). Ok here goes.... What I (we) really believe is that if I reach my goal weight, If I get thin, If I get sexy ... I will get unwanted attention, the kind of attention I got in the past, the kind that leads to trouble.  You can read between the lines. Maybe soon I will be brave enough to actually say it, to type the words that I have never ever been able to write or speak before.


The thing is I have something now that I didn't have before. I have a husband who loves me for who I am. He's loved me thin, He's loved me fat. He loves me when I'm crazy, he loves me when I'm so stressed that I bitch at him constantly (maybe not so much then). He saw the real me, and found something lovable about it. Maybe one day he will finally get me to see what that is.


So what started as a quick shower to wash my hair and shave my legs, has resulted in me sitting on the floor of my bedroom, typing frantically with tears rolling down my face. ... I think I may have hit a nerve.


I'll be honest - I am petrified of hitting 'publish' on this one, even more so of 'share'.  I think I will start with the 12WBT girls first, they won't judge. 


Who would have thought that a weight loss challenge could turn you inside out like this, but it reminds me of one of my favourite movie quotes :
 'Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation' eatpraylove

Universe, I put in my order...

I've been singing this song in my head since I wrote the last post.
It's prophetic in a way. I have nowhere to run and hide, not now that I have put this out here in cyberspace... 
but I do have somewhere to run to.

You see.. this is me

and this is who I want to be.

I have long dreamed of the life I want to have; I have read The secret, watched Oprah, made vision boards and 'put it out there'.

Of the many things I told the universe that I wanted, one was a life where I was fit and healthy, where I would get up in the mornings and go for a run along the water before work.

Problem was, I was obese*, lazy, undisciplined.. the list really could go on. 

I told the universe what I wanted, and sat back and expected it to come to me.  The universe (or God if you prefer that name) is amazing and can provide the most awesome things, but you need to do the work to recieve the rewards.

You would have heard the story, and if you have read or seen Eat Pray Love, by Liz Gilbert you would know the following anecdote 

So, I hadn't even realised that since I originally 'put in that request' with the universe in 2006, 5 years later I am living in a house which is less than 100m from a lake with an awesome 4km track around it that I could run every morning. The universe had fulfilled my request, all that was missing was me.

As much as I want it, I have to do it, no one can do it for me. I needed to get up every morning and buy a ticket for the life I asked for... and for goodness sake the ticket is free.  What the hell was i waiting for?

At 101 kilos (the heaviest i got - that I know of) starting to run is a bit daunting. I couldn't do it. My body didn't want to. It hurt, and cried and pleaded to stop every time I tried. 
The truth is I hated exercise, and would avoid it an any cost.
Excuse after excuse after excuse after excuse....
Then the universe gave me a helping hand.  It gave me Zumba.
It took me about 8 weeks of saying I was going to give it a try, before I actually got brave enough to walk into that hall on my own and try a class!


That was the first day of the rest of my life.
Moving my body to music, ...they call it dancing, ... is exercise, and I loved it.  I was buzzing from the first class, I was uncorordinated, unfit, sweating, puffed, but it was ok.. the music pulled me through. 
An hour once a week, quickly became not enough, increased to two, then three.  
I felt different. I joined in on a workplace challenge to increase activity, and started walking the lake to increase my 'minutes' of activity.
Before i knew it Zumba had me fit enough to actually try running, starting at a certain mark on the track, and each time trying to improve on that if only even a few steps.

The route around the lake - I have increased my run to 

So there we have it! The universe has given me my request, and I hadn't even realised. I am running around the lake.  I have a long way to go to reach my goals...which you will hear about tomorrow.


*World Health Organisation says a BMI greater than 30, is in the Obese category.