Why overeat and get fat in the first place

I have had the pleasure of my mothers' company over the past 10 days and I have to say I am coping quite well.  It must say something about  the place I am at at the moment in myself.  I have often found spending time with her annoying and disconcerting as many of her quirks really rubbed me up the wrong way.  This time I am accepting all of her lovingly and allowing her to be her and not letting things bother me too much.  In fact when I feel a moment of discomfort that centres around what she has said or done I stop and look at what I might be able to learn from the situation.  

Something that as has me thinking is this whole idea of why she obsesses over what she eats.  She has to be one of the most diligent and what I will call obsessive people when it comes to what she eats and how much she eats and how she keeps her body as tiny as it is.

How do we know?

Well a few days have passed and yes the roller coaster continues.  I am able to distract myself a bit with my diet and exercise focus which is great but the reality of what my life is still ringing loudly.  On one side I am feeling relief as I begin to feel more comfortable just being me without all the added "noise", personal discomfort and stress but then there is this other side wondering what I have done and what will this life have in stall for me.  I am still so lost and I know that it will continue to be filled with challenges, i have to ask myself, am I strong enough to do this?  I know why I chose this path and I knew it would be hard but I so wish there was a guide book that could help me know what I need to do to be stronger and work smarter.

Me and my words

I am one of those people who can accidentally say stupid things without thinking.  words fall out of my mouth sometimes and I have to ask myself did I just say that allowed?  Unfortunealty more often than not I did say it out loud and these days I am finding myself in a lot of trouble because of it.  My kids are finding it tough having to go between two houses and all the trauma that goes with dealing with your parents not living together.  The one thing I have found is with their sensitivity and my vulnerability I am having more occasions where I am screaming in my head with shame because I said something that is taken the wrong way.

Time to drop some fat

I have avoided babbling on about weight stuff for a while as thinking about anything that may appear vain and self indulgent seemed way to irrelevant to what I needed to be focused on. Life with my family had sucked and there has been no room for taking care of myself (WRONG). I have a fin attitude to paying attention to what you eat and being healthy which is coming to front a lot lately.  As I entertain my mother who's life revolves around her healthy strict eating plan I am reminded of just howl little attention I have being paying to what goes into my mouth.  So much so that I am back up at 83kg and hating myself and how hard it is making everything for me.  If I don't do something about this soon I am going to have to go buy more clothes.  I have already had to get come cheap stand in stuff as most of my gear is sitting wrong and making me look terrible.  So I am back on the weight loss wagon.  I am going use the analogy of fat falling off my body to match the idea of strings being cut to help me fly.  I think focusing on what I eat will be great.  So I have got My Fitness Pal back and I am tracking what I eat.  Did you know that if you track your food you lose double the weight.  Nice stat.  Keep recording I say.

Be careful what you say

Me and this story

So I want to talk about stories.  Time and time again I am being reminded that I am the creator of my story and owning them is pivotal to me over coming obstacles and thriving in my life.  Yet again today I read that we need to own our stories and having a laugh at a collection of words that I often say.  If I own this story I get to write the ending. Well my words have gone down the avenue of  “this is not the way I want this story to go or end”.  A few weeks ago I was in the darkest place I have known where I was desperate to end the suffering. Mine,  my children’s and my husbands.  Nothing I was doing was altering things or stopping devastating reality that we were all facing.  There was so much conflict, pain, destruction, hurt, dysfunction and craziness something had to change.  I was feeling shame,  guilty, helpless and so unloved and I was breaking.  So I woke up one day and I said this is my story and I want it to end well.  I want readers to cheer and feel stoked for my character.  My character was devastated and was allowing her lack of self worth to destroy everything.  I was not liking the story (or me) but I finally decided it did not have to head the way it was going. 

Carl Jung reminds me “I am not what has happened to me I am what I choose to become.”  This is incredibly powerful and if I am going to fight the shame monster inside it will come from what I choose to become.  This is one very interesting story and it is going to get more interesting but please keep cheering for me.

Today is national bird day

Birds and I have a love/hate relationship.  On one side birds appear right when I need to see them and the presence of many species have given me great joy.  I attribute good luck to seeing a kookaburra, bird poo also brings good fortune, lorikeets never cease to amaze me and will always hold a special place in my heart.  My grandad Jim used to say it would be a good day if a lorikeet greeted him on his paths.  If I hear an eagle then I am reminded to pause and listen and I love the way tawny frog mouths sneak up on me when I least expect them.  Fairy wrens are mystical and wondrous and live such fascinating lives, I know if I explored other species I would learn that so too do most of the bird varieties.  They are fascinating!  I have a magpie friend who popped in almost everyday to indulge in Tripps bikkies and then he brought the whole family and they have been hanging around for years.  I love when I see birds I don't usually see as that warms my soul and tells me something exciting is going to happen.  I see Azure kingfishers around very occasionally and that is when I start to feel a little mystical.  I find it fascinating that Lyre birds imitate calls from species far away, coookoos steal nest, kill eggs and get another bird to rear its young, Butcher birds seem to have a hundred personalities and cockatoos all go back to the same place together and make one hell of a racket.  That is the love side.  On the other side there are birds that I am not all that excited about, crows seem to be calling out 'Fuck', miner birds seem to have it in for all birds and seagulls are such scabs.  Ibis kind of freak me out and if a pidgeon flies into my house it scares the living daylight out of me.  Oh so much to say about birds.  Those starling birds are kind of annoying too because if they choose your house to nest they fly around the house too and I must say it doesn't scare me as much but it still gets to me.  Anyway I guess this is a nice analogy for life and birds come with the good, the bad and the interesting.  I will forever be intrigued by them and love what happens to my soul whenever I come in contact with one so they definitely are pivotal part of my life.  So on this special day I want to say, Happy National Bird Dad!

Something that really struck a cord

http://www.bergenandassociates.ca/blog/post/718/betrayal-disengagement

I have been reading about vulnerability and shame and how I can learn to work with these very prominent traits of mine to Dare Greatly.  I am loving Brene Brown's work and relate to her in many ways.  I love how she speaks to me and I hope that upon conclusion I will have got some practical tools and practises out of it that I can incorporate in this life of mine.  I am full of so much crap I want to sift through it and then I can fly. I love where I might be going but it looks like I may need to clean our some cupboards first.  This whole concept of disengagement as a breach of trust is very pertinent to where my relationship ended up.  I wonder if it is recoverable from here?  I guess I will read on and hope that I won't be travelling alone on this journey.

Power word is AWARENESS

I was going to talk all more about opportunity today but have decided I need to latch on this Awareness idea. I am a bit excited about what it can mean.  In my mind I am making it bigger then bigger but hey, I am "Aware" that I do that.  I wonder what a good acronym for AWARE could be.  Well anyway, I am too tired to babble on too much.  I just wanted to put this out there for myself.  My power word is aware and I will be paying a lot more attention to what is going on in my Mind, Body and Feelings as it is my belief that when I do a whole lots of other stuff is going to start happening too.  This is definitely latching on to all the Mindfulness stuff I have done but I am simplifying to aware as I have to start paying ALOT more attention in many arenas.

Awareness

Awareness

As I go into day two of this New Year I am feeling disappointed, scared, loved, content, and reflective.  I blew my peaceful interaction resolution right out the window straight away today but have spent the rest of time quietly contemplating how I will remain peaceful and calm when there is so much chaos and anger around and in me.  So I am reminded to turn inwards, what is it I need?  Awareness is my key and when I thought more and more about Awareness I realised this is what we all need.  Awareness, listening, tuning in, feeling and being.  I want this for me and I want this for my kids and when I can bottle it I want to spread it out into the world.  Tomorrow I want to talk about opportunity as I think we need to think more about the opportunities we have to be who we are rather than what we want to have more of or be more of.  What opportunities can I create to make peace and love a part of my life and want do I need to become more aware of to make it happen?

WOW! Feel the energy that abounds

Today is New Year Day and there is so much energy out there just waiting to be sucked in. Everywhere people are revealing and celebrating this new beginning.  Every hour I feel this energy just lifting me up.  I have spent the past 24 hours in deep reflection as I worked hard to find a way to start 2015 from a new place of love and peace.  I have had so much anger, hurt, shame, guilt and bitterness poisoning my soul.  I am choosing not to let that in anymore.    Last year was yucky and I am pleased that I can say goodbye to it. I want to kick its sorry arse far away., my picture shows me farwelling 2014 with the bird last night. I feel though that today all is well and that the past hurt and pain of 2014 has gone up in smoke. I know that may not be the case for others but I am choosing to no longer let that bother me.  I am filled with bright anticipation as we enter this new year.  I know that I am going to have to work hard to reap the benefits of the limitless possibilities that are there for growth and expansion but if I can be true to me I believe anything is possible.  Now I am feeling excited and I want these words to be rich and dense with meaning and not just fleeting thoughts that will go out the window with my next encounter with the outside world.  I have indeed spent New Years alone.  I went and hugged my kids but returned to my new home to welcome in the new year alone. I rocked in the new year in my swinging egg chair and felt a deep sense of calm.  I am not sad.  This is just the way things are right now and I have to live with it but I know I am doing myself no favours if I wallow and continue to live in my poor me and my shitty circumstances mentality.