Pecans, Healing Compliments, and Mean Girls

You know that giant bag of pecans I wrote about last week? Yeah, it had to leave. I have been a little nommy the past few days and started eating a little handful here and there. Then I discovered that pecan pieces mixed with raw honey is a delicious treat. I told myself while waiting for my water to boil for tea you eat one more combo and the pecans are getting thrown out. I did and they were. It felt good to just grab a hold of the situation, not see it as punishment but reclaiming control but I spiraled out of it. I was reclaiming my control over myself and food choices. I went to the gym a little while later and when I felt thoroughly gross on the elliptical machine I knew I had made the right decision. Why test myself? Just get rid of it. The calories and fat bother me sure, but what really bothers me is right now stuff is coming up and I feel unsettled so I do not want to turn to food. I want to trust myself to explore this time and just ride it out. It's weird, uncomfortable, makes me cranky sometimes, and exhausting, but it's completely amazing. I do not want to deny myself the amazing. I'd rather limit my pecan and other snack intake.

On to something more positive. I saw Marisa Tuesday and we were reviewing my week. I had told her about my meltdown in pigeon pose. She made me walk through the episode and see the connection between me just wanting to flee and one of the emotions associated with hips being fight or flight. She was super excited about this and said I am really starting to tap into some of the things I am holding on to. She thinks changing my exercise routines, pushing myself physically and being open and honest to learning is going to help get me to that next level. I started talking honestly about some other things which I will elaborate on in a second and she said you are really calling yourself out. You are really changing because you are being honest, calling yourself out, and doing so allows you to change. She then said what is one of the coolest things ever, "You are healing yourself, you have healed yourself from the inside out." She is right I am healing myself. I have looked at, examined, processed and felt so much in two years it still amazes me. What amazes me more is focusing less on the hurts which were inflected and more on the things I did. I made a conscious decision as a child that when I did not want to talk about something I didn't. In a very calculated manner I decided what was up for discussion and what wasn't. I was interfered with by a male babysitter as a very small child. I never discussed this until two years ago. I never even admitted it had really happened to myself much less to others. I do not think I was really molested or I do not remember that, but he crossed lines, was wildly inappropriate, made me uncomfortable and at the age of 5 I started patterns of not discussing what I did not want to, having issues with boundaries, and a feeling of being unsafe. I told my mom about this last year. Not the most fun lunch I have ever had but it was a relief to discuss it. It was a relief to have her feel for me, and respect my feelings. She said I am so surprised you did not tell me as a child, you shared freely. Already as a kid though I was not sharing what I did not want to discuss. I set this into motion. It was not my mom, dad, or anyone else, I did and it hurt me. I should not have had to be quiet about that for 20 years but I just did not realize the benefit of speaking to someone would help me heal. I did not understand how you healed. To heal you have to acknowledge, feel, process and the move on. I was just really good at moving on. I either literally or figuratively walked away, or I numbed myself. Ask any boyfriend I've had if I was upset mid fight I just shut down and walked away. I thought being able to just move on meant dealing and strength. Maybe for some it does, and that's how they process but for me it's not the winning approach. I have to sit with it, I have to process and feel it, and then I can move on. I have been blessed to have so much support in the process because it's scary but I feel an incredible since of peace I have never had before. I feel capable, and content and secure in that the past can no longer hurt me or impact my future. I have dealt with it and moved on from it.


In all this honesty talk with Marisa I brought up something I had noticed recently. I see a lot of naked ladies in the gym locker room. They have all sorts of bodies, and I used to be really awful in my head about it. The women of the locker room were not my only victims, but anyone really. If you were thinner then me you were fair game. Had you asked me if I was a mean girl I would have said no and said I had more often been on the receiving end then doling out end of meanness. Sure I have a mean streak and have had my moments but I would not have characterized myself as mean but I was. I would say horrible things about people, mostly in my head, but still, how awful and negative. I would cut down people's bodies, style, make comments like yeah she might be thinner then me but she needs to lose 20 pounds. Uhm, you weigh 300 does this really make you feel better about yourself? I noticed when this started to abate, but then I realized I never do it anymore. In the locker room I see a lot of really beautiful and diverse bodies. I do not see the same flaws, or previously perceived perfections. I see women who are striving to be healthy, who are pushing their bodies, who carry their own insecurities, and who probably never judged me as harshly as I judged them. To all of these women who I subjected to my really mean wrath fueled by self loathing I am sorry, it was not nice, and while more about my own lack of self acceptance then your appearance it was still sucky and my own problems are no excuse.