No Eating After Dinner Challenge: Day 25, 26 & 27

Yesterday was one of those, day I say, busy days. There was errand after errand to the dropping off a kid to a party to friends being over to finally a break down at the end of the day. It was too much and I don’t know how I kept this pattern up for years.

I am exhausted (mostly mentally).

All I could think about was a big, fat, gooey brownie or a bowl of black raspberry chip ice cream with hot fudge the size of my head inviting me to drown my sorrows away. For either of those treats, I would have had to get back in my car, something I had no interest in doing because all I wanted was to be in the comfort of my own home.

Food was calling my name offering a hug and sympathy for my jam packed day. After a bout of crying and some deep belly screaming (in the car after dropping off my daughter) to release all my pent up energy, I felt like I could finally exhale. It wasn’t till I was able to fully relax with the hubs and the boys playing a Mario Kart tournament that I was able to completely unwind.

The last couple days have been so full and mentally challenging. When I am not able to slow down to allow my mind to open up, the words stay stuck in my head, a jumbled mess of nothing. It’s not until I can be still that the flood of thoughts  unleash and emotions pour out onto paper.

Always feeling the need to be somewhere or leave to be on time stops the flow of creativity and then I go back on to autopilot mode letting the bad habits creep their way back into the fold. I easily go back to my old coping mechanisms to feel better but at least now I am aware of where I get stuck.

Autopilot has been turned on and manual drive is too hard for me to function at in this current space. I want something easy and mindless because it is second nature. But what I need is to be mindful and slow down because the opposite causes destruction.

Like clockwork, as soon as I go into the bathroom to take a shower, I evaluate my body, flooding my mind with negative thoughts mostly. Sometimes a glimmer of positivity pokes through but only when I ate well the day before and my belly isn’t bigger than normal and bloated. Deep down I know that in order to be confident about my physical body I need to speak to myself in a positive manner.

Undoing years of self defamation is not an easy habit to break. So while over the past 28 days I have created a good habit, it is not lost on me that the biggest one is lurking around taunting me like a sweet treat ready to be devoured. It will take months of these small habits to help me feel confident about my body. A lot of it will be mental work and speaking to myself in a way that I would speak to my daughter.

When I look in the mirror, I want to be able to see all the beauty from scars, life and FOUR babies my body has endured. Instead all I see is what I need to fix and work on. Again, I know that saying losing 20 pounds would make me happy but in my head, right this second, it’s the truth.

After years of meditating, journaling, daily gratitiude, yoga, I still have body issues to work through. I have to be happy with my body now instead of waiting for something “good” to come along.  Because will it really make me happier?

No, even at my ideal adult size, that I hit a couple years ago, I was still finding things wrong with my body. I always talk about how we should embrace the bodies we have now and be comfortable in our skin, as a reminder for myself, but this is not something I’ve ever been able to do at 100%.

Damn the people pleasing bad habits and always trying to do what would make others happy instead of focusing on my own happiness. I know my husband loves my body as it is and he tells me it all the time. My kids could care less what mom looks like but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to constantly improve myself and getting results based on the good actions I am taking to “fix” my body.

Today, I read an article (or 20) about being confident in your body as it is now. The biggest thing is knowing I am healthy, strong, flexible and FEEL AMAZING in this body. It’s not about where I’ve been but how I can love what my past has given me to work with today.

 

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