Like A Lotus…

All of my adult life, I have struggled with weight issues. All of my adult life, I have tried many times to do the right thing to shed the fat. And by “do the right thing,” I mean exercise and dancing with many, many different fad diet plans. I saw some results with some of them, but many of them were failures. Therefore, I felt like a complete failure and had this message in my head of never being successful. You know how an old record would skip and say the same thing over and over again until you lifted the needle past that point? Yeah, that is exactly what it sounded like in my head for an awful long time.

Loud screeching echos or soft, barely there whispers of…“Failure. Failure. Failure. Failure.”

In September, I turned 40. And at age 40, I am heavier than I have ever been in my life. I am morbidly obese. I have lost out on a lot of fun times in the past 20 years due to my obesity. But within the last five years, being morbidly obese has stolen my identity and it is threatening to steal my life. As I struggle with a multitude of health issues, of which have not been tested or diagnosed due to lack of health insurance, I literally feel like a human time bomb. My days are filled with situations that are impossible or very difficult to achieve due to being so obese. I am not a lazy person by nature but because I have gained so much weight, I have found that I give myself permission to be lazier than I normally am and it is all justified because I am morbidly obese. People have no choice but to understand that I just can’t do it. Right?

I never thought I was the problem, to an extent. I truly thought I was doing my very best to achieve the unachievable and couldn’t process the reasons why I couldn’t lose this weight and be successful at it. It wasn’t until very recently that I realized just how guilty I am of sabotaging any success that is waiting to be made by me. When you force yourself to journal your foods, even for a few days, you realize just how many toxins you ingest or exactly how much you are not moving your body. It is humiliating and scary to be this vulnerable.

But since I have done so much work on the inside, I have better coping mechanisms to be more aware and more successful this time around at any attempts to lose weight. But my focus, while it is necessary, is not on the weight alone. It is more on becoming healthy. My body needs to heal itself and become well again because I have abused it repeatedly for over 20 years without regards to the outcome or repercussions that I would face because I was an abuser to my own body.

Since I have become more aware, I have not been anywhere near perfect or “successful” but that is okay with me because it is not about becoming an overnight success, (although, let’s face it, who wouldn’t love to wake up and be their ideal body weight and shape?), for me, it is about learning a new way, a new lifestyle and making changes slowly that will lead me to a lifetime of success and hopefully my body size and shape will fall into place as I begin to make necessary changes for myself in order to live the life I was meant to live. Because being morbidly obese steals the breath out of the life you are living. It strips away your confidence, your dreams, your hopes, your ability to do the very mundane tasks of every day living. If you are at the point of being morbidly obese, the real you has already died and you mourn every day for the real you. You are carrying around a constant reminder of who you are not allowed to be because of the weight. You are constantly reminded of all the things you cannot do because of the weight. You are constantly reminded of all the aches and pains you might not have if you were not obese.

I want to change my constant reminder. I want my constant reminder to tell me that I am on a road to wellness and that I am very capable of achieving it and that I am not a failure. Because you know what? I will only be a failure if I didn’t try and try with all that I have to give. I deserve to love myself enough to get well. It is not an option anymore, it is a necessity. I must get well or I will die. I don’t want to die. Life is beautiful.  Oh yes, a vita bella.

It isn’t going to be easy. It isn’t going to be fast. It is going to take many many baby steps to achieve an ultimate goal of wellness that I so desire. It is going to take dedication and commitment that I have not given myself in a very long time. I will not be perfect and that is okay. I will not beat myself up for doing the proverbial “falling off the wagon.” It is what it is and there is always another chance, right around the corner, to make a better decision, a better choice than I might have made any particular time. It isn’t about counting the failures. It is about celebrating the achievements as they happen, no matter how small they may be, they are still an achievement and step closer towards my ultimate success of giving foundation to improve my health.

And my ultimate success is being rich in spiritual wellness as well as physical wellness. It is rich in balance and hopes and dreams and reality. It is rich because I will finally give birth to my authentic self who has laid dormant for twenty years. It is time to breathe life into her, my goddess authentic self.

I am anxious for my success story to be written some day. I am sure I will be full of bruises, both physically and mentally, during this journey but if not now, then when?

And so it begins. Blooming like a lotus…

My journey to wellness & healing (mind, body, spirit) has truly begun and I am choosing life.

I am choosing to live.