What exactly is living in the now?
For me living in the moment, the now is a healing process I have used to move on from the past. Our past have helped shaped who and what we are now, but we can change and shift that, our past mistakes do not have to define or today, this is what I realised and decided to do almost 4 years ago.
Where did I start? Self forgiveness. Now this sounds so blase but I promise you by letting go of self hate, regret and looking backwards at all my failings, all I did was perpetuate those things in my life, a living cycle of setting myself up to fail. Self harm with eating food may sound odd, but it is what I did. I can remember standing once in front of my husband shouting and crying and stuffing food aggressively into my mouth and eating it in front of him in anger. I have had some serious issues with emotions and food control which ended in self harm.
I had felt so much guilt and shame, I had lost beautiful friends to cancer who had fought hard to live, who deserved to live and yet I was throwing my life away, rather than feel inspired by their fight, I hated myself all the more and punished myself more and accepted the worth, the bar I had set was so low. It was the death of my father in law David in 2014, at his funeral which was pretty traumatic just getting out the car and into the chapel, standing to sing, standing by the coffin, in front of all those people was acute pain in emotion and physical body.
Holding onto anger and regret is such a vicious emotion that robs us of hope and a better today.
The inner self critic is harsh, learning to silence that voice has taken practice and every now and then it speaks, the way I have learned to silence that voice is by deliberately thinking of something I love, distraction, break the cycle.
Losing the amount of weight I have lost did mean control with eating plans as guidance, but before those things could be effective I had to come to terms with the past me had gone, only the woman I am today remains, what shall I do with her? The dream of who I want her to be? Shifting my focus into hope was the first step to enabling change. With this sense of hope and self worth, a right to enjoy a happier life because I deserved it meant I was able to take control with baby steps my bad relationship with food.
Love yourself, respect your worth and treat yourself like you would treat others.
My favourite quote as many of my friends know is from The Wizard of Oz, Glinda Goodwitch “you always had the power my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself”.
Be strong you do have the power, please do not tell yourself you are not as strong as others, because if you think that you will become that.
One day some 4 years ago this May, I was at rock bottom around 32 stone and was desperately unhappy, I went to my Drs to ask for help, in fact I can remember breaking down and begging him to find some how to lock me away and get someone else to manage my food, then after a few months I would emerge a new woman. In fact that is not a realistic thought, I was so depressed so so low, we talked for some time, he was very kind, I asked if I could be referred for bariatric operation, which he said he would, he said I would need to show I would need to prove I could lose a little weight my self. He prescribed ani depressants for me, I wiped my tears and thanked him endlessly.
I went home that day feeling a little hopeful as now I had a plan. I had always said I would never have a bariatric operation, but I never thought I would be so low as I was.
Weight loss began in a very simple way, cutting out things a little at a time, crisps, alcohol, take aways were the first to go, one by one I took out my trigger foods. Slowly I was regaining some self faith, I did not focus on being hungry, I ate when I felt hungry but ate regular foods, basic foods and not processed foods.
Some weeks, many weeks went by and I was only weighing myself monthly and although I did not feel any different in size, I was losing weight just by cutting back. There was no word from the bariatric referral and I just kept faith the back up would soon be with me.
One morning in August I woke up and decided I just can not wait any longer to hear from the hospital, I got my ipad out and looked for whichever Weight Watchers class was running in my area. I found one in W Swindon close to where I lived, I just had this feeling, secure feeling it was the right thing to do, a gut instinct that my future was calling.
Next blog post I will tell you about the first time I walked through the door of the Weight Watchers meeting and what eventually happened with the bariatric journey.
Until the next time
Lisa x