The 'Run With It' Crowd

Dear Life,

Today is my 30th birthday. I am an under the radar birthday celebrator. Every moment of my days lately has been dedicated to just staying binge free and today I feel the call of the hunkering, isolating binge craving creeping into my mind. 

When I feel self-critical, when I fret about the future, ruminate about what was and what could have been - the potential squandered, the body I once had, etc etc - my sense of agency and empowerment diminishes. 

What would a 30yr old do? I ask myself. 

Everyone muddles through middle school, frantically gropes through high school and college; everyone finds ways to run from themselves in their twenties. I am here. I am thirty. And somehow I feel as though it's an initiation into the 'just run with it' crowd. There's no more running away. There's only running towards the dark to release the light. Running towards the truth to gain freedom. The truth is I have lived my life feeling 'wrong' and feeling as though I 'shouldn't be here.' 'Here' was the realm of everyone else. This school, this cafe, this office, this movie set, this theater: wherever I was, I was the outsider. Or so I thought. And still think. But now I know that those feelings and thoughts are symptoms of anxiety and self-consciousness. 

Yoga teaches us to release ego and tap into the Oneness of nature. Tap into the suffering within oneself and the suffering of others so that we know we are not alone and so we can find the path to peace. My worth and innate value is not a function of my feelings of unworthiness. Our worth and value are absolutes, eternal and indelible no matter what we think or feel or do. What we have endured is no longer here. The hurts we have felt, the messages we received about who we 'should' be are no longer the low-hanging fruit, but only if we chose to live in the moment. I chose to live as a 30yr old woman, I chose to determine how I feel about myself and to stretch my mind past its habituated thinking. Snap the bands that keep pulling you back. 

Breathe into the tension in your brow and the tension in your shoulders. Release. Release. Release. You are safe. You are protected. You are here.

 

The One Question to Motivate Change

Is there anyone who can look at their lives and honestly say there's nothing they'd like to change? When I look at mine, I can come up with a list similar in length to all the works of Shakespeare written one letter at a time on toilet paper squares. But, when I actually sit and think about these changes, and begin to prioritize them, the first twelve hundred rolls of TP are things that I would like to internally change. I'd like a more solid sense of control over my addictions. I'd like to redefine the way I think about my body and release the burdens of self-hate and doubt. And I'd like to.....yadda yadda yadda.....be more content. 

Motivating ourselves to actually start implementing the steps to get to the place we want to get to is a really tough prospect. Our lives are grooving along, and there's plenty that works. And we work. We work hard, and by the end of the day, there's just no time. Or there's just no energy. And looking at that list of things to change just crushes us and we'd rather just do the same old same old. 

Today - or sometime soon - allow yourself the time to look at this list (even if it's just in your head) and ask yourself why you've named the changes you have. Do you really want to lose weight so you can rock those jeans? Is it because you want to please your husband, mom, nagging in-laws? Try and dig a little deeper or redirect your mind. I want to lose weight so that I have the energy and health to do the things that bring me joy. With this statement, the ultimate goal is joy. So you get to rewrite your list! Priority numero uno? I want more joy. 

Change your 'I want' statements within the context of your whole being. Feed all your hungers. What do these changes mean for your mind, body, and spirit? Play around and allow for the possibility of implementing change for yourself and yourself alone. This is your body. This is your spirit. Let them take up their space. Give them their voice. 

[Pssst: Blossom Into You: Guide to Change now comes with a 20 minute chat session where we'll identify what you want, baby steps to get there, obstacles in your way, and support systems to rely on. I'll write up a plan, and send it your way when we're through. WOOT!!]

 

Decompression Session: How To Shake Out The Icky

Ayurvedic medicine teaches us that mental and physical health are intertwined and cannot be treated separately, but must be understood as one system in constant fluctuations in relation to our environment. But there is a subtlety in this philosophy that has to do with mental and spiritual health and the necessity to protect this astral body from damaging energies in our environment. Your emotions and thoughts need protection from these influences and when they become defenseless, you are vulnerable to mental anguish and, therefore, physical disease as well. The cycle takes hold. We feel swamped by repetitive negative thinking or destructive behavior. We just don't 'feel ourselves.' 

As I learn more about Ayurveda and its tenets of disease, it is becoming clear how similar it is to many of  modern psychology's practices. It's like that, isn't it? With things that work, seemingly divergent schools of thought actually have a lot of overlap. But in Ayurveda, the treatment is much more practical and its intentions are to correct imbalances. And, yes, the imbalances are referred to as 'elements' and 'ethers' and other kinda hooky-poky terms. But, I get it. It resonated with me. It uses language like 'flow' and 'energy channels. How often have I said, I feel stuck. I feel blocked. My body feels bloated and stagnate? So. Many. Times.

So what are the things that keep me (us) stuck? What causes imbalance? Energy blockage? Negative energy? Bad juju? Ayurveda lists the same things that Western psychology says causes mental disorder: constant rumination, social isolation, physical illness, abuse, trauma, drug abuse. Anything that disrupts clear thinking undermines overall wellness. And lord knows, we live in a culture that seriously disrupts our thinking every chance it gets. And we tend to turn into big ass satellite dishes, sucking up all that's swirling around us and replaying those energies/messages in our minds.

Nothing makes this more clear than the sweet and sour day I had yesterday. I am ten days binge-free and I have never felt so raw. This time around, I have refused to give in to the diet mentality and restriction that usually gets its claws in me after a binge relapse. And it feels so uncomfortable. I just feel exposed. Those astral bodies of mine, man do they miss their shield. Restriction gives me that protection - false as it is. Without it, I am exposed because I am grounded. My body feels solid, heavy, rooted in  way that I've run from. My eating disorder has been one great big panacea for social anxiety and body self-consciousness. 

So why oh why oh why did I think that yesterday was the day to go to the gym for the first time in months? A one-time exercise addict, I have recently been getting my exercise in the great outdoors - a very good panacea for what ails you. But yesterday, I felt in my muscles the need to just pound it out on some machine in a way that you can't do when you're taking in the budding spring on a walk in the woods (at least I can't). I lasted about ten minutes. All the old tapes kicked in. I passed all the same mirrors, compared myself to all the same members. I just felt 'fat' - that one and only feeling that takes hold when I (we?) feel uncomfortable. 

That feeling lasted.

Lasted all day. Haunts me even now. But, I actually used Ayurvedic methods to heal my mental and emotional ickiness. I meditated (re: sat staring blankly at the ocean), trying to repeat a number of mantras and affirmations to remind myself that my weight and my body have nothing to do with me worth. I posted on Facebook about how I felt. And I actually did this shaky jiggly thing as if I was trying to get a spider from crawling up my arm - just to physically shake the icky out. I gave myself a self-message using an Ayurvedic essential oil. Dude, that effing helped. Because I was treating my physical body, my emotional body - my entire nervous system - calmed the eff down. As the obsessive thoughts fell away, my mood lightened. 

Sometimes you have to loose your mind to find your soul.

I don't know if I'll be able to have the chutzpah to cancel my gym membership. But I do know that I really don't want to expose myself to that feeling again. Dichotomous, I know But, hell, change is full of contradictions. And Ayurveda allows for mistakes. It isn't anything to be intimidated by. And, by the way, either is recovery.