Worth the weight

A couple weekends ago my oldest son wanted me to go out with him to a small bar in Chaska. He was going to sing Karaoke, and he was pushing me to sing. It's been a long time since I have sang in front of people, but after much resistance I finally told him that I would sing a Christmas song with him. 

He sang a few Johnny Cash songs and together we sang a Winter Wonderland. We played pool and ended up staying until a little aft.er 1:30 am. I was exhausted before we even left to go. I was in so much pain with my back that I could barely stand it, but he wanted me to go and so I went. I'm so glad that I did! 

I didn't wake up until nearly 1pm the next day and it felt like my entire day was gone. It's amazing because for the better part of 20 years I was always a "night owl." I can't remember ever going to bed before 2 or 3 in the morning...or later. In fact, I have struggled so much with being able to get to bed at a "normal" time that it wasn't until a year ago that I discovered Melatonin... which has changed my entire life! 

A friend of mine had an unopened bottle and gave it to me. At the beginning of this year, my biggest goal was to get my bedtime "under control." I felt like it was one of the biggest factors limiting my potential even though some of my greatest discoveries, revelations, creations, and most inspiring work have been in the quiet stillness of the early morning hours while most people have been sound asleep for hours. 

Even though I desired to get into a routine where I finally got to sleep at a decent hour, it seemed that it would never happen. I knew that I needed sleep in order to get the rest my still healing body and mind desperately needed, but my body functioned on a totally different operating system!

It's been a little more than a year now that I have been taking Melatonin, and I started noticing that I was getting sleepy on my own just a few months ago. By the time 7 or 8pm came, I was so sleepy that I could have crawled into bed and gone right to sleep. This is amazing to me, and yet as thankful as I am for my  circadian rhythms to finally becoming regulated and finally being on a schedule where my days are full and my nights are restful...I do miss the hours I used to stay up through the night designing, researching and creating. It feels like I have to compartmentalize my creating now in order to balance my life and still get adequate rest.

My children have never really gotten to experience my life as the person I have become over these past few years. So much transformation has happened in just this year alone! I have developed boundaries and structure that I have never had before. I actually take time to care for myself and listen to what I need for my mind, my body, my soul and my spirit...though not necessarily in that order. For the very first time in my life I am living life as I never have before and I don't compromise. I choose, I observe, I adjust, and am always on the look out in each passing moment how I can live out all of the amazing things I have discovered and learned through now to make the differences I can make. 

However, there are consequences I know I will have to face physically if I push myself to do things anyway. Tired or not, back pain or not, I wanted to spend time with my son. So I did. 

I was puppy sitting over that week and I was more hesitant to go out even if it was with my son. I had no idea we were going to be gone until nearly 2am or I probably wouldn't have gone because I know me and the me I am now can barely stay up until midnight anymore. When I got home I walked the puppies and then crawled into bed, but not long after I laid down, my tummy felt upset. So I ate some of the most amazing chocolate covered pretzel thins and tried to go to sleep. 

I was way over tired which was weird. I felt exhausted but I couldn't fall asleep. My body felt physically restless. It was probably 3:45am the last time I looked at the clock. The next time I opened my eyes it was nearly 1 in the afternoon and I was so disoriented. It felt like I had been hit by a Mack Truck and everything felt very swollen throughout my body. 

I was thinking about some of the things my son and I were talking about the night before. I shared with him about some really incredible supplements that I discovered. I was excited because I was going to lose some weight, but I couldn't take the supplements and my ADHD medicine at the same time. Back in 2012 when I went through the most traumatic physical experiences I have ever known I gained about 60 pounds in a little over 4 months. It didn't make sense and it was unbearable. I went from being just about a size 3 at 119 pounds to nearly 180! I never even weighed that when I was at the height of any of my pregnancies! 

Having back problems with sudden weight gain was beyond excruciating and it has been a 2 year struggle through the insanity of comparison. Progress has felt so slow, but I have to say that I am 8 sizes smaller than I was last year at this time. So though I would prefer this to all be a really intense nightmare that I could wake up from, I am continually learning how to do things that are healthy, balanced, and to accept that this is a process. Right now this is where and who I am and for the very first time in my life I am ecstatic to be me! 

So as my son and I were talking he was concerned about me not taking my medicine. I felt myself getting defensive inside because of how tired I get with the longevity of everything. I told him that I needed to lose weight and how I was having all kinds of issues being able to do that. When my back began getting a little bit better over this past summer I joined Lifetime and started working out. I was swimming and even started yoga. I was super excited and hopeful, but I never even gave a thought to how having Rheumatoid Arthritis would affect my body. 

The heating up during “exercise” makes everything swell and it's beyond painful. Even swimming was difficult and it was like someone flipped a switch inside my body and I couldn't get the swelling to go down. Every movement whether it was to get up to go to the bathroom or walk to my car made my hands and legs and feet begin to swell up like someone had wrapped a tourniquet around every joint! 

I had to make a decision that even though my back was getting better through acupuncture, my body was still in a major healing process that I needed to respect. To do otherwise would be totally counterproductive to all of the treatments and physical therapy. So even though I felt crappy about stopping all exercise to let my body calm down and begin to recalibrate again, I did. 

It felt like I was giving up or being lazy, but no matter how badly I felt, I knew that if I didn't listen to my body that I would risk undoing all of the amazing and miraculous progress I have made. Nothing was worth that. Even if it meant that I was going to have to endure being the weight I am now for much longer than I ever imagined, I chose to trust that the continued healing taking place at the cellular level is critical to everything else. So what if I didn't weigh what I did before all of this happened...if I cut corners during the reconstruction of my foundation it would only be a matter of time before whatever was built upon an "almost" solid foundation would come apart at the seams. That was not an option!

Slowly over the months since I stopped exercising my body continues returning to the place of calmness where most days nothing swells, and when it does, it doesn't take long before it subsides. I am allowing myself the space for my body, my spirit, and my soul to live working together as the whole they were created to be. As a result I am experiencing the most epic healing that is nothing short of miraculous! 

Driving to Karaoke and talking with my son that night was different than any conversation we have ever had before. His concern for me was something that I couldn't deny especially after all I have learned about the consequences of doing what I want to regardless of what anyone thinks or says. I have also learned along the way that if I am resisting something there is usually more I need to look inside to see that is hiding underneath whatever I am being defensive about. So I chose to stop telling him all of my reasons for why I was justifying stopping my medicine just so I could take something that could potentially make the weight come off easier and give me a "boost" in speeding up that process. Instead, I chose to hear him not just as my son, but respect him as the man he is.

He went on to tell me that I am beautiful and I am not overweight. He told me that I need to take my medicine because it is for my brains functionality and that there is nothing wrong with the way I look. It felt silly talking with my son about the reality I see versus what he sees, but I was able to see the common thread between the things he was sharing with me and things a couple of my dearest friends have actually told me recently.

Not everyone can say versions of the very same thing and be wrong. So I decided to look through the eyes of wisdom and the heart of love at myself. When I got up the next day, I decided to stop taking the new supplements that I was so excited about and resume taking my ADHD medicine. I had only stopped taking my medicine for 2 days, but that was long enough to see that to resist the full acceptance of myself is the same as saying that God made a mistake and I know that is not true! 

I've learned that miracles are possible in every moment, but not without total acceptance of what is. Acceptance I have found doesn't mean you have to like everything about what is happening, it just means that "it is what it is" in this moment. That seems to be the gateway that opens to making true change possible. I thank God for being called out on my crap...that my son loves me enough to tell me the truth because he cares so much for my well being and that he is brave enough to say something! 

I thank God for the new heart He has given me. The old me could have cared less about what anyone else had to say because I was going to do what I wanted to because I wanted to do it. Now, I see just how important it is to hear the feedback and thoughts that differ from my plan or ideas. I have learned how to choose and accept advice that I really would rather not because it challenges me to see things about myself, circumstances and the impact my choices will have beyond me.

I have learned to live my life as transparently as possible. I don't try and hide behind a fake smile or sugar coat what things really are in order to deal with them or just so I can feel better about myself. I don't drink anymore to escape or forget, and I don't do drugs to mask or numb the pain as I once did. My life has become something it has never been. Consistent and authentic.

I am the most authentic me I have ever been. Living authentically continues to show me the true grit of who I really am. I have developed character along the way that blows my mind because I know who I once was. It seems every day new facets emerge and I discover another part of myself that I never knew was always within me. For the first time in my life I am living, I am mastering me and I am amazed to realize that in mastering myself, I am mastering everything else.

For the first time ever I see my weaknesses, I see my strengths, and I see the fears and panic that try relentlessly to choke out my voice to keep me from taking another step. I witness the courage and bravery that emerges moment by moment as I face myself and do the very thing I am terrified to do. The more I do something, the easier it becomes, but that voice within still does everything possible to keep me tied up in the fear of rejection. Insecurity still tries to ambush me just because I don't look like I did before 2 and a half years ago trying to convince me that I am never going to be able to do any of the things that I am so hopeful for and passionate about. 

The difference is that even when I get sucked in to my own emotional spiral the Lord reminds me to remember who I was and who I am. In all honesty, I would much rather be the me I am today with the total freedom through the heart I have been given than to be everything I was on the outside before all of this happened! I lived locked up in the prison that held me inside for my entire life. Day by day, through this healing process I see that it is a miracle only by the grace and love of Jesus that I am even here! Knowing that and even more than knowing, believing inspires me to reach deep, live love loudly and pour out everything I am so that my Lord can fill me up and we can do it together again and again forever!

Its interesting because my son and I were talking on the way home from singing Karaoke and he told me that I need to get out and go to different bars to sing and just be out and around people in order to meet new people, make new friends and get my confidence back. Personally, I love who I am for the very first time ever and I value my time with myself and my Lord who is my best friend, my husband, and my everything! I understand that it is important to be around people, but I am still recovering from my life that was once filled with insanity, carelessness, and was constructed upon a roller coaster unlike could ever be physically created because of the speed, twists, turns, heights and plummeting into the darkness and unknown which were always filled with more of the same.

I am learning what it is to be a person as if for the very first time, and though I wobble and fall down, I get back up, explore, discover and grow in ways that never would have been possible without the wobble and falls!

I am so thankful that I finally get sleepy early and I finally understand that bedtime is something essential to my healing and wellness! It is not an option to sleep until nearly 1 in the afternoon as I did a couple of Sundays ago, but for the sake of the time I had with my son, I saw beyond “my plan.” 

Being who I am with my son and my children is something that they have never gotten to see or experience with me in this life time. That is worth choosing to push outside of my comfort zone and do something I would rather not for the sake of our relationship. This is what love does. This is my life, and I praise Jesus with all that I am for none of this is possible without the immense peace, joy, wisdom, and inspiration He pours within every fiber of my being and flows effortlessly as the river into the ocean even in the midst of the raging storms.

Standing for the first time in my life upon an unshakable foundation continues showing me that no matter how I am rocked or hit with the unfathomable and unexpected along the way, that it is possible to stand as the lighthouse stands upon the hill lighting the way through the darkness. Love teaches me that the peace and calm stabilizes and guides me when the winds blow and the waters rise all around me. I have come to understand that this is the polarity of life. What is within, is reflected all around me, and at the same time, what I am seeing all around me is also the reflection of everything that is no longer happening within me. It seems like a paradox of sorts.

This becomes 2 sides of the same coin. Though there are 2 totally different parts, it is impossible to have one with out the other. To try and separate them would be like trying to dissolve the connective bond adjoining light and darkness together!

Everything in my life ever since I was a little girl was turbulent whether it was happening around me, or inside of me. Growing up feeling that way first caused separation between me and myself before causing me to feel the separation of everyone else through my feelings that made everything awkward and terrifying. I believed that everything happening around me had nothing to do with me. I perceived that it was always happening “to” me, thus making it impossible to believe that I had any power to change anything about it.

I spent my entire life reacting to everything around me. I made choices based upon the fear and emotion I felt or feared to feel if I did or did not do something. That is a hell unto itself! Even as I write this now, I see that so much of this is still very much a part of my life. Though I have to say it's appearance is much more subtle these days which makes it even more difficult to see...especially when I was so sure it wasn't there anymore.

For the majority of my life, the chains within the neurological fight or flight response gave me just enough rope to believe that I was free. Panic and adrenaline are the core fuel within survival mode. Once those feelings pass, it's easy to mistake the calm for peace when it is not peace at all. It's just the absence of reacting. All it takes is something else to happen that activates my body and without warning the “peace” I was certain I had is gone, and I am flared up into full force, thrust head first into raw intensity before I even realize what has just happened.

I have spent a lifetime entangled in symptoms like a needle in a haystack. My “triggers” had triggers in the never ending insanity of emotions, feelings and the stories I lived telling myself just so I could have the strength to keep putting one foot in the other. Living like that made it impossible to become untangled as long as I kept on moving. 

I see it now as more like what happens when you slip your fingers in Chinese handcuffs. The more you pull, struggle, twist, yank, and resist, the tighter the grip and hold becomes. It isn't until reaching the point of exhaustion from trying everything possible that every ounce of strength faded and I was finally rendered limp like a wet dishrag. I see now that only in my exhausted surrender could the very thing I was so determined to force myself free from let go of me!