Wins from yesterday: A run and a walk, throwing half my lunch away, drinking lots of water, watering the flowers, sitting outside and journalling, crying because it felt like the right thing to do.
The Scale part 2. I stepped on the scale yesterday after way too much drama. I finally realized I had to know the data in order to know where to go from here. Even if the news was not the news I was hoping for, I had to know in order to make adjustments, get clear and improve on the project in tiny doable ways instead of stalling out, burning out or giving up. I’ve already decided I’m not giving up. I’ve been sure of that for months now. If it takes me 5 years, it takes me five years, but I’m not quitting. Well, I stepped on the scale once- up 2 pounds, waited 20 minutes, stepped on the scale again- down three pounds. Stepped on the scale again- down one pound. So I could log that I maintained or I think I could log losing one pound.
Which helps me more? On the one hand, maintaining helps me see where I can up-level my eating and fitness. On the other hand, losing one pound feels motivating to make changes to keep it off and lose another one this next week. WHich one serves me better? Maybe they’re equal. Maybe they land me on what really serves me better: stepping on the scale more often and getting over my own bullshit. That’s the real helper. Make the scale my ally instead of my enemy? That would go a long way to making better faster progress, probably. It would have me getting very truthful about food I put in craw that I don’t need. It would have me needing to own up to mindless eating for no reason other than it being there. The scale. That’s what will help me.
What else will help me? Getting over all my own bullshit and history. I walked around all day yesterday thinking about my stupid fucking high school English teacher. Besides a few quick mentions of it to people here and there, I’ve pretty much carried it all by myself for all these years. Hell, it took me maybe five years probably before telling my husband and another ten to realize my declaring ‘no big deal’ and feeling shame and guilt to the millionth degree around it was not solving, resolving, restoring or soothing in any way.
As Brene Brown calls midlife, I’ve been in The Great Unraveling for many years now. I expect I’ll be in it until I die. I’m at the place where I am sick of running into the same brick walls over and over again and I’m willing to scoop out all my guts and lay them out on the table, hold each entrail up to a microscope and fix it, if that’s what it’ll take to get me to the other side. A coach of mine said that she learned when a plane is malfunctioning, the pilots are trained to keep moving, pressing all the buttons to continue creating a momentum that may lead to a solution. I think I’m in the ‘press all the buttons’ phase. If it’s possible this side of heaven to let go of some of these old Enneagram 4 hang ups about being fundamentally broken and significantly lesser compared to all the beauty and brightness possessed by everyone around me, then I’m willing to do it. Press all the buttons. Believe I’m really allowed to be here before the Good Lord calls me home again? Yes, please.