Getting Real

I haven't written on here since February, not because I'm forgetting my blog, but because it was time for me to get real with myself - not with friends, family, colleagues, online blog readers, Facebook or Instagram. Just me. 

The journey I have been on has been raw; challenging and humbling. 

I realised that because I am good with words, love to write, tell stories and share, that my focus was not fully on what really needed working on.  All of this outward communication was actually a way for me to avoid getting to the nitty gritty stuff of my life that needed healing.  My ego also loved the attention and support I was getting and gave me a false sense of self worth.  The only person's thoughts about me that I need to concern myself with are my own.  It doesn't matter what anyone else's opinions and ideas about me are and I can't control them anyway! 

You know what I have learned in these murky waters?  I know nothing. I mean I can write about addiction, I can write about psychology, spirituality and counselling and yes the things I have written are my knowledge, experience, strength and hope, but as the old bible saying goes - "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not (self) love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal". 

I am not shaming myself or discounting the intent and content in my previous posts, but I am getting real about how I could talk the talk and yet not walk the self love walk. Learning to truly accept and love myself in all of my imperfect glory is a journey I am still on.  

Learning to be vulnerable, to not know, to feel inept, to hurt, to be afraid, to cry again - at one point in my life I had not cried for YEARS - boy when that stuff started to surface I cried oceans of tears.  I didn't have to know what I was crying about either - the story doesn't matter, the healing release and clearing out the stagnant emotional debris is the only thing that matters.  A very dear friend, mentor and deeply conscious Yoga teacher of mine told me don't over analyse or unpack and dwell in it, just let it out and move on.  The monkey mind loves to get busy in its own shit and honestly I think my mind was a whole tribe of monkeys rolling in that.  I am learning to not go there.  

No matter what point in your recovery journey you are on, just know that unless you get really real, recovery cannot happen.  

The old imagined reward for me  in recovery was only about me losing lots of weight. That no longer motivates me.  Today I just want the benefit of knowing myself - the good, the bad and the ugly - still loving myself.  Not numbing myself with food, alcohol, shopping or whatever other negative nonsense I was inflicting on myself.  Getting real is bringing me that special gift of self acceptance and yes of course my weight is normalising as a consequence, but it is not my whole focus. 

Food was not my issue it was my solution.  One moment at a time I no longer need a solution in that form because I am developing a true love and respect for my body that I never had.  I want to love and care for me.  That's new!!!

For some reason today I felt moved to write again. I hope that someone somewhere benefits from this share and that it helps them to understand that to get well means to get real.