Saturday, January 17, 2009

You Can't Handle the Truth


....or so I have been telling myself. In reality I just have not been able to bring myself to be fully truthful with you. You think I have been open and have exposed myself to the bone? Ohhhhhh no, you are so wrong. See I have been keeping a HUGE (literally) secret tucked away from everyone. Ok, I have let a very select few know this top secret info but after I told them I had to kill them so it doesn't seem like they should count...(heh).


Even now, sitting here typing away, having every intention of finally throwing this info out there so I can finally stop being afraid of being "found out" or, my greatest fear, being judged by everyone once they know the truth I am afraid and want to delete this whole entry. I want to hide away and never have to share this info. It's the last big secret I have and as much as it tortures me it also protects me in a sad, dark way. If you don't know this you can never really know the whole big picture so I still have control- see?


You may think it is huge thing sharing the experience and emotions that I have but the thing is, I control that. I conrol what I share so that control somehow makes it ok to put it out there and serve it up in a way that hopefully lets you see my point of view and stops you from judging me.


Sharing this means giving up that control. It is setting a truth into the world and the truth just sits there, cold and unblinking and there is no way to spin or control it. This little bit of info is just a cold hard fact. It is a concrete "what is" that in a million years I will never be able to erase or escape the reality of it and what it says about me.


:::deep breath, shake out the hands:::::


Here we go....


On my first day of the diet I weighed in at 418 pounds.


:::::staring at that number and thinking about all it means::::


Yup, that is it. That is the awful, embarrasing, humiliating truth that I will never be able to escape. I am a person who weighed 418 lbs.


Now just to be clear and to honor what I have said in past posts- this does not mean I think I am/was a bad person with no will power. I said it before and I hold to this...I will NEVER diminish the person I was. I have always been a good person and I don't hate who I was. Period.


but


There is a unescapable reality to that number, you don't get to that number without letting a whole bunch of things get waaaay out of control and the truth is, I let it. I LET IT. Can never change the fact that I chose to put myself in such a bad place. That is the hardest part of accepting the truth of that number. I have to look myself in the mirror everyday and look into my own eyes and aknowledge what damage I did to myself and my body.


One of the things that hit me hard about yoga is the notion of honoring your body. It really is your temple and the home and vessel for you soul. You need to work very hard to honor and care for this vessel you have been given everyday.


Yeah.....I must have missed the day in grade school that they gave that talk. Talk to us about tampons but never mention that you should honor your body...makes sense to me.


So now I am trying to undo 30+ years of NOT honoring my body and the scars of the damage are going to take some drastic measure to erase. Even then I will always have not only the scars, literal and emotional, but also the fun little side effects like the lymphondema as a life long reminders of a lifetime of bad choices.


418


If I ever turn this into a book that will probably be the title. Just to get it all out there and share it, hopefully take away its power over me. My hope is by throwing this into the universe like chucking a big rock into a lake, its power will dissolve into the water and become something that stops weighing me down but becomes part of the foundation of the lake and helps to build it and make it more strong and stable for everyone. Maybe my rock can even be a diving board that others can jump off into that big, cool, blue, expanse of water and begin the process of healing and letting go of whatever is holding them back and weighing them down.


It's just a number right? Just 3 little digits on the scale....what matters most is what you do after you step off that scale.



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