butterfly

i found this old journal today, with entries from march 2006-may 2008.  let me tell you what just happened to occur during this period of my life:

• i started binging and purging; 
• i became consumed by bulimia; 
• i met the person i thought i'd spend my life with

...and subsequently avoided dealing with the eating disorder because many of its symptoms were masked in the early stages of this relationship.

there were other events of course: a few weeks in italy, visiting my sister who was studying abroad;  my own study abroad experience in germany, with many additional trips around europe; the successful defense of my dissertation; and getting engaged.

though i was just completing my phd, the journal reads more like a young adolescent's diary.  the painful extremes i felt in relation to food and to my body were hard to re-read.  there was shame embedded in the writing, and i felt immediately ashamed while reading my own words from ten years before. i cried, without realizing why. later this afternoon it clicked: i was mourning the years i lost, the experiences i lost to bulimia.

in an entry i wrote while in london, i talked about an amazing gym i went to.  in an entry in an airport, i wondered whether the bathroom was crowded and whether there was an empty stall with a sink in it that i could use to throw up.  and though this part wasn't an entry, i was reminded of my stay at a hotel the night before a flight back to the US where they had an all you can eat buffet bar. i went back up the buffet several times until my binge cycle was complete, and then i went up to my room to throw up.  i clogged the toilet throwing up and prayed i wouldn't get charged any additional fees.

during this period of my life, my whole being centered around bulimia (which i affectionately called "mia," as if it were a friend).  i knew there was a disconnect between my mind and body: i wrote about it, i drew about it, and i summarized articles and books about it.  but i also wrote about the need mia was serving in my life.

in the parts of the journal where i wrote about this new relationship with billy and then engagement, it was scary to feel the differential between how i felt about myself and how i felt about him. i mused to myself today that there was no way my relationship with billy stood a chance.  anyone reading this could tell that all of my attention was focused on mia.

reading back through this journal gave me the range of emotions any loss spurns (the loss of experiences over the past several years): i felt denial in the first readings; like "it couldn't have really been like this." i felt anger at myself for taking so long to recover, for somehow ignoring all the things i knew. i felt deep sadness for myself and those that were in my life that weren't receiving my full attention.  moving through the grief was how i spent a majority of my afternoon (while multitasking through my day).

and, on the other side, i felt acceptance for where i am now; happiness for the support i have in my life; gratitude for the ability to change.

June 29, 2016: butterfly

that ability to change though.  yes i still think about food and exercise more than the average person.  yes i still panic about desserts or missing a workout.   yes i still workout on vacation. 

but i am not the same person i was then.

on the first page of the journal i wrote "i'm waiting to become the butterfly; i'm 1/2 way there--"

so much gratitude that i kept evolving.  and for all those on the journey with me.

and so much hope for anyone else going through that shit.  or any shit.  because if i can get from "mia is my closest friend" to butterfly--there's hope for anyone. 

evidence that change is possible.  that miracles happen every day.

universal alignment

it's like sometimes the universe aligns. and re-aligns. and then fucking aligns again. and you're like WOAH. WOAH. WOAHHHHHHHHHH. hold the fuck up. hold. the. fuck. up.

because it's just too much.

and i'm not suggesting it's always a great feeling when this happens. it's intense. things just fall into place. and you don't know what happened. or how it happened. but it all fucking happened. you feel knocked over. you feel broken open. you feel raw. you feel scared. if you're lucky, you also feel connected and supported through that time.

personally, the last week has been a little bit of an emotional week. good mostly. meeting new people: feeling vulnerable in ways i haven't in a long time... which is also a little uncomfortable. re-connecting with distanced friends; deepening connections and ties... which is also sometimes anxiety-producing; not knowing what's next.

because of these things, i've also gradually been letting go of a lot of pain and hurt. i didn't even realize i was letting go of it. i noticed this weekend that i wasn't mad at someone that had hurt me recently. i had been pretty pissed off about this hurt for a couple of weeks, and the realization i had this weekend that i wasn't mad any longer was a little confusing. and then, today, i had two people who i hadn't seen in a few months (one this morning and one this evening) stop me and tell me how radiant and happy i looked. both times i blushed, smiled, and swept it aside. must be the haircut.

then i went to yoga tonight. theme: letting go. physically. through the breath. emotionally. through the heart. just really fucking letting go. easy, yeah?

no.

tears streamed through the entire class. i didn't even know why. i knew i was releasing. i knew i was making space. i knew it felt good.

and then, the universe re-aligned again. one of my nearest and dearest sent me a text saying "i am not in a good space right now" two minutes after i left the yoga room. i was there. i was open and vulnerable and spacious and ready. i felt like i could be there for my friend in a way i hadn't allowed myself to be there for someone before. i felt like i was raw and honest and supportive and strong all at the same time. it was hard. it was scary. not wanting to lose reception on the train for even a second, the tears streamed continuously as i walked the hour home.

another hour later, and here i am on the other side. my heart is hurting for my friend. my heart is forgiving myself. and my heart is shifting and opening for my tomorrows.

thanks to kelli for love and support in yoga tonight; to kitty for her always constant check-ins; and to all my loved ones that are hurting right now. lots of big fucking love to you.

my infrastructure

stories: they can be so important. i love my stories. i love to tell my stories. and i get really mad when people interrupt my stories.

sometimes i think about what my stories say about me: what do people really hear when i tell my stories? do they interpret them the way i think they do? this morning i was listening to a podcast on the train. the last lines of it sent shivers down my spine:

"the stories we tell about ourselves: they're almost like our infrastructure, like railroads, or highways. we can build them almost any way we want to. but, once they're in place, this whole inner landscape grows around them. so maybe the point here is that you should be careful about how you tell your story. or at least conscious of it. because once you've told it, once you've built the highway, it's very hard to move it. even if your story is about an angel that came out of nowhere and saved your life. even then, not even the angel herself can change it." from NPR's This American Life, episode 504, How I got Into College.

so there i was, sitting on the train. and all of the sudden i'm visualizing this vast inner-transport system. the veins and arteries have become floating roads and magic, jetsons-style transport tubes. i imagine little cars and people zooming around this whole environment i've created over the course of my life. they'd be so lost if i tried to uproot the organized system; how would one find the route to my thoughts? to my heart? would an angel sweep in and try to help them understand why i had tried to uproot the system?

we do become so attached to these stories we tell. we become attached to the meanings we have created for them. and we get upset if people try to challenge our stories.

my little baby sister got married a few months ago. we were there, his family was there: the families were mingling, mixing their stories. my parents told my sister to tell her "rattlesnake story." my sister refused, saying that we all disagreed with her 8-year-old memory's version of the story. everyone encouraged her to tell it. she did: she told her version of what she remembered and has been re-telling for years. my parents had different recollections, and tried to correct and convince her of some of the mistakes. my sister refused to believe the corrections, though, insisting that it happened to her; her version was the correct one.

what does it really matter if the way she tells her story isn't entirely factual? she knows herself through this story. we all know ourselves through our stories. if someone tried to correct my version of any of my stories, i would shoot them daggers with my eyes. my stories are mine. they make me.

but back to this idea of choosing to shift or change our stories. even when we decide to consciously shift the way we think about something, or to try to let go of something, it can be very difficult. like, more than difficult. but maybe just acknowledging how hard it is, how this shifting requires lots of other changes. imagine the whole city inside yourself: after a shift, all the inhabitants would require training to find things, new maps, new roads in some places, new off-ramps, the googlemaps would have to be updated.... the list is endless. so just acknowledging that each little story shift can take a lot of getting used to: that's my new way forward. well, that and keeping my fingers crossed for tele-transport technology.

Adapting to Extremes

Some weeks are crazy: exciting, stressful, emotional, upsetting, or busy... and some weeks are all of those things. This week was one of those weeks. The week began amazingly: On the weekend I went to an awesome Anusara yoga workshop with John Friend; went on an beautiful beach walk with a good friend; got "free hugs" from adorable young boys on the beach; and came home tired on Sunday night to dinner cooked by my husband. My heart was as stuffed as full as it could get.

Then there was Monday. Obama announced to the world that bin Laden was dead. My entire self felt full. But I wasn't really able to define the feeling--it was confusion about all of the responses I was feeling, a nagging reminder that bin Laden was not the entire anti-American movement, mixed with some sadness for the lost of a human life. Whatever feeling that might be called, it didn't feel good. And watching American reactions from Australia, as well as being one of the only Americans in my workplace and fitness environments, I felt extreme pressure to comment on the whole situation and to respond to the numerous questions I received.

The rest of the week seemed to follow the same pattern--intense highs and lows with tremendous levels of stress on top of the other extremes, with an injury thrown in for good measure. Maintaining my sanity throughout the week seemed to be secondary to just making it through the week at times. I felt proud of myself for making the small windows of time to get on my mat, but I also felt frustrated and unbalanced. My yoga practice was minimized to gentle yoga for short stretches of time to compensate for both the injury and the minimal time I had to devote to it this week.

I think that was the key to the "success" of making it through the week, though: adaptation. Even though it was, at times, unwilling adaptation, I adapted. And that's something we all have to continue to do: grow, change, accept, repeat.

On the Saturday ending this week of extremes, I woke up exhausted and unwilling to try to do anything. I didn't want to work, play, relax, or be. But I did a little hard-work-adapting, made it through Saturday, and on to a Sunday filled with love. Today (Sunday) I reconnected with an old friend: we met in a park and then came across a Buddhist festival where we created lotus lanterns out of paper. After we finished gluing the paper petals on the paper base, we were invited to write a wish on a piece of paper and to hang it from the bottom of the lantern.

Putting together the layers of the lotus lantern with my dear friend felt like the perfect ending to my extreme week. I think my lotus lantern wish will be for continual, but perhaps slightly easier, adaptation. And I'm manifesting it out to the rest of you--I wish that your adaptation is also continuous and that you are accepting of the changes you experience. That's a hard sentiment to fit on my slip of paper attached to my lantern, though, so I'm writing and wishing it here. x