Backsliding

Last week I when I described my feelings of agitation and aggravation, frustration, anger, etc. to my therapist she told me that it might have something to do with "the pull." She described "the pull" as an almost magnetic force that wants us to slide back into the old life and old habits.

I like this idea. Rather, I like the way she described it to me, but not the event itself. The gravitational pull I feel is akin to hiking up a steep mountainside and hitting a patch of loose gravel. I am sliding and scared, and don't see any way to brace myself or stop my free fall. It is frightening to think of all the progress I've made as I slide past it on the way back to what I fear may be my starting point. It seems I need to be rescued by a solid patch of ground, by some hope that I won't slip all the way back down, by some perspective that I've really only lost a little ground relative to the journey.

Part of me desperately wants to move forward and change physically, lose more weight, become a faster runner, a stronger athlete, a happier and more grounded person. Part of me is afraid. This is where I am learning to pray that my fear be replaced with faith and hope, that my self-pity be changed to self-acceptance, and that my self-obsession will morph into caring for others.

Here's a quote I found yesterday: "To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both hands into life up to the elbows. It is easy to say no, even if saying no means death." - Jean Anouilh

Doesn't that "hands into life up to the elbows" sound like reaching into gore and helping someone give birth? It does to me. Giving birth was the hardest thing I've done besides being born. And every day, according to this French playwright, I have the opportunity to say yes. Today it strikes me that saying yes frees me from negativity and all of its anchors (fear, self-pity, shame, guilt). Saying yes to myself, to improving myself, to eating well and exercising, to just getting out of bed in the morning (this morning for example), that's not what comes naturally to me. But I'll confess a secret, it is becoming second nature. I am moving toward doing things like eating well because I WANT to eat well. I am in the gloriously fabulous habit of waking up at 5am and working out! The good habits are here and growing stronger.

A dear friend's nephew died last week. He was 19 years old. The circumstances break my heart, this boy was so loved. Just by breathing in and out I am using up whatever amount of time on earth is allotted to me, I want to make it the best life.