They say "Your outer world is a reflection of your inner world". I have known this to be VERY true, and this last week and a half has confirmed it. For me, I can tell I need to "re balance" and "re asses" myself when my house starts to become a mess and it begins to make me feel cranky/sad. I never realized how true this was until the last few years. Every time I am going through something emotional/stressful/crazy busy in my life, it reflects in my home. The dishes and laundry tend to build up, the pile of "to put away" begins to overflow, messages begin to appear in the dust and Coby begins to eat the dust bunnies floating around. I am not gonna lie I am NOT normally a "Molly Maid", but things get 100x worse when my inner world is unbalanced. I never knew the connection until I began to notice it in those around me. When I saw my kids stressed (exam time, etc) I see how crazy their room gets (trust me you do NOT enter as you may get lost!), when my hubby gets over busy, his desk becomes a mountain full of "stuff". This past week has been a super hard one dealing with things that needed to be dealt with that I did not want to and were super emotional to me. I thought by now I would have my emotions in check and while my house may still reflect my inner chaos, I did not think it could possibly still effect my eating after being on this program since the beginning of the year. Well, lets just say I am still a "work in progress". My inner chaos turned to pizza, ice cream, hamburgers and everything else it wasn't supposed to. The difference was, this time I didn't feel "guilt" over reaching out for comfort which in the past would cause a down word spiral of eating more as I felt guilty and than quitting altogether. Instead, I embraced my need for comfort (no meditation or bath could comfort this one at this point in time), ate what I felt like and listened to each emotion that arose in me as I took each bite (key note here - I STILL listened to each emotion that arose in me as I took each bite). I have struggled the last few months with trying NOT to turn to food to solve my inner unbalances, and was doing pretty good, but they got the best of me this week. As I look back, I see that two of the things last week that happened were out of my control, and by me allowing myself to eat what I wanted I felt I was in control (YES I have "control issues", likely the cause of a lot of my fears, something I strive to work on but have not got there yet). I know this is not the proper way to go about it, but sometimes you just have to do what your body is calling for rather than what you are supposed to do. It helped seeing a lady on a blog I read daily going through a similar struggle (she's lost an amazing amount of weight), and how she too said you can't beat yourself up on these "slips" you just have to move forward and get back on track. This is what I did. I gave myself a few days to just "BE" with no guilt knowing I would get back on track. Tuesday I woke up to the birds and went for a walk to start a "new day". Seeing the scale go up a few pounds gave me the motivation to get my runners on and head out before the sun was even up. That's the difference. In the past I would just say I already failed so I am done. NOW, I tell myself that this is a pause in my journey and I will be ok. I AM going to get to my goal, it may not be as soon as everyone around me would like, but I will get to it when the "Universe" feels I am meant to. Each bump in the road is a learning curve and is teaching us something we still need to heal/learn, we need to embrace these bumps for what they are and release the power we give to them, for only than can they truly begin to heal.
I've also learned two other hard things this week. 1. That doing what's best for you is sometimes the hardest thing in the world to do and it may cause others to be upset or have hard feelings, but in the end we need to do what's best for ourselves, as being stressed over something for months because you don't want to hurt others is not going to do anything but cause more stress and more unbalance. 2. I've learned that I need to start listening to my body rather than to others more and speaking up about it rather than stuffing it down hoping it will go away. Trying to be someone your not is not helping anyone as you will never be able to live that way the rest of your life. I'm tuning into my body more during this process and starting to listen to the signs it is giving me. Sure I will not get to my goals quickly by taking this approach, but as someone wise once told me "Slow and Steady Wins the Race". Life isn't a race to make it to the finish line, life is all about the journey along the way to it. I think in society we want fast changes quickly, but fast changes never get lasting results. 3. I've also learned how important it is to say NO and mean it. In the past my "No's" were soft and full of guilt which often lead to "yes's", this has gotten me into many things I have regretted. I never like to offend people or let people down, but now I realize that you are NEVER going to please everyone so we need to be firm on NO's when we mean them. Saying NO to someone/something is not being rude, it is sticking up for what you believe in and honoring your true self. By saying NO firmly the first time, hopefully in the future I wont have to keep repeating it.
I've debated about posting this blog today as it's showing my "defeats" BUT I realized life is not full of roses and people need to see the thorns as much as they see the roses as that's what makes life real. A journey is full of both and to believe it is only sunshine and rainbows would only create disappointment.
May your own journey be full of FIRM No's and learning bumps and curves to help you grow - without the rain we wouldn't have the rainbow.
I've also learned two other hard things this week. 1. That doing what's best for you is sometimes the hardest thing in the world to do and it may cause others to be upset or have hard feelings, but in the end we need to do what's best for ourselves, as being stressed over something for months because you don't want to hurt others is not going to do anything but cause more stress and more unbalance. 2. I've learned that I need to start listening to my body rather than to others more and speaking up about it rather than stuffing it down hoping it will go away. Trying to be someone your not is not helping anyone as you will never be able to live that way the rest of your life. I'm tuning into my body more during this process and starting to listen to the signs it is giving me. Sure I will not get to my goals quickly by taking this approach, but as someone wise once told me "Slow and Steady Wins the Race". Life isn't a race to make it to the finish line, life is all about the journey along the way to it. I think in society we want fast changes quickly, but fast changes never get lasting results. 3. I've also learned how important it is to say NO and mean it. In the past my "No's" were soft and full of guilt which often lead to "yes's", this has gotten me into many things I have regretted. I never like to offend people or let people down, but now I realize that you are NEVER going to please everyone so we need to be firm on NO's when we mean them. Saying NO to someone/something is not being rude, it is sticking up for what you believe in and honoring your true self. By saying NO firmly the first time, hopefully in the future I wont have to keep repeating it.
I've debated about posting this blog today as it's showing my "defeats" BUT I realized life is not full of roses and people need to see the thorns as much as they see the roses as that's what makes life real. A journey is full of both and to believe it is only sunshine and rainbows would only create disappointment.
May your own journey be full of FIRM No's and learning bumps and curves to help you grow - without the rain we wouldn't have the rainbow.