this buddha belly is weighing on my mind...

I've had a few days off writing the blog. Maybe it's the coming holiday season or the moon or just me, but I've been feeling really out of touch with myself over this past week. Anything I tried to put down on paper seemed inauthentic, like I was pushing too hard. 

I am trying to get grounded again so I'm going to try to be really real with you. I think it will help me (which is really very selfish actually! :) ).

I've been caught in some pretty mean feedback loops in my mind of late. The most frustrating is my obsession with my post-winter spare tire. 

I recognize that I am not overweight, but I have put on a significant amount of weight to the point where I'm noticing that tops that were loose before are tight now. And I'm not really sure how it happened. (winter=less walking outside + too much chocolate + who knows and it doesn't matter?)

Last year I lost a significant amount of weight (I don't own a scale and couldn't tell you numbers if I wanted to) and was the smallest I have ever been in my adult life. I had beautiful thin arms with muscles I had never seen before rippling elegantly along my bones and my stomach was flat. *sigh* For the first time ever in my whole life my little pot belly nearly disappeared. 

I tried not to give into vanity. I honestly did. I tried to remain unattached and all that, but I was just so pleased with myself that I couldn't help but get a huge rush of worthiness and self-approval every time I caught myself in the mirror. (Like, YES I finally did it!)

Which makes my current situation all the more painful and, I suppose, a (really fun?!) learning opportunity. 

Obviously, the problem with getting so much self worth out of something so inconsistent and fleeting as a body image is that when you don't have it or it goes away you feel worthLESS. 

I think, how can I have done all this work on myself and be back HERE? I made it THERE and then I turned right back around and came back HERE. The shame of the weight I'm carrying now is not just vanity like it might have been before. Now it feels like this is also the weight of failure. I have failed to be that advanced being that I sometimes thought I was.

I am, in fact, mortal. Flawed. Fallible. And prone to emotional over-eating.  

(There, I said it.)

I guess it's just a message that I have only just begun this journey and that I still have lots to learn. 

I have nothing to do now but put down my hang ups and keep moving on. Forgive myself and stop beating up on myself. Try to see beauty when I look in a mirror rather than pick apart everything I hate.

I am me. And this is my body this time around. If I can't love it today, when will I? What needs to happen to make it acceptable to me? What needs to change for me to change my thinking?

With much love....