Mind full

I feel bruised today, not outside, but in. I've begun sessions in a mindful eating course, and it has kicked up a lot of very old stuff for me. We were discussing the basic human needs, based on someone's (whose name I can't remember) psychological model. First came survival, then security, then love and acceptance, then self-realization. Our group leader explained that each of these needs is first encountered and met in early childhood, and that having been put on a diet as a child threatens those needs, and makes it more difficult to meet them later in life. She also said that the more basic the need, the greater the emotional response to it. And I was sitting in that room, thinking that it's a miracle that I made it through with a personality at all. All of those needs were threatened all the time when I was little. It wasn't until I was adopted by the Lepards that I had any sort of foundation of security at all. I'm forty-two, for heavens' sake. Why does it still hurt to look back at that little girl? I mean, yes, I'm looking at present behaviors and working to make myself healthier. But oh, the issue of food and safety is still so intertwined. Add to that the IBS, where I'm not sure what I can eat or whether it will hurt, and I'm finding some very old wounds aching a bit.

I have had a LOT of therapy. Thank goodness. I have come so far that it just astonishes me some days. But this hurts, and I didn't expect it to. I expected it to be an intellectual process. Ha! Delusions of normality, I know. What I'm looking for is freedom from food as an emotional crutch. In many ways, it feels like my emotional eating is the last tie that binds me to that old childhood. Dieting wasn't just supposed to make me thin, it was used as a punishment. If I failed to meet weight-loss expectations, there was a beating. I don't own a scale, because when it gets to numbers, I get nuts. It's the same with good-food and bad-food. I'd like there to just be food. I'd like to eat what I want when I want it, and to know when I'm full. I'd like to know when I'm hungry for food and when I'm hungry for a hug. I'd like not to feel so bruised, but I feel it anyhow.

Sigh. I must be doing the right thing. I feel like crap.

Small steps to big results

So I got connected with the Coach Approach with my local YMCA. It's a program designed to help people with chronic health problems get into regular activity, and stay that way. Today was my second appointment, and I was feeling really queasy and anxious about it, because it just doesn't feel to me like I've done enough. But when we sat down and figured it out, I've been getting out for a decent walk at least twice a week, and I've just been making more of a point of walking places. I've also been making a more concerted effort to get outside each day, even if it's just out on the back porch. I've noticed that I feel better on days when I do, and that I feel vaguely restless on days when I don't. But it still didn't seem like much. I'd committed to going to aqua-fit classes three times a week as well as walking, and every time I'd thought about the classes, my anxiety level went through the roof. So today, Roxanne (my facilitator) said that sometimes it's worth figuring out what the block is, and sometimes it's better just to go around. I have a new plan for the next month. In the meantime, both my stress and fatigue levels (as measured by me) are half what they were six weeks ago. Granted, some of that is my IBS calming down, but even when it flares I don't feel quite so devastated by it.

I'm not doing all that much, really. I'm not doing workouts that kill me, but I like to walk briskly. And this has been enough for me to (so far) mostly avoid my standard winter depression. How bizarre is that? I tend to be so all-or-nothing, you know? I succeed or fail, and I have precious little room in my emotional landscape for doing enough. I never see what I do as enough, but...it seems perhaps that in this, I'm doing enough. I'm going to do a little more, to see how that feels. I like not feeling quite so anxious or exhausted. I can't help but think how nice it would be to base my opinion of myself on degrees of success, rather than of failure.

The truth about me is that I do my best. Another truth is that I tend to set impossible expectations of myself, where I would treat all other people with compassion and gentleness.

Tomorrow I'm going snow-shoeing, something I've never done before and look forward to immensely. Whatever I've done before brings me here, to a new experience. That feels good to me.

I did some writing today. Not quite my usual thousand words, but I'm going again. I remember how this goes. I wake up early, I spend some time with Kelly and have breakfast, and then I sit down and write. I miss my coffee, I must admit. It isn't really that hard. The hard part is believing that what I've written has merit. Still, I looked back at the previous chapters, and I liked them. The last book was so much about self-sufficiency, and this one is so much about inter-dependence. I didn't set out to write it that way, you know, it's just sort of...happened.

What really kicked me into starting again today was money trouble. I have to laugh, but why does it take that particular thing to make me work? I was thinking about how I should look for a job. It's ridiculous. I'm barely making it through my days now, and I know this. So I told Kelly, and told him that I thought it was insane, and he said 'Work when you're ready'. When we got home I explained that I wasn't talking about writing, and he laughed at me. *chuckles* Add to that the fact that he and I had some wonderful, useful conversation about his new project, and when I got home, I just opened up Word and went.

It didn't feel easy. It did feel good. And the words were all just there, waiting for me to pluck them out of the air and set them in the right order. I don't know exactly what happens next, but neither do my characters, so I suppose we'll all find out together. It's faith in the process that I've lost, somewhere. Not faith in my story or my ability, but in the spinning of the story. As I recall, I only came by that faith by repetition. Success is making the effort, I think. Money troubles will sort themselves, or not. The stories in my head want out. That's the important bit right now.

Tomorrow is Christmas. Probably our last Christmas with Chris for a long time. He goes to Japan next month, and will be gone...indefinitely. I want to make it festive. I really really do, but I am so tired and sore that it seems a little bit impossible. IBS sucks. Have I mentioned this? I'm having some days of improvement, and I've started on a probiotic and herbal supplement that are helping my symptoms. I'm finding, however, that everything I'm used to eating sets me off. This also sucks. Dairy, wheat, fatty foods, raw veggies...and it's a good thing I have been tending vegetarian already, because the idea of meat just makes me queasy. What am I going to do? Christmas Eve morning and I'm still asking myself this. I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to go outside and climb on a bus, and go to the market. I'll see if they have ham, and if they don't, I'll just buy lots of potatoes, and make scalloped potatoes. Kelly said that's the only food he really wants for Christmas, so I can do that. I wonder if it would work with coconut milk?

I'm angry and I'm frustrated and I"m SO tired of being sick. But enough! I'm not fixing those things by sitting here crying over them. I'll do what I can. What I can't do, I'll let go. I'm afraid that what I can do won't be enough, but it's only ever me that has these huge expectations anyhow. So screw it. I'm off to find out what I CAN do.

I went for a beautiful hike today. I hike with the Community Recreational Initiatives Society (CRIS for short). There was a nippy little breeze, but in among the trees it was just perfect. It was good to be out, to connect to the world of snow and not have it be an inconvenience, or something I had to work around. It was just part of the day, and it was perfect for snowballs, too. I'm glad I went, but I'm kind of shocked at how tired I was afterwards. We were out for a couple hours; not on terribly challenging trails, but by the time we were done all I wanted was a nap. I feel so convalescent, which isn't unreasonable, I suppose. I've only been out of the hospital for a week or so. I'm finding it difficult to balance the needs of my IBS with those of my diabetes, but I'm going to be seeing a dietitian to help with that. Tonight it's just a little hard to be sick again, still, whatever. I'm trying to remember that even sick I do things that are good.

One of the things I've learned from CRIS is that I'm much more interested in finding out what I can do than in enumerating the things I can't. So, apparently I can hike for 2 hours in the snow, as long as I plan a nap. Unfortunately, I have set myself a whole list of things I 'should' be doing, regardless of how I feel. This is unproductive, but I seem to do it pretty regularly anyway. My house feels grubby, and I still don't quite feel up to the task of getting it not-grubby. Is it okay for me to be a little afraid of how tired I am? I guess it'll have to be. I'm torn, you see, between feeling crappy and knowing that I tend to stagnate in the winter. I know I sometimes don't do stuff because my mood is down, and that leads to more not doing, which leads into the Pit of Despair. Push, don't push...I keep waiting for this to get simpler.

The simplest fact of my life is that it's mine, I guess. I'll just have to do what I can.

Today I am forty-two. It's funny. I always felt like I was so much older than my age, and now I feel so much younger than it. Perhaps it's only that I've finally got enough years to fit all the events comfortably. I don't know, but I feel joyful today. I feel victorious. My insides still ache some, and I know it's going to take a while for that to calm (assuming it ever does). But I feel like I've regained my optimism, that ridiculous spark of belief that has carried me so far. I want to believe that things will work out, and so, eventually I do. One good thing I can see out of all the tests at the hospital is that apart from the IBS and all my other existing health concerns, I'm absurdly healthy. I'm still epileptic, and I'm still diabetic, but they're both well controlled. The doctor told me that my results were "pristine" and that he wished his were as good. While it wasn't comforting in the middle of my pain, I find it comforting now. Ever since the stroke, and my sister's death a few years after that, I've had this terrible feeling that I was dying. That something was very wrong, and we just didn't know. It has been more than just a feeling, actually, it has been a rock-solid belief that creeps up from time to time, usually when I'm stressed. So while I'm doing as much dying day-to-day as anyone else, I can be sure I'm doing as much living, too. Maybe more. I'm aiming for more, that's for sure.

So thank you, Universe, for another year. Thank you for hope, and for conviction. Thank you for the people I love, the people that love me, and thank you for everyone else. Thank you for my peace, thank you for my healing, and thank you for giving me the lessons you have.

Oh my. What a few months this has been. I've been diagnosed with IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I had a stomach flu, and first it just didn't get better, then slowly got much, much worse. I ended up in Emergency a couple of times, on doctor's orders that if it got worse, I was to go back. The final time, they admitted me. All I knew was that something was writing lines of fire across my insides, and I really wanted it to stop. They tested my blood, cleaned out my insides to scope me, then filled me with barium for x-rays. I'm not going to go in any greater detail, except to say that this has been one of the most invasive responses to illness that I've ever had. It's left me feeling a little vulnerable, as has the pain. I ate almost normally yesterday for the first time in over a month, and so ended up in terrible pain in the middle of the night. I have medication, but now I need to learn to cope with the condition. IBS is essentially a diagnosis of  'yes it hurts, but we don't know why'. They ruled out all sorts of illnesses, and what it comes down to is managing my stress, eating well, and generally taking care of myself.

I wanted desperately to ask the universe 'why me'. I really, really did. But the lesson is too implicit for me to ignore. I'm supposed to learn how to take care of myself better. Or perhaps to remember skills I've forgotten to use. I know what helps me manage my stress, and I know I've not been managing it well. I've not been writing, and perhaps that emotional block was bound to show up in the physical. How could it possibly have been described better than by the gut of me, the core of me; a system that has the most nerve-endings of anywhere in my body?

So here I am, at the keyboard, reaching in to my worded soul, reaching out to a blank page. It feels like I am poised on the brink of something life-altering. Something beyond physical wellness, perhaps. How peculiar.