Friday afternoon. I think I might have actually reached that magical point in my journey to health and well being. The point when everything comes together and my desire to feel good and be healthy in the long term overtakes my desire to feel good and eat lots of food in the short term. I've always really liked Dr. Matthew Anderson's articles for the eDiets newsletter, and today I decided to read through some of the back issues and found this great article called "Guaranteed Weight Loss: 10 Secrets!". I know, it sounds like one of those too good to be true internet scams, but, if you read the article (as I did), you'll find that they are, in fact, the "secrets" that will lead to lasting weight loss. Of course, they include things like healing your thoughts, managing your emotions, and self acceptance, so these are definitely not easy ways to weight loss and, perhaps more importantly, they are going to fix a whole lot more than your weight if you follow them. That led me to Dr Anderson's website where he has some great thoughts (and things to buy, but I'm not doing a commercial here!), one of which comes from the Sufi poet, Rumi:
“Come, whoever you are!
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving,
Come.
This is not a caravan of despair.
It does not matter if you’ve broken
Your vow a thousand times. Still
Come, and yet again, Come!”
Wow. Wow, again. The thought that, no matter how many times I've tried and failed to lose weight, or whatever else I've tried, I'm not a bad person and that I can keep on trying without diminishing myself, is a very powerful one for me. My tendency has always been to beat myself up thoroughly every time I try something and am not perfect at it the first time I try. (Yes, I might be a bit of a perfectionist.) Crazy though it might seem, this really got me thinking about why I'm so hard on myself and perhaps, just perhaps, being a little more reasonable in my expectations of myself. I mean, I'd never be so awful to anyone else if they tried and failed, so why is it OK to be that way to myself? Food for thought for this weekend.
I got my car back last night. YEAH! It has this wicked cool new stereo in it and all signs of the terrible criminal activity inflicted upon it by the no account cretin have been erased, except, of course in my heart, which cannot so easily be repaired. Last night I had one of the worst and most vivid nightmares I can ever remember. It started with me being awakened suddenly by my Aunty Caryl (in the dream) telling me that someone was breaking into the house and was, in fact, upstairs. Now, neither my aunt nor my mother (who was also in the dream) live with me in reality but that was just part of the freakiness of the dream. As I began to dial 911 on my cell phone, the intruder opened the door to my room and walked in. The dream from there faded to my being upstairs (which is the living room, dining room, and kitchen of my place), walking through the rooms and finding just total devastation and destruction of everything. I was aware that the intruder was still in the house but I was somehow unable to get out of the house and was just frantic with the fear that he was going to come up the stairs and get me. Then I went to my office at work (Was I magically transported there? Not sure, but that's how dreams work for me) and it, too, had been totally ripped apart and systematically looted. At this point, I woke myself up. I was so terrified that I had to keep myself awake for nearly an hour to make sure that I didn't go right back into the same nightmare again. I know this has to be related to the car break in, and I know that I've been a jumpy, jittery ball of nerves ever since the break in, now I just need to know how I heal the sense that I'm not safe anywhere at any time and that my comfortable life will never be comfortable enough or safe enough ever again. Any suggestions? Drop me a comment or an email, if you've got a good idea.
I'm going home now because I feel poopy and because I'll probably be in over the weekend anyway because I'm on call. On call is just a euphemism for "at our beck and call", as any good project manager knows, so I'm just planning to come in and spend some time here. Heck, I could always hit the gym while I'm here.
“Come, whoever you are!
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving,
Come.
This is not a caravan of despair.
It does not matter if you’ve broken
Your vow a thousand times. Still
Come, and yet again, Come!”
Wow. Wow, again. The thought that, no matter how many times I've tried and failed to lose weight, or whatever else I've tried, I'm not a bad person and that I can keep on trying without diminishing myself, is a very powerful one for me. My tendency has always been to beat myself up thoroughly every time I try something and am not perfect at it the first time I try. (Yes, I might be a bit of a perfectionist.) Crazy though it might seem, this really got me thinking about why I'm so hard on myself and perhaps, just perhaps, being a little more reasonable in my expectations of myself. I mean, I'd never be so awful to anyone else if they tried and failed, so why is it OK to be that way to myself? Food for thought for this weekend.
I got my car back last night. YEAH! It has this wicked cool new stereo in it and all signs of the terrible criminal activity inflicted upon it by the no account cretin have been erased, except, of course in my heart, which cannot so easily be repaired. Last night I had one of the worst and most vivid nightmares I can ever remember. It started with me being awakened suddenly by my Aunty Caryl (in the dream) telling me that someone was breaking into the house and was, in fact, upstairs. Now, neither my aunt nor my mother (who was also in the dream) live with me in reality but that was just part of the freakiness of the dream. As I began to dial 911 on my cell phone, the intruder opened the door to my room and walked in. The dream from there faded to my being upstairs (which is the living room, dining room, and kitchen of my place), walking through the rooms and finding just total devastation and destruction of everything. I was aware that the intruder was still in the house but I was somehow unable to get out of the house and was just frantic with the fear that he was going to come up the stairs and get me. Then I went to my office at work (Was I magically transported there? Not sure, but that's how dreams work for me) and it, too, had been totally ripped apart and systematically looted. At this point, I woke myself up. I was so terrified that I had to keep myself awake for nearly an hour to make sure that I didn't go right back into the same nightmare again. I know this has to be related to the car break in, and I know that I've been a jumpy, jittery ball of nerves ever since the break in, now I just need to know how I heal the sense that I'm not safe anywhere at any time and that my comfortable life will never be comfortable enough or safe enough ever again. Any suggestions? Drop me a comment or an email, if you've got a good idea.
I'm going home now because I feel poopy and because I'll probably be in over the weekend anyway because I'm on call. On call is just a euphemism for "at our beck and call", as any good project manager knows, so I'm just planning to come in and spend some time here. Heck, I could always hit the gym while I'm here.
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