What does that mean...
When I first began this journey...I didn't know it was a journey...
I was just a bebopping along one day, looked up and noticed I was fat...and wanted to get unfat.
So I began.
And from that moment til a few months ago...I thought that getting past my past was the whole deal. The big enchilada....if I could just 'cure' myself and be normal...I would be fine.
I thought the cure was losing weight.
And I did...I knew I was miles out to sea.
I knew I had a long hard swim.
But through grit and determination...I would succeed.
And I did succeed.
And in doing so...dug up a great many painful things that I had to work through.
Yeah me...
But as I got healthier, I realised I had built my entire life on the lie that I was inferior and needed to be fixed, and as a matter of course, had invited attitudes and relationships into my life during a time when I had no real concept of me...
That's a big one...redefining all my relationships...upsetting multiple Apple carts...finding out what I will and won't put up with, what I'm willing to give or give up...seeing if the people who matter most will stick it out. Because I refused to go back....holy shit, right.
I went from a chronically depressed 270 pound house wife to a 145 pound housewife who became a gym rat...who then went to work...because the whole upheaval caused a major marital upset....strained friendships...
I regained 30 pounds in the last three years...because I wasn't working out...on the plus side, I never slipped back into binge eating ....just too many drive throughs because I had no idea how to manage all the things on my plate....from homeschooler to cashier to manager in 9 months.
From wholly dependent to independent...from being afraid to lose my marriage to willing to let it go if it wasn't save able.
And in the process, finding my true voice.
I don't binge anymore.
I don't get the urge.
That is huge for me.
Here is the thing...
This has been a 6 year journey.
In the beginning, I could not conceive this me.
Just the idea of speaking in front of eight year olds, or talking to strange men...would put me in fear...
My past was a rip tide...before I faced every aspect of my life and the mountain of misinformation and lies my entire existence was built on?
I could swim as hard as I wished for the shore...
But I kept being swept further and further out to sea...
In a riptide...you have to swim parallel to get to shore....
Sometimes for quite a ways.
That's how it's been for me...
I would think NOW I CAN SWIM TO SHORE!
But the past was still waiting.
My final hurdle was my unforgiveness...
Keeping me in the rip tide...
I didn't know how to let go because it seemed like he was getting off easy...
Here is the thing...
This has been a 6 year journey.
In the beginning, I could not conceive this me.
Just the idea of speaking in front of eight year olds, or talking to strange men...would put me in fear...
My past was a rip tide...before I faced every aspect of my life and the mountain of misinformation and lies my entire existence was built on?
I could swim as hard as I wished for the shore...
But I kept being swept further and further out to sea...
In a riptide...you have to swim parallel to get to shore....
Sometimes for quite a ways.
That's how it's been for me...
I would think NOW I CAN SWIM TO SHORE!
But the past was still waiting.
My final hurdle was my unforgiveness...
Keeping me in the rip tide...
I didn't know how to let go because it seemed like he was getting off easy...
Much like jack and rose in titanic...I had a dead corpse lounging around my small bit of ship.
I finally realised that it didn't matter how he "got off"...just so long as he did...cause he was dragging me down.
And then two days ago, I realised that I had a more heightened awareness than a lot of people around me...some people label this a bad thing...'hyperawareness'
I have finally realised that everything is only as bad or good as we give it weight to be...and every experience is a gift or a curse.
You choose.
I choose gift...
I choose to break free from the riptide.
I finally realised that it didn't matter how he "got off"...just so long as he did...cause he was dragging me down.
And then two days ago, I realised that I had a more heightened awareness than a lot of people around me...some people label this a bad thing...'hyperawareness'
I have finally realised that everything is only as bad or good as we give it weight to be...and every experience is a gift or a curse.
You choose.
I choose gift...
I choose to break free from the riptide.
From the dead weight of the past.
Because fuck normal, I want great...
And I am prepared to fight and win great.
Breaking free from the past is only the beginning...healing yourself...only a start.
Now for the life I WANT...not the one I settle for.
Because fuck normal, I want great...
And I am prepared to fight and win great.
Breaking free from the past is only the beginning...healing yourself...only a start.
Now for the life I WANT...not the one I settle for.
What does the me I have built from the ground up want to contribute?
Well, I have already figured that out...I want to help women find what I found.
And in the process, so completely break the cycle that they, like me, will look back on their former selves and not recognise the person out there on the horizon who had struggled and failed and struggled and failed...because they didn't know that we're caught in a riptide.
I want to teach them that first and foremost, no one has the right to touch them without their consent.
I want to help women who have been stripped of their personhood through violence and abuse..reclaim their bodies, their power and their voice.
That is me.
That is what I am going to do.
Thank you all for all of your support..and I hope you hang around for my third leg.
The defense institute closed last year, but one of the owners is opening a new training center called empower. (How great is that name?!)
I have already established my eating and exercising..and when the new empower training center opens, I will be there..and so will you guys.
Thanks for listening.
Chris out.
4 comments:
Yes Christine get on that beach and bring many more with you... you are fantastic! :)
You have come so far. I applaud you for wanting to give back!
Brava!
Our journeys are different and still the same. I would have used the word boundaries. I didn't have any because my self-esteem was in the basement. Not having boundaries allows people to be really shitty to you. You allow people to be really shitty because you have no boundaries. The first boundary, of course, is your person. Who can touch you? How can they touch you? Then you get into boundaries of space and time and how someone can treat/talk to you. When you've had no boundaries and then starting putting them up, well that's rough.
This leg will be really hard and really rewarding. It will be hard when women don't see in themselves what you see in them. It will be hard when they choose to return to an abusive relationship. The average woman tries seven times to leave her abuser. The average. It will be rewarding when someone begins to see what you're saying and does it. When you watch them discover their self worth. When they can forgive themselves for not leaving. Not doing healthy things. Not loving themselves. Not loving others. When they "get it."
As you do this work, remember it took you six years without help. It might take someone else six with help. And they might leave and come back and leave and come back. These women will break your heart and then mend it.
Once again, you've chosen the hard road. But then they are the most rewarding, no?
Post a Comment