Walking Blind

I have never thought about where things are going in my life, as much as I do now. Looking back on how I used to live my life is like looking at old archived news papers in the library news paper reading room, that just shoot the grey papers by so fast. I was so caught up in life. I was never in any sort of stable environment. Moving constantly, relationships constantly changing. I used to be so bold. lol I say this because I would always meet up with anyone I met online, as unsafe as that may have been. I was all about making friends, experiencing new things and having a good time.

I like to think I am the same person now, though life has slowed down so much. I am in my second serious committed relationship. The first one tore my heart to shreds. I really gave into that pain and heartache. I lost everything I was. Several years have passed and I still feel like I am trying to get on stable ground. Trying to find myself again. I have a lot to work on.

I've been so hurt by people who are closest to me, friends and family. I forgive. Always. I get hurt again. I forgive again. It is a cycle. When I watch shows like 'Sex in the City', 'Desperate Housewife's' as naive as it may be (i know they are tv shows) it really makes me sad. I want more than anything to have a group of friend I can turn to no matter what. A group of individuals I can really count on to be there. People I can have a good time with, and get together with on a weekly basis. To play board games, cards, watch Lword series, or whatever. I sort of feel like I am stopping myself. I don't know why, or how. I don't even know how to go about making friends. That is pretty devastating.

We move next week. I am exciting because this feels like the last move, for a long time. I will be in a central area close to family, and lots of activities (so I stop being a home body). I will be broadcasting from SEATTLE baby! I can take a short bus ride to Westlake Center or even Pike Place Market!

I have no idea what comes next. I am walking blind into love, into life and into what comes next. My eyes are blind folded, and my heart is ready for anything to take place.

Turmoil with Food

Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time. --Mark Twain

Its time to get to the core of why I'm overweight. Food has been my crack, my heroin, my meth, my cocaine, my alcohol, my family.

Having issues with weight is always about more than the food. My beliefs show up in my relationship with food. So if I'm eating when I'm not hungry or bored, I'm basically saying I can't feel these feelings. Life is too much for me (or not enough in my case). There's no goodness in my life except for food right here, right now. I'm basically eating because I've given up on something, some part of myself. You think that, 'I am so small that the pain is going to overwhelm me,' but in reality the truth is you've already experienced that pain.

And what food does at that point is it doubles your pain, rather than make it go away. You're still in pain about what you were in pain about before you ate, but now you've added a whole level of more discomfort which is: 'Oh, I can't believe I ate this. What's wrong with me? Am I ever going to get my life together?' Then you're feeling like a failure on top of the discomfort you were feeling before.

Most people who are not over weight do not understand that food, to us, is an addiction. I am addicted to food. We use food to 'Numb out'. We use it to cover our feelings, our boredom.

I have never been a religious individual, more spiritual. When I refer to 'God' I refer to something that is bigger. We each have this longing—we've had moments of awe and wonder in our lives. A lot of us don't call that God, but we know that something is possible for every one of us besides our daily lives. The way we get caught with errands and taking care of other people. We feel that this possibility exists, wonder and mystery and possibility ... or the feeling you have in nature. The feeling that everything is possible. I have learned that my relationship with food is directly related to how close I am to the source. The issue isn't really the food. It is about my disconnection from that which is real which we call 'God'. Real = God Life = God

We turn to food as an obsession, addiction. Obsession gives you something to do besides have your heart shattered by heart-shattering events or emotions. The emotional struggle that accompanies overeating is familiar, whereas the "heart-shattering events" are often new and raw. We are afraid that the pain will destroy us. Or the heartbreak, or the discomfort even. We don't actually know that we can feel those feelings without being destroyed by them. Getting up and living day-to-day and going through the stuff of day-to-day, that's difficult. But somehow we believe that food is cushioning it.

Conquering issues with weight starts with learning to love yourself. How do I start looking at myself and loving myself? Kindness.

You might ask, 'What made you come to this conclusion?'. What really clicked was recognizing that going to the food hasn't been working and that what I've been looking for isn't in the food. So what I am trying to get rid of and what I am trying to not feel, it didn't help to be eating over it. The other thing that clicked was that there is a whole lot of pain there to look at. I need to look at some of the layers, recognizing some of the beliefs that are keeping me at the weight where I am. Those beliefs, are that I'm not good enough, that nobody likes me and that nobody would accept me the way I am. Being overweight feels like a disability. I am still a person, a human, just like you. I wish people could see that.

Growing up as a child was so hard, what I'm really feeling is every time I have ever been beaten by my father. Every time my step mom told me that I was ugly. That I would never find someone to love me if I was over weight. That over weight individuals do not deserve love. She looks at me with disgust, hatred almost. What I recognize as I'm stuffing myself with the burgers, sandwiches, is I still have that feeling of if I don't do what pleased the other person, then somehow that person has the power to annihilate me. I've been so intimidated by someone who isn't even in my life anymore.

We somehow believe that if we hate ourselves enough, if we shame ourselves enough, we'll end up thin, happy, peaceful people. Somehow if I torture myself enough, I'll end up feeling great about myself and about my life, as if hatred leads to love and torture leads to contentment.

Does that make sense at all?! Hell to the No!

It's time to start loving myself, treating myself.

Guilt & Regret

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh. – Henry David Thoreau

I used to think that guilt and regret went hand in hand... The emotions of guilt and regret are often so inextricably linked that it's hard to tell the difference between the two. Subtle as it is, there is a difference between feeling guilty and feeling regretful. In order to fix mistakes or move forward emotionally, we need to be able to differentiate between the two.

Recently I had a different perspective on guilt being presented to me. Lama Samten from the Buddhist Monastery Karma Choeling, north of Auckland, said that he has had difficulties understanding the exact meaning of feeling guilty. Someone who grew up in Tibet knows regret, but does not feel guilty. Lama Samten suggested that feeling guilty might be based on the assumption that at the time we would have had the power or capacity to do things differently. When we feel guilty, we overestimate ourselves.

Examine the motive of the event, experience or decision that is causing you to feel this way. Motive is important when trying to differentiate between regret and guilt. If what you have done was done in order to cause another person pain or harm, then the feeling you are experiencing is guilt not regret.

Listen to your words or thoughts for the words "I wish." These words often indicate you are feeling regretful that something turned out as it did or didn't turn out the way you had hoped. Regretfulness occurs when you've inadvertently acted or made a decision that caused harm or pain and you wish you could change it.

Regret gives us the option to make up if we hurt another person, it allows for a softening that is necessary in asking for forgiveness. When we make ourselves feel guilty, on the other hand, we intensify our suffering and often harden.

After differentiating the two... I feel regret. I am guilty of many things, but never have I felt regret. To me regret is almost worse than guilt. Regret is knowing that I did something wrong, even though at the time I had no control over what had occured, I wish with all my being that I could have gone back. I could have done something different.

I regret that I left my brother and sister alone with that devil of a man we call father. dad. uku. The parent. I was only about 13, 1999. There was so much going on. I regret being put into foster care and leaving them alone in his care. I don't remember if I ever asked them if they were okay. I don't remember if I ever told them how much I loved them, and how sorry I was. I only remember the looks in their eyes, begging me to come home. A year later I did.

2010, 11 years later and I still feel such regret. Such sadness. Such pain. The only thing I can do is ask for their forgiveness.

Will they forgive me?

A Tribute to Kylie Elizabeth

A beautiful girl was taken to heaven four years ago today. She never took a breath here with us, but I know she blows kisses to us from heaven. Every year I post the poem that I wrote for her and read for her at her funeral. I find peace knowing that Kylie is watching over her two sisters. I find peace knowing that my sisters daughter is the guardian Angel watching over them.

Happy Birthday Kylie! Auntie Loves you!
(picture taken this year by my sister)

Kylie lived her life with in my sisters womb.
Years like minutes cannot last for too long, locked within that juicy tomb.
Let those who mourn remember she died,
In sweet communion with her soul inside.
Eearly in the pregnancy we felt you kick and move,

Eager to greet you, never thought so soon.
Life is a burst of joy and pain, and then like yours its done,

In our thoughts you'll always be the sparkle in the sun.

Zero breaths did you take when you entered earth,

Although you looked so angelic in your still birth.

But now we have to let you go, your spirit can be free,

Everyone will hold you near their hearts, where you will always be.

Tiny little baby, at home where you belong,

Here we gather to rejoice in tears, as we listen to the flutter of your fragile wings song.