Healing

"To be humble is to be grounded, to be from the earth, to be human, to be okay with being human. In a nutshell, it's accepting your wonderfully lovable imperfection.

It’s easy to hold images of perfection and project them into our lives. If we carry around idealized images of how life should unfold, how our growth out of overeating should unfold, how we should unfold, we create a very narrow space to succeed - and a very narrow space to feel good.

I invite you to embrace your humanity. Recognize that imperfection, having to work to change, and making mistakes is normal, acceptable, and okay. It creates a very gentle, forgiving space in which to unfold - which gives you a much greater chance to stop overeating."

- from Heal Overeating: Untangled,

Wow, I really needed to read something like this today, and there it was. I opened up a random e-mail I normally would have deleated, and it was there to greet me.
I've been having a hard time, mentally, lately. I'm sure you could tell from my last post. It started with some strange dreams that REALLY freaked me out, a lot of stress, some pain... and just kept spiraling until I felt so down, dark, and sad I didn't know what to do with myself... I still feel down. I still have a tired, hopeless feeling... however, I can feel myself getting a little lighter (mentally, not physically) and I hope it's the beginning of returning to a more positive place.
I have been stuck at this weight for a while. Up and down about 5 lbs or so. I have been exercising like a mad woman, but my eating has gotten poor again. I joined in with Allan and his troops, and I hung in there for a while, but I've been dragged back down (Sorry Allan!). My own fault, totally. You have to take responsibility for your own actions - positive AND negative. If I'm going to pat myself on the back when I succeed, I need to kick myself in the ass when I screw up.
*kick**kick*
But, what I need to do TODAY is forgive myself and move on. Forgiving yourself does NOT mean allowing the bad behavior to continue. It means not beating yourself up for the past, and moving on back to your healthier state. That is where I am at. Beating myself up only got me depressed - feeling like I was never going to get past this hump. THAT only perpetuated my behavior. I will NOT fall back into the cycle.
Yeah, yeah - I'll talk to my shrink ALL about this! LOL
Anyway, I'm still here. I'm making my way slowly but surely back up the great big hill of healthy eating and exercise. I will get back to the top and I will work hard to stay there. Even though I feel tired now. Even though I feel beaten, I will not stay beaten.