Authenticity

 Maybe you are searching among the branches for what only appears in the roots  Unknown

                                                                                   

    

Any life change requires authenticity and self-questioning.  Where am I at today and what needs to change are good places to start.

Where I am today?

Positives: great family and friends, financial stability, creativity in art and writing, empty nester, free time (semi-retired).

Negatives: unhealthy weight, multiple sclerosis (although doing great), I may not be social enough according to research data, a little worried I will have enough money to retire and leave some money for my kids

What needs to change? Improve health

Overall, I feel really good about my life.  The one thing that needs to change is my weight. Weighing 230 pounds and 5 feet 9 inches puts me in the obese category. Having multiple sclerosis and being obese will not allow me to age well.

I have been an emotional eater since I was eleven years old.  I grew up in a home with violence and abuse.  Wounds that remain long after leaving an abusive childhood are fear, secrecy and shame.  Shame for having grown up in abuse and feeling defective and abnormal because of it.  Fear of being emotionally vulnerable because safety and security were not there as a child. Secrecy to preserve the family façade.  To cope with fear, shame and secrecy I ate to numb the emotions that I had no idea how to cope with.

As an adult I went out into the world with a determination to create a "normal" life. Not having experienced "normal" I attempted to design what I thought a family was, enter perfection.  Perfection subtly kept me tied to secrecy, shame and fear.  Fear I would be "found out" for not being perfect.  It's funny how we are drawn to feelings like fear and shame even though they are not what we want, they are familiar. 

Grace entered my life in the form of some hard hits to the solar plexus moving me out of perfection and shifting me toward authenticity.  The hardest hits were a 7-year period of infertility, divorce, a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, a child with depression with a serious suicide attempt and quitting a job after 30 years. I ate myself numb through all of those gut punches because that is how I had coped in the past.  Those punches, even though they took my breath away at the time, allowed release of the ego driven perfectionistic roles I had set for myself. Freedom from perfection the hard ass way. "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" became my theme song.  Having nothing left to lose-other than the weight and everything to gain I am ready to open myself to whatever Grace presents on this path. 

I've looked at the roots-time to start looking up at the branches to see the sky.