Trying So Hard to Stop Trying So Hard

I have lost the desire to work on Project Ginny: The Body Edition.

One friend recently told me that it is like I am putting on one hair shirt after another. Another friend said that every time she read I was adding something to either my To-Do or To-Don't list she cringed.

I am tired of punishing myself for having this body. I am tired of spending so much time and so much money on trying to force it to be something other than what it is. I've muddied the process up with unrealistic expectations and anger and hatred and regret that I no longer know what balanced or healthy would feel like.

Don't get me wrong, I know what balanced and healthy are. I know what I should do in order to attain those things, but the whole endeavor is covered in the muck and slime. Even when I am skinny my brain is still fat.

Have I mentioned lately how difficult it is to be me?

I try so hard to be good. I try so hard to be healthy. I try so hard to fix everything that is wrong with me, all the while a little voice in side of me is shouting "Will you relax already??"

Once in awhile I will listen to the voice and collapse, but that is not the same thing as relaxing. It is merely a stopping point for gathering strength to take another run up Mount Everything I Should Be and Do But Am Not Being or Doing Yet. 

Here is my newest plan:

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Be still.

Be held.

Relax.

From there I'll see what I feel like doing.

And God said "Hush"

On Friday a burden was lifted and it doesn't matter what it was or how it came to be relieved.

The first thing I wanted to do was have a drink to celebrate. As the day wore on and I considered all of the stress that had been lifted off my shoulders the urge to drink got more pronounced.  It was such a relief that I almost convinced myself that having a glass of champagne or sharing a bottle of wine with my husband was the only way to celebrate our good fortune.

I rationalized my decision with "It's only one night of drinking" and "No one has to know", but also with "If I told anyone what has happened they would understand my celebration." It was tempting.

It was also an excuse. 

I didn't give in and I'm glad of it. Just as drinking doesn't take away pain or stress or anger or sadness, it also doesn't increase joy or relief. I will follow through with my Year of No Alcohol in both the bad times and the good.

So back to the burden and the lifting thereof. My brain is a complicated thing, and it doesn't process things in a simple manner. All weekend it worked and worried, spinning in circles as it tried to understand how it came to be that I was blessed. There is no deserving of such a thing. 

Mostly I wondered what role God played in my good fortune. Ever since I was baptized in October life has gotten increasingly more difficult. It would have been easy for me to think that I had been a fool to trust that God would come through for me, and yet I kept trusting. Honestly, I had no energy for anything else. I couldn't force the situation to be resolved and I was out of options. So I did as I wrote about a couple weeks ago - I stopped holding on and I allowed myself to be held by God.

He came through for me in an extravagant way.

What does that mean? How did that happen? What brought about the change in my circumstances that relieved my stress? Did God do it? If he did, why did he do it? How do I know it was him?

Spin. Spin. Spin.

I decided to talk to my pastor about it. As I considered how to approach him I realized that the story was long and involved, but that possibly I could pare it down to a couple questions. I thought about talking to one of two church small groups I am involved with. I wanted someone to explain to me how I came to be blessed. I knew it was an extravagant blessing that I received and I was immensely happy to receive it, but my old lizard friend kept whispering in my ear "Yea, but ..." 

• I don't deserve it
• It doesn't make sense
• What does it mean?
• What does this say about God?

Then I realized that the only one who could answer my questions was God, so I took them to him.

And God said "Hush".

Like a father to a child who is scared and doesn't understand what is happening, he held me in his arms, stroked my hair, and said "hush". I don't need to understand. I don't need to know what it means. I have been blessed and that is more than enough to know. 

Now every time my mind starts spinning, asking questions to which there are no answers, I hear God say "Hush" and I am calmed once more.

Coming Together, Falling Apart

"Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. And then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that." - Pema Chödrön

There has been a fair amount of falling apart going on in my life recently. 

I have felt tested, but now I am feeling a kind of healing as well. Surviving the downs does that for you. There are times when I cry out "This again?" when faced with the newest version of an old pain - as I did when talking about friendship earlier -  but even in my sadness I know that healing is happening.

I hope I am on the precipice of things coming together again.

On Being Held (Part 2)

I wonder how much back story you need for this one.

In 2010 I began working out with a personal trainer. Over the next two years he pissed me off, made me cry, called me out, and pushed me harder than anyone ever had. He also listened to me, asked me questions, encouraged me, and believed in me. Sometimes I thought he was the only one who was asking too much of me, and other times I thought he was the only one telling me the truth. I lost 60 pounds with him in two years, and when he asked more of me I quit.

In early 2013 he opened his own facility and I began training with him again. I had regained most of the weight I had lost but knowing that I had succeeded with him before I thought I could do it again. I went from personal training sessions to group training sessions. Nothing happened on the scale, and then my back/hip injuries got the better of me again. I dropped out of the sessions for a couple months. When I thought I was ready to return he made me an offer: I could come to his studio and by myself do an upper body workout that he created for me. When I got back into good enough shape - and by that he meant able to do one of his normal full body workouts - then I could return to the group session. It was a very kind offer and I took him up on it.

Two days ago I had a medical procedure done on my back that was one of those "it's going to feel worse before it feels better" sort of things. I texted my trainer and told him that I wouldn't be able to do some of the workout. When I got to the studio I asked him if he had gotten the text, and he said yes but that it was up to me to decide what I needed to do to modify the exercise. He said this was my workout and I was the one who had to do what was right for me. If something hurt, don't do it. Keep it simple and just keep moving.

Interesting. 

As I did the workout the bad thoughts tried to come out. I wondered if this was his way of ditching me. Did he no longer think that it was worth his time to help me? Was he abandoning me? Or was he empowering me to do this on my own?

One piece to this story that I have started to type out once or twice already but keep putting off is that I credit this man with leading me towards God. It is a long story, for he approached this subject very slowly and cautiously over a couple of years, but he is the reason I decided to trust God. He has a deep faith which isn't apparent in his words necessarily - he is not the "shout hallelujah" type - but is definitely evident in his actions. 

Knowing all that, I still questioned whether he really had just had enough of my disappointing results this time around. As I said, the bad thoughts. I know, however, that when I don't know for sure why someone is doing something I get to make up a story in my head about why that thing is happening. I can either make up a bad story - he is abandoning me - or I can make up a good story - he is empowering me because he knows I can do this on my own.

The trouble was, I didn't like either story. Empowering me still felt like abandoning me. So I wondered how else I could view this situation.

And that's when I recognized that I was being held.

I have held on so tightly to this trainer, asking everything from him, wanting him to save me from myself. In the middle of my workout I realized that I could stop holding on and instead allow and accept that I was being held. He was providing a space for me, a safe space for me to do what I needed to do. 

Suddenly I felt both peaceful and powerful. 

"There's freedom in surrender

Lay it down and let it go"