I SAY GOODBYE TO FEAR!

* I won't be online for the next few days as our computer needs to be repaired. See you when we get it back!

FEAR

I woke up this morning with my head whirling. So much to do, I don't know what to do first. How will I ever get it all done. If i do the dishes in the kitchen, I'll be tired and my feet will hurt at work. Fear. If i clean, i'll be tired for work. Fear.

I looked at myself in the mirror.

My face is soooo fat. My body is so much wider than i remember. Fear. What will everyone at work think? What will customers think? What have they been thinking all along? Oh my god, what a fat face. Has it been this fat all along? Does it look any thinner?

I see the fear.

I dress up in colorful clothes today not really realizing that it's been a while since i've worn color to work. I don't wear black to hide today, but torquoise and lavender and put earrings and a colorful necklace on. I even put on a cute colorful pin. I pull my hair back and expose my fat face and put a headscarf on which magnifies it's fatness.

I look at my face again. It's still so fat. After 4 days of diet and exercise.

Do you think this is working? I ask myself, again. I recognize the fear, again. The fear that has ALWAYS driven me to run up to the scale. I'd either be elated or crushed. That's why crash diets appealed to me. The BIG LOSS! If i have a big loss, i know i'm a good person. If i don't lose or gain, i'm a peice of shit.

I don't know how rapidly i'll lose on what i'm doing. But it's liveable. If i enjoy my days, aren't I more prone to sticking with it?

"People don't lose weight on more than 1 banana a day," i hear Carlene's voice frightening me.

Fear.

I sit down on the side of the bed to pray. Dear God, I say, help me to remove the fear from my life. Help me to knock down this wall of fat around me. It's been protecting me for a long time. I don't need it anymore. I know I have YOU now. I don't need food to comfort me anymore. YOU are the Great Comforter.

I think of the Tori Amos video of her little deformed toe and how she was ashamed of it and covered it up with the sock. The sock is my fat, i tell myself over and over again, as if i'm realizing it constantly for the first time.

I'm the little deformed toe, or at least i think i am. The little girl who was adopted out, somebody didn't want me. A reject. And then there was the sexual and emotional abuse. I learned not to be able to say NO. I don't matter. Only what YOU want matters. Only how YOU feel matters. That i hate how this feels isn't important. And i didn't have anyone warm and comforting to turn to. So, I turned to FOOD. And then i got fat. People at home to people at school 'beat me up' for being fat. Insecurity. Shame. Lack of confidence. And i gained and gained. And hid. And cried. And ran to food more. And ran to diets and diet camp. My weight went up and down like a yoyo. And later in life, the gains and losses became even more dramatic, and it ruined my skin. Stretchmarks and saggy skin, cellulite. And I became even more embarrassed and ashamed of myself. If you only knew what was the real me. My skin represented who i thought i really was. Ugly. An embarrassment. Ashamed. A reject. Less than. At one point, for quite a while, I sought out love on the internet. I risked and showed them my skin, my shame, my embarrassment, my less than perfect self, and they rejected the little reject. No one wants me. i'm not good enough. And so i ate. And food never made fun of me or told me i wasn't good enough or pretty or sexy enough or perfect enough. Food always accepted me and said, "Come eat me, i'm always here for you!" It always made me FEEL GOOD. I never connected that it was hurting me, that it was a false lover.

Hurts rumble and tumble inside my heart from long long ago. They all live underneath this fat suit. All of this hurt and shame and tremendous sadness. No wonder why I've been reticent to let the fatsuit go. I needed it to cover up. To protect me and shield me from getting hurt again.

Thinking about all of the hurt and more hurt surfaces. Jobs i didn't get because i was too fat. I didn't fit in the chair at the interview, but was the most able, the most qualified. Injustice. Boys that liked me when i was thin and turned from me when i got fat. Rejection. What's wrong with ME? I'm still the same person. The man from Germany who loved me over the phone, "You are the moon and I am the sun!," he proclaimed to get a fabulous 3 week vacation to the states as my guest, pretending to be in love with me. The pain of rejection, of having been used...was enormous.

All of this has been alive under the fat suit. Until now.

God is taking each pain, each brick of my wall, and they are crumbling before His and my eyes.

Perfection. I could never do something modified because it had to be perfect. Now i CAN come late to an aquaerobics class. I'm still worthy! I can modify my steps on the Bellydance video. I don't HAVE to be perfect anymore! I can take a bite of Cliff's lunch to taste test it and I don't have to binge. I'm still an OKAY person!

FEAR. FEAR. FEAR. It's all FEAR.

I go to say good morning to Cliff. And out of nowhere the most profound sadness comes over me and I start to weep. "I don't feel good, Bunky, i don't feel good, Bunky." I wail to him. I don't know why. All i know is is that I'm healing. The fatsuit is being removed. The bricks are crumbling. The pains are surfacing. And i don't need to run to food to feel better.

I don't have to be afraid anymore. Now i have God instead of food. I have people i love. I have trust and hope and faith like I haven't had for a long, long, long time.

Thank you, Marianne Williamson, for your inspired and amazing book, "A Course in Weightloss," and your CD of "Meditations of Weightloss." They are having a profound effect on me.

And even so, there is fear again that pops up, again. "This is going to be just like anything else you've ever tried. You'll get excited about it and then drop it for the next big thing." That's the fear talking again. It wants to be in control, but I'm not going to let it. I see right through you now, fear! Take that! Ha! I reject fear today and right now.

I KNOW, dear God, that only through YOU good things come. Healing, weightloss, stopping binge eating, to name a few. Only YOU can do this. You know how i know this? I know this because I've tried EVERYTHING else and nothing else works. The more effort you apply (30 days of bananas), the worse the backlash is (I gained 4o lbs back in a week.) Today, I ask for YOUR guidance, for your hand to guide me.

Fruits and vegetables nourish me like nothing else, but there was something about the raw diet I always overlooked. I had surrendered. I gave up. I KNEW i couldn't stop binge eating on my own. I believed that raw food would take away my binge eating. It severely DECREASED it, helped me MANAGE it, but that's not enough anymore. It was always STILL THERE, waiting to come back, waiting for the opportunity to re-emerge when i was off guard.

Even eating bananas for 30 days didn't take away my binge eating, because I was still filled with the FEAR that propelled it.

Today, dear Lord, i ask for your guidance, your comfort, your love, your healing. Remove every painful brick from me that they should dissolve and leave only a heart and body filled with LOVE.

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xoxo michelle joy