Old familiar friends

I have a really colorful mental health history. I have spent this half of my life constructing different paradigms, learning appropriate coping mechanisms, being on various medications, learning to live without those medications, because detoxing too fast while your insurance runs out really fucking sucks.

But, at the end of it all, and first in my mind, is that these shadowy ways are my first line of defense. Life gets difficult, the pressure mounts, and I. Cease. To. Function. Too much intensity. So much FEELING. Too much. Can't. Feel. All. Of. This. Can't. Can't. Fuck. This. Need. To. Feel. Something Different. Need to put the feeling somewhere else. Compartmentalize. Give the amorphous nebulous web of flying thoughts a definitive place, a home, something physical to label it, make it real and definable. Beg to have some control of my mind, my life, the shit storm that has exploded.

I, without trying, have lost a noticeable amount of weight. But it feels really good. To have spaces that are absent of flesh. To be negative space. To see the cage below my collarbones. It feels familiar, comfortable. I find myself enjoying the gnaw of hunger at 3 in the afternoon, the buzzy feel of faintness. That scares me.

It scares me that I have put an elastic on my wrist to snap it, to make it hurt. Because all I want to do, all the god damn time, is to cut something. Somewhere. That my kids can't see. To give all the hurt a certain undeniable location, form, cause.

Now, before the choir begins to sing concern, or blame, be quiet. 

I AM SCARED. 

And that is very good and very healthy.

So shut the fuck up. 

Let me flounder. I will figure my shit out. I take responsibility for my part in allowing my life to become this cesspool of blame, cause and dysfunction. I pray that those close to me try to understand what part I didn't have in it. That there is a greater evil; Addiction ruins wonderful people - doesn't matter what the substance is, it's the behavior that breaks down the living. That there are multiple victims. That I am not completely to blame. That I am broken down (4, 11, 12, 19), and need to find a way to grow out of the muck. I do not need concern, or pity. I need compassion. And understanding.

That is all.

Sacred Space

I can't tell you how much I look forward to my time on my mat. Although I keep setting my alarm to try and do my practice early in the morning, before the kids wake up, I typically can't drag my ass out of bed. I mean really, it took two and half years to get Bridger to sleep past 6:30 (ok, past 5:30, but ok), I really really am enjoying being asleep at 6! So, most days, after The Wild Life are in tucked into bed, I unroll my mat, and have my time in my body. 

Admittedly, that means most days I'm a little tired for super vigorous anything, and I tend not to work too hard. That's what studio classes are for. I do try to get to at least one a week. But just the time to notice nothing but my breath, to observe my universe, at a cellular, pranic, macro-cosmic level is lovely. 

I love ritual. When I was a smoker, it was the ceremonial taps of the pack on the heel of my hand, unwrapping the foil, turning up a 'lucky', the raisiny smell before the flame touched and ignited, that first long draw. The evaporation of my near-constant anxiety. I don't smoke anymore. I need ritual. I am still an overwrought, anxious mental being. The shadows are near, and times are unstable. The ingrained coping mechanisms, the urges to cut, or puke, or just not eat at all never go away. That could be exhausting. But it's not. Because most nights, I unroll my mat. I stand at the top, and bring my hands together. My feet and hands tap in time with my long breath. I observe. I choose not to attach reaction to that which is observed. Things evaporate. I finish, laying in savasana, floating on a sea of chi, sometimes in the flesh, sometimes not. I sit, hands in anjali mudra, prayer. I speak.

Om. Shanti, shanti, shanti.

Peace in my mind, peace in my body, peace in our world.

Namaste.

By the numbers

I recently jumped on the scale, for the first time in months. 

Before my children, I was always trim, athletic, thin. Oh, and eating disordered. Pregnancy was a total mind fuck for a recovered/ing 'eating disorder not otherwise specified' woman. But after Isabella was born, the 32 pounds I gained fell off in three short months. Three months later I had lost an additional 20 pounds or so. Extreme stress did that to me. I wore a zero. I stopped lactating. Not awesome. 

With Bridger I gained the same 32 pounds. But three months after giving birth to a nearly 10 pound baby, plus a large placenta, I was just 10 pounds lighter than the morning my water broke. Two years later I was still 18 pounds heavier than when he was conceived. He is still as of this post breastfeeding. It did not melt off the pounds the second time around. I feel cheated.

So imagine my surprise when I discovered I am now within five pounds of my pre-Bridger weight. 12 pounds of my pre-Isabella weight. And how? Living. Loving. Eating real food. Baking from scratch. Following, more or less, Michael Pollan's advice: Eat Food. Mainly Plants. In Moderate Amounts. Having a celebratory relationship to my fuel. Daily yoga. Mindfulness.

But the truth is, my navel is a different shape. My breasts no longer stand at attention. My hips have spread. Two people grew within the confines of my abdomen. No number can change that fact. And finally, finally, I have surrendered my need for control enough for that to be ok. I am two children away from my pre-pregnancy body. And that is beautiful.