Here and Now

Well, I would like to be posting a picture of me frolicking on the beach, but tropical storm Debby has prevented me from doing that, so here is a picture of me enjoying the sun at home in Kansas City. Nevertheless, I have been enjoying spending time with my family. I have taken a couple of yoga classes while I've been here, and learned some new poses to take back home. My mom and I have of course been shopping, and we have pedicures scheduled for Wednesday, and then I'm headed back home on Thursday. I love summer vacation, and never want it to end. I will leave you with a picture of my parent's kitten, Joey. He is adorable, and needs to come home with me!

Well, I seem to have taken a bit of a blogging hiatus, and slacking on the word of the day challenges. I'm on vacation in Florida right now visiting my family, so who knows when the spirit to write will hit me. I'm having a very restful and fabulous summer so far with lots of pool time and extra yoga classes. The studio is offering new early morning traditional yoga classes, which are about 2 1/2 hours long and include chanting, breathwork, and meditation. I'm really enjoying learning new styles of yoga, and also working on other aspects of the practice. The meditation is difficult for me, but I'm getting better at silencing my thoughts and being with the breath. Yoga is teaching me to be in the present moment, and at times I find myself so calm and at peace that my mind is totally quiet. That is something definitely new for me, as I've struggled so often with racing thoughts. I haven't had to take my anti-anxiety medication in quite awhile. I'm going...

If you type the word "perfect" into the search engine on this blog, you will find many posts that I have already written on this subject. I think many of us who struggle with eating disorders in particular find ourselves caught in the trap of wanting so badly to be perfect to the extent that we lose ourselves in the process. The process itself is a losing battle, because hey! Guess what?! There is no such thing as perfection! That is right, so let it go! This is one of my favorite quotes written by Anna Quindlen~ "The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself." When we let go of all of those expectations of who we think we should be, we can actually focus on the becoming. I'm going to post a song here by Evanescence called "Everybody's Fool." It is about believeing in the lie of perfection. This song speaks to my eating disorder especially with thes...

Masquerade Lost within a crowd of unfamiliarity there is comfort in being unknown The safe distance of strangers with their guarded eyes and stiff shoulders Silence is meaningless, each blank face, a masquerade... the hidden smile, wayward tear, or ghoulish frown Words are meaningless, each story, a mystery left untold Angela Minard 2012©

To be honest, I wanted to skip over this word.  "Force may be thought of as any influence which tends to change the motion of an object." I was used as an object, and change means that you can never go back to who you used to be. As a survivor of rape, I obsess over going back, but because I was forced against my will, I'm forever changed. That fact is difficult for me to grasp. I will never be the same, and that is a painful realization. Force was used to take away my identity, and my safety. I had to use that same kind of force to take back my power...to be free of fear...I like to think of the essense of who I am as being a "force." It is what protects me, and makes me who I am. I don't want to use force, I want to be a force.    

I would definitely say that I'm an emotional person. Someone not that long ago said that as much as they think that I try to avoid my feelings, I feel things more deeply than most. I'm not really sure what that means. I think we are all emotional beings, it is just that we aren't very comfortable admitting to those feelings. I don't want to show my feelings to others for fear of being ridiculed. If I'm vulnerable, than those feelings I show leave me wide open to being hurt. I'm not very good at hiding how I feel, and I'm easily wounded. I think of these things as weaknesses, as if emotions are bad. I've done things to avoid my feelings like drinking alcohol, or restricting my food intake. We all try to protect ourselves from being hurt. I'm afraid to have peope show their feelings toward me, especially anger or sadness. Feelings can be overwhelming, and we often have the need to "fix" negative emotions. Emotions need to be felt not f...

"Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally, he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic." ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky There is not a whole lot of logical thinking going on when it comes to someone with an eating disorder. In fact, just the other day I had a moment of totally illogical thinking. One of my sons had put some of my clothes in the dryer after they had been washed. I had a couple of minutes of panic because "Oh my God, what if they didn't fit me anymore?" That would mean that I was fat, and not that the clothes had actually shrunk. It took me awhile to talk myself through how illogical that kind of thinking was, and I finally did come to my senses. That is how eating disorders take over, distorting your thinking, distorting the truth, until you believe everything you are telling yourself. If I eat a cookie, within minutes, I will have gained weight...