May you fly free....

Good Morning Peeps....

The sun is shining and the snow is melting...yay! It is already 54 degrees F ... according to weather.com it is supposed to rain then snow this afternoon and evening... looks like we are starting into the sea of mud season... known as spring ... looking forward to the first 70 degree days… then the cockatiels can go outside for a while too…

The house hairballs are all outside enjoying some time in the sun ... snow and mud... I have the front door open letting some air in the house... the washing machine and dryer are doing their thing on the porch...

Breakfast is long done... bacon, asian veggie blend, egg, coffee... took my vitamins... visited with a friend on the phone for a bit...

Feels so good to just step outside and stretch in the sunshine... I have been thinking and hiding in games for a while...

Working through ... hmmmm.... working through the trigger... or why behind ... the anxiety that has been rebounding and the weight loss stall… yes the two are tied in together… losing fat improving physical fitness has more to do with … how to put this… ok for me anyway… losing fat… improving physical fitness … has more to do with issues behind the weight gain and body condition… than the actual weight loss/gain and body condition…

I pretty much ground to a halt… like a computer that has too much going on at one time and needed to have a scandisk and defrag… so I suppose that is what I have been doing for days… running a heavy duty virus check as well… so what did I find… rooted in and hidden in the subroutines… it’s a wispy 4 letter word… fear… a refrain a friend said to me kept running through my mind… through my essence… “let go of the fear” …

I heard him… I did… fear… ok… so how do you do that… how do you … “let go of the fear” … scream… react in anger… beat the stuffing out of the heavy bag… paint… music… dance… all of that works a bit… unless you are masking the fear with anger… have a friend take it away… wouldn’t that be grand… does not work that way… have a shrink take it away… nope that does not work either… drug it into non-existence … sorry… does not work… just masks it… AAaaaRRrrggggHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Depression… panic attacks… PTSD… rages... suicide… cutting… binge eating… obesity… anexoria… OCD …. Abuse… all tied into fear… in all it’s various shades… hues… forms… manifestations…

So fear is a bad thing… right? No… fear is neither good nor bad… it just is… I’ve heard all my life… do not be afraid… fear not… and so on… I know I am not the only one who has heard this… so rather than acknowledging the fear… fear that is built into us in a flight or fight response… we deny it… we bury it … we pretend it does not exist… and it grows… buried in our behaviors… in our subconscious… with each denial we store a bit more away… often mixed with anger… pain… grief… all buried deep within us… we clutch it to our very beings… hidden… or so we think… hidden behind our smiling faces… masks worn daily… until the load is so heavy… the masks start to break… like a dam with cracks in it… and that cocktail of mixed emotions buried so deeply overwhelms our thought processes and shuts us down… or creates massive self-destructive behaviors… or destructive behaviors…

So what do you do… what is the answer… wouldn’t it be grand if there was a simple 1..2..3… step process that just fixed everything…

Acknowledging fear… does not mean you are a coward. Being courageous or having courage… is feeling or acknowledging fear and doing what you need to do anyway…

Fear is part of our flight or fight function… for self preservation… so what to do with it… well denying it or burying it does not work…. That much is obvious…

Living in a constant state of paralyzing fear sucks… so that is not the answer… being shut down so you can not function seriously sucks… so that is not the answer… so what is the friggen answer…

Hmmmmmm ….. thinking… each of us is different so each answer … each process will be different… but this seems to be a viable course to me… acknowledging fear… feeling it… allowing ourselves to feel it… letting it go… releasing it… seems to be the answer… awareness is a face of fear… living with awareness I believe is a good thing. Awareness is a benefit… listen to your instincts… yes we all have them… buried deep within us … in some… others hear and listen now… in this way fear functions as a benefit… opening you up more to life…

As to how fear was tied into the weight loss/fitness plateau I ran into… I’ll try to explain… my fat suit was/is a fat suit of armor… protecting me… yes I know it is destroying my body… hindering me from doing things I want to do… but it is a protection as well… I used it as a shield…

I had never been beat up when I was fat… I had as a child… and as a thinner woman… and frankly being smaller scares the daylights out of me. It feels like walking exposed defenseless into an enemy camp… 300 pounds is not easy to handle when there is momentum behind it… nor is it easy to lift and slam on the floor… and it takes strength for me to carry it… people forget there is a woman hidden in all that blubber…

It feels safe… it is where I felt loved…. Cared for… hidden inside a fat suit of armor… or a fat cocoon…

So why even come out… now there is a question… because it is time to… just like the butterflies that have to come out of their cocoons or die… my choice is come out of the fat cocoon or die. Just like they have to come out on their own… strengthen their wings to fly… each of us if we are to live… actually live… have to work through it… come out of our various cocoons … strengthen ourselves… grow… deal with whatever… to be able to fly…

May you fly free….

Mary E. Robbins
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