Yesterday I started the exercises in Gabrielle
Bernstein’s book May Cause Miracles.
It’s a little frustrating, because I want so badly to just read the whole book,
but you have to do it day by day, and even read a section in the morning and a
section in the evening. It’s a 6-week workbook with exercises for every single
day. I won’t go into all the exercises (I don’t want to prevent her from
getting business), but I will talk about the realizations I make.
These days I feel like light bulbs are going off in my
head all over the place! Yesterday I think I discovered another big one. I’ve
always wondered why I eat so fast, and suddenly everything connected. In middle
school I had a period of time where I had all these stomach issues. I threw up
in the mornings, and then I wasn’t hungry the rest of the day until after
school. None of that was on purpose, I just felt sick to my stomach and
couldn’t think about food most of the day. The doctors couldn’t figure out what
was wrong – they even had the nerve to suggest I might be pregnant! At 13 years
old! What the…. Anyways, so after my stomach problems calmed down (a year or
two later), I still had some sort of issue with eating in public. I felt
self-conscious because I thought people were looking at me like, “Wow, she does
NOT need all that food.” I thought the sight of me eating would make people
judge me and amplify the idea that I was fat. I think all of that negative
self-talk made its way into my habits. Now I don’t eat much and I eat really
fast. The less time I spend eating, the less time for people to judge me? Is
that what my fears and ego are saying? And of course by eating less, I am
somehow proving that I am healthy, right? Definitely not. Instead I think my
body stores more fat because it thinks it is starving.
So that was an interesting realization.
But wait, there’s more!
I also analyzed a different perspective of my
relationship with my ex. He was the perfect catalyst for all this change
because he was perfect except for some very specific things that dealt with
very specific fears of mine. He allowed me to isolate some of my fears. He was
a band-aid and perfectly pacified my fears in all other ways. He loved, adored
and admired me. He adored things I hate about myself, and he admired all the
things I love about myself. You know what, though? That’s how I need to love
MYSELF. Now I’m so scared no one else will love me as much as he did. But that
is ALL backwards. I have to love MYSELF that much. And you know what else? I used
to get all skeptical about him being sweet. I learned that sweet-talking is
fake and bad, and was conflicted because he seemed to be pretty genuine about
it, but I spent so much time trying to determine if he REALLY meant what he was
saying 100%. But what does it matter? What does it matter if he means it 65%,
90% or 100%? I put way too much weight on HOW MUCH he meant what he was saying,
because it would only be a sufficient band-aid for my own lack of love for
myself if HE meant it with all of his heart and soul. That’s the wrong way to
look at it. If he means it at all, great. Wonderful. The only person who needs
to believe all of it 100% is me. His believing it doesn’t fill that void. It
doesn’t fix that hole in my heart. I have to believe it myself. He can tell me
how smart, beautiful and amazing I am all day long, but if I don’t believe it,
it won’t ever mean a damn thing. Some people would crave those words like a
drug addict. At least I wasn’t at that level. I just tried to determine if he
meant it or if he was manipulating me. I eventually figured out that he just
genuinely really cared about me and wanted me to be happy and feel good. Go
figure! How paranoid do I have to be to doubt someone like that? How fearful do
I have to be to perceive things in that way? It’s pretty sad. I mean, it is
true a lot of the time, but my intuition knew better. It isn’t hard to pick out
when people have motives behind things like that. I just didn’t want to trust.
I was scared to trust. Instead I just wasted time and got worried over nothing.
I’m also still trying really hard to take my own
insecurities out of the equation when talking to my parents. I’m pretty sure
the most deeply rooted, covered, disguised, pent up issues always reside in
your relationship with your parents. Eradicating those issues is HARD! I made
such a breakthrough yesterday looking at absolutely everything through [my best
crack at] their eyes. Their fears; their lessons; their intentions; their love.
I actually got emotional at one point because I think I really hit something
big. If you just start by reminding yourself that their intent is to love and
care for you, and then add in their own pasts, and then add in how they react
to whatever behavior patterns you all have together, it becomes pretty powerful
and clear. And then you know what you have to do. You know what you need to do
to help the situation. Now it’s just up to me to stop my own issues from
getting in the way, or at least to handle them as gracefully as possible when
they pop up.
I can’t believe how many breakthroughs I’m having. I’m so
excited to be having so much success in this journey. A year ago I was judging
the crap out of everyone, and here I am really making an effort to be more
loving and accepting, and seeing the love in each day and each interaction I
have. I’m also loving myself more. I’m letting go of my judgments of myself.
I’m going to be completely unrecognizable soon! The way I talk and experience
life will be so dramatically different.
Happiness, here I come!
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