Mind Your Business

Do you think it's true that if you free your mind the rest will follow?  Is every battle I face really a question of mind over matter?  If I believe it can I really achieve it?  I think so.  I really do think so.  I think so because of the fact that my thoughts, specifically my negative thoughts, consume me.  I figure if the bad stuff can be so powerful, then the good stuff has to be just as overwhelming right?  I am my own worst enemy.  I am my worst critic.  I am my biggest hater.  I'm learning that my weight and food choices are not my biggest demons.  They are the consequence of my biggest demons.  I had a pretty good childhood.  Grew up with a great brother and a group of some of the best cousins anyone could have.  My best memories are the ones I have of my family at my grandparents' house. It didn't have to be a special occasion (although you couldn't beat my grandpa's fresh carnitas at Christmas...man do I miss him) every day was a house filled with kids and fun.  We had each other and that was all we needed (well that and a credit account with the ice cream man...which our parents totally worked out...it was pretty awesome!!!)  Sometimes I wish I could go back there...but we all know that I would need some plutonium and 1.21 gigawatts to do that...and let's face it...with this California weather lately a bolt of lightning isn't very probable... (If you know what I'm referring to by that then you are a blessed soul!!!)  So we get older...and our interests change...and we (well I anyway) experience things that the teenage mind doesn't understand but the adult mind cannot forget.  And as an adult I have allowed those things to cloud my mind, and influence me in ways that leave me wishing for a second (and third and fourth) chance.  The bad thing about that is that I have a lot of regrets...the good thing is...it's not over yet (that rhymed because I am a lyrical genius!!!) Admitting I have a problem with binge eating was a good step...finally figuring out that that problem is deeper than just bad habits and bad choices is liberating!!!  I don't know where this revelation came from...I think it's been within reach the whole time...but I can see it now and I'm not afraid of it anymore.  I no longer need to punish myself for something that someone else did to me.  That is their burden to bear now because I am letting it go.  I encourage you to face it.  Face whatever it is that scares the hell out of you.  Look it straight in the eye and scare the hell out of it right back!  Find a support system.  Someone who you can trust to tell it all too...because if you hold anything back it doesn't work.  For me holding back turned in to years of binge eating and it got me to my heaviest weight of 262 pounds.  I don't know where I am right now...because I don't like the scale...but the last time I checked I was 233 so that is progress for sure.  I plan to weigh myself in a couple of months...to see how I did in my 40 pounds by my 40th birthday goal.  I know I'm making (very slow!!!!) progress...but progress is progress and I'll take it.  Of course now that I am seeing things a little differently I imagine my efforts will have a little more umph behind them.  My thoughts consume me...so it's time to adjust my thoughts...time to fix my eyes and my heart on what will be and take them off of what was...because what was was...and I can't do anything about that...The experiences of our past make us who we are today...but we do get to choose if it makes us better or worse...and well...why the hell would we not choose better?  And, as I run out of thoughts to put in the post I can hear my baby girl enjoying The Princess and the Frog on tv... "I'm almost there..." me too Tiana...me too!!!