Sticky Bits

Maybe that should be my Burlesque handle? Mizz Sticky Bitz.

I like it.

So I'm turning in a pass. 1/5.

I'm very happy to report that my indulgence wasn't eating an entire roast pig and washing it down with a bottle of Bombay. I haven't had a massive set back in my thinking or my pretty darn healthy lifestyle. But over the past 48 hours I've definitely been a bit more checked out and I've been medicating 'something' with a total rejection of my tv and facebook rules and with junk food. On the one hand I'm eating cleaner than I ever have, but then I'm craving salt and sugar and the chips and popcorn. Yesterday I even gave in to a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie. My days are mostly good but as the evening comes in I definitely start feeling more 'restless'. Hmm. There's that word again.

oooh!ooh! - Mz. Restless Sticky-Bitz.

So I decided two things. 

1. I'm a little bit off track and I can see that I'm becoming slightly apathetic about some of the commitments I made to myself. I can feel a kind of white noise threatening to rise up and disconnect me from myself.

2. I haven't quit. I AM committed. I'm fessing up to the above and recognizing that it is just a pass and I have exactly the opportunity I hoped the passes would offer. The chance to examine why?

The reason sticky bits are on my radar today is because earlier I was trying to put my finger on what it was I was feeling. I was struck by a memory of a yoga teacher talking about the 'sticky bits' - the places of tightness and clutter in the body. We release them by bringing awareness to where and what they are and then breathing into them - consciously relaxing and letting go of that tension - ultimately dissolving them so that they can be washed away by our blood and our breathe. 

At least that's how I see it.

This 'restlessness' is like a network of these sticky bits deep inside my soul.

They have the presence of something lurking, not clearly visible or understood, but there - always picking at the edges, mumbling, wanting...needing. Restless is always hungry. Always moving. Always on the edge - threatening to jump. Needing the thrill. Needing the hunger...

Needing the fight. 

Not with anyone else. I don't fight with other people. If I start to I usually just end up crying. 

I always turn the fight inside.

I developed an eating disorder by about the age of 11. 

I guess that 10th birthday musta really took it out of me.

I struggled with feelings of self loathing and shame. I always felt like I was a liabilty. My family life was strained. It's a small family. Mom, Dad, Sister, Brother. Everyone was taxed to their emotional limits and my desperate need for love and approval was just not the most serious issue. Until I changed that. 

I felt selfish. I felt guilty. But I couldn’t stop needing. 

And when I didn’t get those needs met I started acting out. 

You will see me! You will see me!

It just made everything worse. Shame, guilt, regret, loneliness. Hunger.

So I ate. But no amount of food could fill the void.

I would starve myself all day for fear that if anyone saw me eating they would think 

“That’s why you’re so fat. That’s why you’re disgusting.”

I’d starve myself until I got home after school and would then immediately start eating anything I could find to ease the hunger. Then I would feel sick and stupid and weak. 

"I deserve to be fat. I am a pig." 

And so I’d eat and eat until I hated myself enough to know that I deserved to be punished. That I had to pay the price for being such a pig. 

Then I’d throw up. 

And I’d feel better. Stronger and more in control. More deserving of love.

But still ashamed.

I was 11.

I find it very interesting that out of all the challenges I posed for myself - food would be the first red flag. I thought for sure it would be alcohol - as I had it pegged for my favourite medicine. And yet it is food (and television) that has been the greater struggle.

Does drinking drown the hunger? Does television silence the hunger?

If I give up those things, am I left with only the hunger? 

WHAT AM I HUNGRY FOR???

I am breathing into you sticky bits. 

I can feel you. 

I can acknowledge you. 

I am breathing into you and I am letting go.