Turns Out Stars Have Sharp Edges

The quote that inspired me to keep fighting for my peace 

"Shoot for the moon and if you fall, you will land among the stars."

When I shot for the moon, it was not the stars I landed in when I fell. No, instead the stars cut and scratched me as I plummeted to Earth. Then I bounced off mountains like a cartoon character until I landed in a bleeding heap on the hard ground. I laid there for a bit, ok for a while, but eventually I got back up. I got back up... that is the story I will be sharing! For every person who lost a dream (and maybe themselves) along the way, I am here to show you how I got back up stronger than ever and that life is always shaping us into better versions of ourselves if we are open to the journey!

So here goes, the story I lived to tell...

Two years ago I was inspired to become a firefighter. I lived and breathed for my goal. The first year I transformed my body into a machine and beyond losing weight, I had gained an insane amount of muscle and ability.  At one time I was busting out push ups with a 20 pound weighted vest on, crushing physical goals like I never imagined.  I went to school and became an Advanced EMT with an acceptance letter into Paramedic school. Everything was lining up; my plan unfolding right down to the last detail. I was a prime candidate for the fire department. Tests taken. I was living my dream, I had an intense sense of purpose. Only...

...that was as far as that dream would ever go.

During the second year several things steamrolled me: first, the price tag that came along with paramedic school was a kick to the gut; second my plantar fasciitis and heel spurs where working against me and my need to use my feet; and third I was mentally falling apart. I had been burning myself at both ends and eventually ran myself down into the ground. The stress of school had impacted my waistline and the fear of weight gain triggered my eating disorder to levels it had never been before. My reality was a dark one. In gunning for my dream I was destroying myself. I had to slow down for the sake of my health and wellness.

New plans where talked about so that my dream would just be put on pause while I got my head on straight. I put school on hold. I got help for my eating disorder. I began the difficult journey of putting myself back together. The most difficult part to the beginning was the shame, embarrassment, fear, and self-loathing I had inside. I was barely holding it together. Then it got worse.... 

January 2019 will mark one year that I have been partially deaf in my left ear. I lost my hearing! They don't hire deaf firefighters. So no matter how much I fixed myself and got back on track, I was never going to become the one thing I worked day and night to become. That moment of realizing my dream was over broke me. 

The beginning of 2018 felt like my life was in ruins. I was sick for months. Losing my hearing was a nightmare. The pain, the multiple doctors with no answers, the hanging on to hope, and the months of uncomfortable existence in my head was soul crushing. By my birthday in April everything had been set in stone... I had permanent hearing loss and all hope was gone. I was already deep into a depression and the finalization of my fate knocked me so far down that I felt my life was in jeopardy.

I put up the greatest fight of my life in 2018. In order to give myself the time to heal and face my demons head on, I did the only thing I could think to do - I bowed out of life for a while. I was too angry and confused to explain why the sudden screeching halt to a very public goal. The few times I crawled out of my hole I was slammed with questions and strong opinions. I just wanted to be left alone. In the beginning, no one knew the entire story expect for my husband. Eventually I opened up to a few, crying in the arms of people who had no clue what to tell me while they held onto me very tight. I didn't need speeches, I needed empathy- and to those with stronger shoulders than mine, I thank you!

The loss of a dream and my hearing wasn't anything I prepared to take on. The fight I had to put up was not easy. I discovered just how bad ass I truly am, and it had zero to do with my physical strength. I am a hell of a lot stronger mentally then I ever gave myself credit for. I struggled quietly everyday. I used Instagram as a diary of sharing my struggles, yet never mentioning just how deeply I was cut. I never talked about not becoming a firefighter. I couldn't. I still struggle to do so now (you should see pile of tissues forming by my computer as I type this all out!). If you happen to know me in real life, I warn you, mention this article to me and I may very well cry - so brace yourself.

I refused to give up and 2018 was the year I conquered my eating disorder, dove deep into understanding my struggles with binge eating, anxiety disorder and depression, and dug through layers of pain to unearth an inner peace like I have never known. In order to find this peace I had to create an environment for myself that inspired deep spiritual healing. I returned to parts of myself I had long since been buried in the layers of adulting. I turned to yoga. I turned to art. I lit incense and meditated with crystals. I smudged my house. I gave myself permission to just be and explore different ideas about life and purpose. I found myself becoming softer, more at ease with myself and those around me, and discovered a renewed sense of calm about life. I healed in ways I never anticipated. I had monumental break throughs. I see the meaning of life so very differently than I used too. This journey that I have been on, searching for new meaning, ended up being the very thing that gave me meaning. I survived relentless suicidal thoughts brought on by depression. I survived and THAT is the story that needs to be told!

I am a success story of overcoming the loss of purpose and meaning. I am a success story for ending my life long battle with bulimia. I am a success story for understanding my anxiety in ways that gave me back my power. I am a success story to ending the war with my body and finally allowing myself to live and enjoy what my body can do. I am a success story in overcoming a dark depression. I successfully hit the reset button on my life and every lesson learned needs to be shared. Not every sad story has a sad ending! 

Stay tuned to New Figure Forward in 2019 for more blogs, YouTube videos, and Instagram posts covering the accumulation of lessons that transformed my life and gave me back my purpose.

Lessons from a Student

Three Months of Evolution

Allow me to paint you a picture of what has happened since I opened up about my eating disorder. It's been like a slow motion movie run, middle fingers raised at attention, ripping off layers of oppression, shame, restriction, and self-harm. What I am finding underneath decades of a self-abused woman is a fighter, a woman determined to rise. A woman who is truly done with being made to feel inadequate and physically wrong. I am still a student of the recovery and healing process and have much more to learn.  I have, however, accumulated a few life changing lessons thus far and, in an ongoing effort to help someone who may also be struggling with an eating disorder and/or has had enough of diet culture, I offer my lessons to help encourage freedom. 

Lesson One: Speak Your Truth
Recovering from diet culture and an eating disorder required me to acknowledge where I found myself. My first step was finding the courage to say the words out loud - to finally stop pretending and face my truth. I had to reach out to those I trusted and begin to confess. I had to open up without restrictions or fears. Letting go of the shame is pivotal in the recovery process. My strength would help another woman find her strength and that helped me face my fear and acknowledge my reality.

Lesson Two: Identify Triggers
Once the words were out in the universe I had to become responsible for them. I had to be proactive about putting an end to self-harming actions. My next step became identifying my triggers. Why was I so immersed in diet culture and terrified of food? These messages where coming from somewhere and I actively hunted them down. The following are key triggers I found that kept me deep in self-abuse and diet culture:

            1. Number Triggers: Good-bye scale, measuring tape, pedometer, calorie counter, heart rate monitor, and constant logging of everything I did. Good-bye to the need to be validated by numbers. They overtook my life and robbed me of a carefree mentality to my health and wellness.

             2. Social Media Triggers: I followed a ton of dieters on social media and I belonged to weight loss and fitness groups. What started as a way to stay motivated gradually fed my obsession with dieting and being skinny. I was, daily, comparing myself to others and feeling the competition and comparison pressure. My health and wellness took a backseat to my need to get skinny and be a better dieter than someone else. Once I was able to see the toxic online environment I had created for myself it was time to clean house! I left groups and I unfollowed accounts that focused on diet culture. No more pictures of someone else's scale or food. No more before and after picture. No more comparison. 

             3. Food Triggers: Food and I have a messy history. At a very early age I turned to food for emotional support. Add on PCOS, plus the body chemistry challenges this brings with it... it was a recipe for disaster. I had to look at food from the perspective of a drug addict. Would a recovering drug addict allow pictures of their drug of choice to infiltrate their social media feeds? Not the self-aware ones. So adios pictures of food, videos of two hands making recipes, junk food videos, and the constant reminder that I struggle with food. I stopped all accounts that kept images of food in my feed (that included some friends and family). I stopped taking pictures of my own food. This was a huge relief! The removal of food approval set me free to eat without the fear of judgement or guilt for eating something that didn't fit into my projected eating habits.

             4. Environmental Triggers: Reflecting on when binge eating urges typically could appear in my day. Once I could recognize a specific person, place, or thing, I was able to create alternative reactions and, over time, rewire my subconscious to no longer reach for food as a coping mechanism.  For example, I discovered my teenage son could often times be a trigger. I found myself mindlessly eating around the time he was expected to come home. With the help of my wellness coach, Ren Jones of Fitness Jones Training, we concluded that the transitional period from one time of my day into the next has often proven to raise my stress, which in turn caused me to binge eat. At the acknowledgment of the self-destructive behavior, I decided to try quick 10-20 minute yoga sessions instead. Gifting myself a small chunk of time to make a peaceful mental transition has greatly decreased my afternoon binges and helped me have more patience as a mother.

 Lesson Three: Stopping All Routines
Stopping routines caused anxiety in the beginning because dropping diet culture and ending my eating disorder potentially meant weight gain...and this terrified me. This is where my wellness coach stepped in and reminded me that we have to break down in order to rebuild. Ren gave me permission to just stop. Stop eating plans and fitness routines. He gave me permission to rebel. All the rules I had been following, the restrictions, and self-harm tactics that had consumed most of my life needed to be cut off. I had to be OK with being uncomfortable, for a little bit.

This step was the most pivotal of my recovery process. I had become so ingrained in diet culture that I lost sight of what habits I had integrated into my life to encourage health and wellness. I rediscovered these reasons after I saw a decline in my health because I allowed myself to act like an unsupervised child in a candy store (NO REGRETS!). I missed my period (an issue that can have detrimental effects on my body (PCOS)), saw an increase in body aches and pains, and felt depression hovering close. I had bottomed out and it was the best thing to happen to me. Bottoming out helped me understand what was health choices and what was diet culture choices. An example being my spin class; Initially it started as a great way to develop a strong cardiovascular system, enjoy a good sweat session, and help keep depression at bay. Overtime it evolved into a four day a week obsession that I refused to interrupt causing me lost time with friends and family. A healthy habit that turned self-destructive.   

Lesson Four: Listening to My Soul
I owed myself the freedom to be whoever I had been shutting away in the name of skinny. The biggest hurdle was shutting off the diet voice that overtook the majority of my daily thoughts. I look back and see an almost zombie like version of myself. She looked like me, she sounded like me, but she was consumed by diet culture. Self-reflection inspired me to dive back into forgotten passions to see if they felt right for my new chapter of inner peace and wellness. This has lead me in a journey of self-discovery that is showing me someone I really like. I really like myself. Finally.

The past three months have been an evolution of self that has been both exhausting and liberating. It has not been without its bumps and road blocks. I am happy to report I have not purged since coming out, however, I am still working on my binge eating habits. This is a journey, not a race. My life is worth whatever time it takes for me to find my peace. Your life is worth your time - to help you heal and find your peace. It looks so easy, written out in a nice list. This list doesn't show the tears, the anger, the moments of weakness followed by bouts of guilt, the mental fight that consumed me, and the constant desire to quit. It has felt overwhelming at times and some days felt like a success to have just survived. I am surviving, in fact, I am even beginning to thrive.

Patience. Self-reflection. Willingness to change. Refusal to give up. I am officially a diet industry dropout and my life gets better everyday because of it! Fight for your happy!