Love Unconditionally and in a Positive Direction

I do not look the way I want to look. I do not feel the way I want to feel. I do not walk the way I want to walk, or hike the way I want to hike. I do not run the way I used to run. I do not move the way I used to move. I am too winded after a short climb up a small hill. I feel like I can’t go down stairs without the threat of falling down if I’m not holding onto a handrail. I’ve sat in my thinking chair too much during the pandemic. I’m disconnected from my body.

But I’m not here to berate myself or regret bad choices, because that is just a barrier to doing something about it. I can commit to continuous improvement and still love myself unconditionally as I am right now. I don’t need Louise Clifton’s poem about hips to make me feel better about having gone up a size during COVID. I don’t need to joke my way out of recognizing that I want to be healthier. As a friend said to me recently, “we would like to have you here for longer;” I also want that.

I didn’t want to get up on stage at Life is a Verb Camp being this heavy and disconnected. I dreaded it. And yet I did, and I lived. And no one cared what I looked like–that’s the kind of community it is. I saw that willingness to be fully seen as the first step. What do I need to continue the journey?

What I do need is a one-day-at-a-time mentality. What I do need is one or two commitments—that’s all. Nothing complicated. Just one simple commitment—to move my body every day. And to get back to daily yoga, even if for a short time each day. That second one is actually my top priority because it will spark everything else: exercise, eating more healthily. I have created a plan that is flexible, with goals that are just experiments. Don’t wish me luck. Join me.

How does my Choice Points Model apply to something like this?

My yearning is to be healthier. My intention is no longer to “not become my mother,” but it is now a positive intention: “I want to live the healthiest life I can for as long as I can.” My obstacles (right now) are sugar and Noosa vanilla bean yogurt (which might be another word for sugar, but certainly contains dairy, which I am not to eat). Stress might be another obstacle, because I’m an emotional eater. Mad, happy, calm, stressed, celebrating, mourning–all are addressed with food. If recognition is the first step, I’m there and have been for many years. But what is the magic switch that turns it on sometimes and not at other times?

If I can follow the right-hand path on this choice points model, my chances of success are much higher. I can embrace where I am now, rather than resist it, which will only give it more power. I can either judge myself or learn from past mistakes and successes, but I cannot judge and learn at the same time, so I must choose. One side of the path brings me to a place where I am investing in the obstacles rather than in what I want to create. The other side of the path offers grace and leads me to reinvest in my yearning, not in my obstacles.

And so, the journey begins. I’ll see you in 365 days! (With some updates along the way, no doubt).