Geez, these blog posts keep getting further and further apart! This "Journey to a Healthier Me" has been much different than I thought it would be, taking different paths that were not on my "planned" route. I honestly started this process thinking primarily of changing my physical health by losing weight. I knew that dealing with this food addiction would involve facing my feelings and making changes in my mental and spiritual health, but I thought that I would be able to do that by losing weight. Instead I have learned that the opposite is true. That I need to first change my mental and spiritual health, and that will help me to be able to let go and lose the weight.
This journey has led me to a place that I have been avoiding for a while... therapy! I don't even know exactly why I have avoided therapy. I mean I have my degree in Mental Health Social Work, and whole-heartedly believe in the process... for other people.
One of the reasons I have become so unhealthy in so many areas of my life is because of avoidance. I have avoided feeling any uncomfortable feelings for years now. I have done this by eating to numb feelings. I have done this by avoiding situations where I would feel uncomfortable. By doing so, I have made myself physically unhealthy with too much food, I have let my anxiety and stress snowball out of control, and I have missed out on some great experiences.
I have come to the realization that I can't avoid things anymore. I took a break from blogging, even avoiding blogging, because it started to get uncomfortable to share my feelings. But if I am going to be genuine about this journey and about what it will take to get to the healthier me, I must stop avoiding. So, after a few really bad weeks in a row, I made an appointment with a therapist.
I have been going weekly for about a month now and I can already see changes in myself. At first it made the food thing harder because I was starting to eat again to numb the feelings that were being brought up in my sessions and throughout the weeks. But I have pulled myself back in with that part and learning all over again, that it is easier to maintain an abstinence from overeating than is is to get it back after losing it.
I am learning a lot about myself and about relationships. I am now accepting the fact that I am codependent and that I need to make some major changes in my life. I have to spend much less time consumed with other people's problems, needs, wants and desires and focus on my own. I need to continue to heal and to break these chains that have held me back for so long... Even if it means experiencing and feeling things that make me uncomfortable.
