Love is the Absence of Judgment - The Dalai Lama (and letting go of what I think about my weight)

At this point in time, I have the most self acceptance that I've ever had in my life.  I feel more comfortable in my own skin than I ever have.   (And that skin now has a lot of scars.)   I know that I can take up space and not apologize for it.   People pleasing is falling by the wayside.  I have begun having a voice.  I actually know what a boundary is and I use them and feel not as much guilt.  My spiritual core is blossoming and I feel closer to a loving higher power than ever before.  I see how the universe responds to my openness and love, as opposed to the fear and anxiety that I constantly lived in before.

And yet I'm the heaviest I've been except for pregnancies.  My inner judge (which I'm trying to annihilate) thinks if I'm doing all this inner work my outside body should show it.

Sigh.

I guess then it is time for Extreme self acceptance.  And how does that work?

I had a moment where I remarkably realized that I weigh probably ten more pounds than what I did when I showed up for therapy five years ago to lose weight(!).  I can't even fathom how much time I have spent belittling, judging and smacking myself down over twenty pounds?  (I don't know what my natural weight is which is the goal of intuitive eating.)

I'm tired of doing this to myself.  I'm so very tired of this.

The last two days, I have been more aware of my body image and it was of a negative fashion.  I have learned that this negativity will ebb and flow.  I no longer think of going on a diet when this occurs.  I can usually stop the negative thought progression but when I'm in a deeper funk, I just have to sit with it and let it pass.

I do remind myself that I am not my weight.  And tell myself that my self acceptance does not rely on my body size. And I breathe.  I practice deep breathing because that is the only thing I can think to do in the moment when the thoughts and feelings are spiraling.

And breathing is our connection to God.

And there really is no reasoning with these thoughts.

And we can change those thoughts.

Again, I have to say that THERE IS NO REASONING WITH THESE THOUGHTS and I now know they will pass.  I have found that I have been experiencing more feelings of all kinds lately.  I experience a range from deep joy to pain and despair.  I know that I shut down and blocked my feelings after the experiences of infertility and the deep pain of postpartum depression.  After that is when I really started to eat my feelings.  My compulsion truly kicked in.  And now I have learned so much of my core story and what I tell myself.  And what I never wanted to look at.  But I'm looking at it now truthfully, honestly and painfully.

At the core, I felt abandoned and alone.  That was heightened immeasurably when I felt so alone taking care of a newborn and not knowing how to do it and the incessant crying (the baby and me!!)  and every thought I had was an anxious one.

And that core of aloneness, also lead to my core belief that I'm not good enough.

But now, I do not feel that way anymore.  It's still there but not to the same degree.  Yes, at the core, we are all alone.  I have learned that my higher power is so much more loving than I ever could fathom.  And I feel more comfortable saying higher power than Jesus or God, because the old God came with so much judgement and self-recrimination that I have to use different language now.

I still try to reason with the thoughts and this is going to take time to let go of.  It's all about acceptance as is.  Acceptance of the moment.  Acceptance of life as is.  Acceptance of those around me.

I came across this picture and statement and it says everything that I need to know about my weight.   I am learning to love myself, as is, and as that is occurring, I judge myself less and less.