Body Process

Staying open as I expand into this season I will never forget.

I wrote a post that never got posted in January before we had officially announced our pregnancy, and I think it’s time.

”I’ll write this now, but I’ll share when my heart is ready.

I didn’t think that it would hit me as hard as it did.
And maybe it manifested out of fear of whats really to come.
I am producing a life, and I am so honored and so excited.
So incredibly blessed.

But remnant thought patterns, remnant beliefs were waiting close to latch onto me and create fear.
Create confusion, and urgency.

It was a Sunday morning.
My Sunday mornings are slow and easy and usually spent alone. Usually it’s the best day of the week as there is no agenda.
This particular morning, my baby app asked me to log my weight, which I honestly had been doing, every other week when it asked. That morning, I took the scale out from under the bathroom counter, tapped it with my foot to zero it out, I felt different in my body, so there was an expectation that it would be different than it typically was. Inhale, exhale, step on, 2 pounds heavier.

I felt my heart drop into my stomach.
Not because I was all of a sudden huge, or overweight or any thing that had to do with my physical body. It was my mentality. The old mentality. The old voice in my head that screamed “ITS HAPPENING AGAIN”.

Not a fear to gain weight, but a fear of how I would react in my mind. Fear of how I would navigate the next year of growing, birthing, and then readjusting to my body after what it’s about to endure. And the biggest one,
fear of losing touch with everything I had worked so diligently through surrounding body image.

I haven’t thought twice about the # on the scale in so long.
I’ve always held on to the scale for maintenance purposes, to make sure I wasn’t going extreme one way or another as thats where I came from. I knew a healthy place for me was 5 pounds up or down in a certain place, I knew I was living in balance if it stayed consistent!

I recently posted an entry all about surrender. How it’s not about the fitness goals or details of my fitness routine, but that it’s coming naturally and intuitively, how theres a truly beautiful surrender in it all, listening to my body and taking care without obsession, restriction, etc.
What I have learned about this saga of process with body image is that when you feel, when you struggle, it is vital to your success to share.

So that Sunday morning and into the afternoon, I turmoiled, I sifted, I felt like I was trapped in my mind 10 feet outside of my physical body.
Ryan got home, we ran to grab some groceries, and the heaviness, the weighted mindset was killing me. “I have to tell you about something that I have been thinking through since this morning because it really messed me up and I have to be honest and real and open so it doesn’t manifest again.“
By the time we got home, a few tears were shed, and most importantly, a decision I had never had the guts to make was solidified in my head and heart. Now to take action. “I cant have a scale in the house if I am going to properly take care of our baby.”

Before we even got the groceries unpacked, Ryan walked into the bathroom, grabbed the scale, said “lets go” and we headed to the backyard. The next thing I knew, he put an axe in my hand and said “destroy it”. Without a moment of hesitation, I beat the shit out of that thing.

Relief. Instant relief.
Destroying a piece of plastic that has dictated so much of what I have thought about myself through the years. No matter how good I felt, or how my clothes fit, that thing could rob me of it all within two seconds. To completely destroy it, felt like I was pulling a tumor off of my own brain. “YOU HAVE NO PLACE HERE” I could hear in my head. The trap. The bondage.

I will continue to prevail so that my babies will have a head start, so I can rewire the DNA, I can change the story, and wear my heart on my sleeve as I nurture and guide them.
It has to start NOW. It’s not going to be perfect, but it’s going to be intentional, and where I can find more freedom in life and health and love and wholeness, I will do the work. I will rise above.
Two feet in. “

And almost two months later, here I am.
Still atune with myself. Still having intentional moments of realigning with what is real and important.

I am staying open and I am sharing.
Theres a space where people are like “oh just get over it! you’re growing a baby!! take care! eat for two! give baby what baby wants! don’t think that about yourself! nows not the time to think that”

Telling someone who has been trapped in the grip of an ED to stop, to think outside of it, to not let it affect them,
is like telling someone who struggles with crippling anxiety to just relax.
or telling someone clinically depressed to be happy.
or telling a drug addict to stop using.

OF COURSE, I want to empty my mind of the things that I think and feel as my clothes get tighter and I feel my body changing shape. But it’s not that simple and definitely not that easy.

And what doesn’t live inside of me, but rears its ugly head in those moments of the realization that I am changing, is an old bondage. The weight of the disease.
It’s so heavy and so familiar.

The most beautiful part about it, it’s that I see it in aerial view. It’s not just a surrender to the feelings, the thoughts, the weight of an old “friend” (sabotage), it’s a choice.
I can choose to engage and let myself spin out of control based on what my mind is telling me,

or I can rewrite the story.
I can step back into the MOMENT of whats actually happening! This gift. This blessing. This self awareness of what it actually feels like to feel GREAT in my body. In my skin. Thinking about Her. The sweet babe within, how one day, I have an opportunity to show her the work I have done day in and day out over years to help her love herself unconditionally. Not allowing anything outside of her to dictate the magic she holds within. How beautiful, and lovely, and STRONG a woman’s body is to create life.
It’s not just about quieting my mind, its about CHANGING the dialogue. Stepping outside of the control, and stepping into staying intuitive. Staying grounded in how far I have come. Recognizing the difference between what my mind tries to tell me and what I know to be TRUTH. I will return to Truth. Who God created me to be and what He needs me to share in this world.

Thank you for stopping by, for hearing where I am, and for holding space. Its not about letting GO,

Taryn Toomey says “Make a decision and be done suffering.” It’s all a choice. To observe, realign, and begin again. Bring it into the light and release it.

Again and again and again.

xo