HAES – Struggle Bus Confessions

22 Ways I Grew in ’22

1. I learned the difference between reacting and responding.

…and every day since has been a practice in choosing to pause, breathe, and respond. In creating that space, I give myself the freedom to choose how I show up, rather than letting my triggers dictate my direction.

2. I found joy exploring my spirituality.

Religion and spirituality aren’t synonyms, which was news to me. I found peace and purpose exploring my spirituality through discerning adult eyes. In abandoning the intolerant and sexist religious doctrine of my childhood and embracing a god of unconditional love and infinite grace, I’ve found healing.

3. I experienced true body neutrality.

Breaking up with diet culture started before 2022 for me, but this was the year I spent an entire 365 days enjoying the freedom that comes with accepting my body exactly as it is. I dress my body in a way that feels right and comfortable, and I feed myself when I’m hungry.

4. I practiced being the watcher of my thoughts and feelings.

I am not my loneliness, my guilt, my anger. I am the one watching a part of me that feels lonely, guilty, angry. And as the watcher, I can validate that feeling, practice non-judgement, and show compassion to that part of myself without letting it become me. Much easier in theory than practice. Right now, reaching this level of consciousness requires solitude and silence in my closet. Maybe someday, I’ll be skillful enough to carry this practice into the rest of my day.

5. I discovered Internal Family Systems.

… and found power in isolating warring parts of myself to identify triggers and survival coping mechanisms that kept me safe as a kid but are no longer serving me as an adult.

6. I boundaried up.

A lack of boundaries had me accepting responsibility for everybody else’s emotional states and needs while leaving me completely blind to my own. I read the books, practiced the scripts, messed up, and tried again. I’m still terrified of being rejected every time I have to set a boundary and have the hard conversation, but I’m pushing myself to do it anyways.

7. I faced my codependent tendencies.

…and found peace in accepting the reality that all I have control over in this whole world are my thoughts and actions. I release responsibility for anybody else’s happiness and healing and accept full responsibility for my own. Chronic daily guilt over what I did/didn’t do/should have done is dwindling as I work through this.

8. I parented in a way I’m proud of.

Well, mostly. I still have my moments. But this year I started practicing repair when I mess up and putting the kid before the behavior. My wildest hope is that my boys grow to be their truest, most beautiful selves. My greatest privilege is watching them learn who that is.

9. I challenged injustice when I saw it.

Following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, I heard the term “performative ally” for the first time. I had to sit with the yuck that good intentions can make for sh*tty allies, and there was some room for me to learn and grow in my allyship. For too long, I let fear of conflict keep me silent. I hold myself accountable to using my privilege and voice when encountering biased language and behaviors. And when I mess up, I commit to educating myself and others . As poet Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

10. I explored nature.

Joy is moonlight fractured through ice-tipped tree branches and the first warm spring breeze on bare legs. I discovered getting outside is one of my most potent, underutilized coping mechanisms.

11. I (we) broke a marital cycle.

My partner and I tackled the most toxic of our communication patterns this year. For years, we’ve known better. Now, we’re actually doing better. (Baby, there is nobody I would rather forge new neural pathways with than you. These days, I’m proud of the marriage we are modeling for our kids. We’ve got this.)

12. I rethought my relationship with alcohol.

I set some self boundaries around excessive alcohol consumption after I spent my 31st birthday on the floor of a bar bathroom, forehead cooling on the toilet bowl. I commit to continue being reflective and intentional when I engage with alcohol.

13. I aired out some shame skeletons.

Author and researcher Brené Brown writes, “Shame cannot survive being spoken. It cannot tolerate having words wrapped around it. What it craves is secrecy, silence, and judgment. If we speak shame, it begins to wither.” There are plenty more skeletons lurking in my closet, but the few I’ve let out left it feeling much less haunted in there.

14. I firmed up my values.

The two values I turn to when making difficult decisions are courage and growth. I’m trying to get better at pivoting quickly when I realize I’m out of alignment with these.

15. I gossiped less.

I fundamentally believe people are doing the best they can with the resources they have at the time. And I just want to move through the world embodying that way more than I am right now.

16. I dreamed seriously.

This year, I let myself want: to write. to heal. to exhale.

17. I saw other successful women as inspiration, not competition.

Prior to 2022, my ego couldn’t handle reading authors like Glennon Doyle, Liz Gilbert, and Martha Beck. I would have been crippled with envy over the successful writing careers they built by living reflective lives and writing vulnerably. These women are now my soul teachers who’ve given me the keys to set myself free in order to imagine my most fulfilling life and to pursue it relentlessly.

18. I chameleoned less.

My gift and curse is the ability to transform into whatever version of myself feels most advantageous in any given circumstance. It happens almost instinctively. This survival mechanism, coupled with people-pleasing tendencies, left me a total codependent mess with a convoluted sense of self. It may have served me as a child moving every 3-4 years from one military base to the next, desperate to belong. But as an adult, not so much. I know what it takes to be liked by a roomful of people. But it leaves me not liking me very much.

19. I started practicing mindfulness.

For years, I’ve heard of the profound impact simple behaviors like breathing, walking, journaling, stretching, and meditating can have on a person’s life when done regularly and with intention. I wasn’t nearly as regular or intentional as I hoped, but I started.

20. I flossed regularly.

(For real this time – not just my annual hack job the night before my appointment. I promise, Dr. Whilm!)

21. I carved out this little corner of the internet.

And in doing so, I built a place to heal out loud, to find my voice, to take my dreams seriously.

22. I learned I still have a lot to learn.

I would love to tie all of this up in a pretty little bow and say I’m officially all healed, case closed, thanks… ha! But the good news is that unlearning all the things I’m not and remembering who I am underneath all of the cultural conditioning is profoundly meaningful work and actually kind of… fun? I hope to carry this energy into 2023 and stumble through the new year with grace, grit, and integrity.

I am not my mind

I’ve been in many dysfunctional relationships, but none more so than the relationship between my mind and body.

I was the tallest first grader in my class. We lined up on risers in the school courtyard, perspiring and squinting under the midafternoon island sun. I was an awkward giraffe standing between boys in the back row, a full head taller than every other girl in my class. I bent my knees and dropped a few inches right before the camera flashed.

My nickname through second grade was Skinny Minnie. I liked seeing myself as Minnie Mouse – my parents’ cute, adorable sidekick. One day while giggling through multiplication flash cards with my mom, she made an offhand comment that the nickname no longer fit, that I wasn’t so skinny or mini anymore. Even at the age of 7, I knew I lost something shiny. I grieved the loss of my thin privilege.

In third grade, I hated my teeth. With every baby tooth lost, its adult counterpart came in like a crooked, decrepit fence post. My face had zero curb appeal thanks to my teeth. If I caught myself smiling, I closed my lips.

In fifth grade, a classmate made a comment about mouth breathers. I didn’t realize a person could breathe the wrong way, and I was repulsed to discover I was one of them. My inner critic shamed and berated me through entire class periods while I practiced intentionally breathing through my nose, struggling to adjust to less oxygen.

Puberty made every day feel like tiptoeing on thin ice in front of an audience. Naked.

Overnight, my thighs thickened, my breasts budded. Stretch marks spread like a cracked windshield between my thighs, to my calves and hips and breasts. My body stopped feeling safe – my wayward mind equally lost.

In the battle between trusting my body or mind, puberty divided them further. My mind committed numerous sins against my body throughout adolescence and early adulthood.

I verbally abused her. I shamed her and ridiculed her and starved her. I lectured her and patronized her and treated her with general contempt. I traded her away to avoid disappointing others just to end up disappointing myself.

I ignored her, denied her, silenced her, disassociated from her.

One time, I tried to protect her. I said no, but a boy took her anyway. Even while he assaulted her, while I froze on that bed and stared at that wood-paneled ceiling, dust particles dancing in the sunbeam shining through his window, my mind blamed my body for freezing, for not fighting harder.

But my mind was wrong.

My mind was wrong.

My body’s quiet wisdom never deserved to be silenced, her curiosity and calm crushed by my misled mind. She deserved to be honored and cherished.

And even after all these years of betrayal and abuse, she never gave up. She’s still here.

I’m still here.

And every day for the rest of my days, I vow to value and nurture this body who steadfastly endured so much. Never again will my mind gaslight her gentle intuition.

The most profound realization in my healing is that I am not my thoughts.

No, I am strong legs swinging higher, higher and the wind in my hair. I am the belly rush of letting go.

I am closed eyes, a spontaneous smile, cheek to the sun.

I am a beating heart and raised arms on a dance floor. I am music and movement and magic.

I am the nose nuzzled in my boys’ hair, the soft hand they slide theirs into.

I am healing.

I am peace.

I am here.

Weightless: What I lost by ditching the scale

For years, I had a daily ritual. After waking up, I would stumble to the bathroom and scroll through my phone while on the toilet. I would then strip completely naked. I wanted nothing, not even a hair tie or my Fitbit, to count against me while the scale calculated my “progress.” I would then suck in my stomach, hold my breath, and step on. The screen by my toes would flash three times while I nervously waited before my weight, my score, was calculated for the day.

If that number happened to be lower than the day before? I could exhale. I am a badass goddess! I deserve confidence and love! I can’t wait to text my accountability partners! I am strong and unstoppable!

If it were higher? My stomach would sink and that prickly hot shame feeling would wash over me. I’m a failure. I shouldn’t have eaten that tortilla with my taco last night. I haven’t pooped yet, that must be why the number is higher. I’ll have to eat less today if I want to love myself tomorrow.

The scale became my Magic 8 Ball and set the tone for the day. Would I spend my shower singing or beating myself up with complicated calculations of macros and calories? Logically, I knew my weight could fluctuate daily for many reasons, including water retention, hormones, menstrual cycles, and food sensitivities. Illogically, that didn’t matter.

For years, I gave all of my power to that scale, to that number. Looking back, I can see the havoc this destructive, ineffective ritual unleashed on my self worth.

I’ve been on a two year long journey to befriend my body again, and step one was abandoning the scale. For too long, I deluded myself that the information it gave was critical. How am I supposed to know if I’m healthy without a scale? I want to be healthy – healthy means thin, right? (wrong)

I’ve spent years letting external indicators – the scale, BMI, societal standards, the opinion of others – be the gauge of how “good” I am. By unfriending the scale, there was one less juror in the trial determining whether or not I deserved to be comfortable in my skin on any given day.

I knew I made the right decision when several months scale-less, I had a moment of weakness “just to check in.” I stepped on, looked at the number, and it triggered that familiar sinking, prickling, spiral.

Until then, I KNEW I’d been gaining weight and was strangely okay with it for the first time ever. I was buying new clothes a size bigger. I own mirrors. I figured I was healed enough that the number wouldn’t shake me, but it did.

I backslid a bit in my self love journey. I re-downloaded a calorie tracker on my phone. I googled intense training schedules to punish my body for growing. I avoided the mirror that my fat body was finally beginning to befriend.

Thankfully, this was a short detour. I self medicated with quotes from Sonya Renee Taylor’s book on radical self love titled The Body Is Not an Apology. I shaved my legs, exfoliated, took a bath, and painted my toes. The next day, I carefully did my makeup, donned a fierce outfit, and forgave myself for slipping up and forgetting that my worth is not so variable.

It’s been two years since I’ve stepped on a scale and looked down at the number. I have absolutely no idea what I weigh, and that is okay.

Did you know that you’re allowed to ask not to be weighed at doctor’s visits? You have a right to refuse any medical procedure.

Before I declined getting weighed the first time, I obsessed over what to say and how to defend myself. I rehearsed the following phrase over and over in my head in the waiting room:

“I prefer not to step on the scale. Knowing that number triggers unhealthy behaviors and thought patterns for me.”

There ended up being no need to defend myself further, and my request was immediately granted. My prepared monologue about health at every size went wasted.

And when I said the same thing at my employer’s yearly biometric health screening, I was treated with respect and understanding. Increasingly, medical professionals are shifting the focus from weight to health instead, and they understand that health is complicated and nuanced and can’t be defined by a single metric or a person’s appearance.

By banishing the scale, I started to take my power back and began advocating for my strong, fat, beautiful body. And now after years of shame and mistreatment, the fractured relationship with my body is healing. She is no longer my enemy. She’s my ally.