Showing up in the Dark

College Girl is quite busy with theater projects right now. I think I am only seeing her dressed in black right now.  You see when they are working backstage (and she does on every show it seems) you must wear all black from head to toe.  That way you can not be seen when your scurrying around by the audience.  Well I was happy to send her to practice with a new black shirt.  And this one not only will make her show up (well it is only practice) but also helps a wonderful cause.

The black Halo shirt glows in the dark.  Yes the blue Halo shows up and it can give us hope like a halo is intended to do.  This shirt was made with the Little Lamb Kidz site in collaboration with Smile Train.  You have heard of Smile Train right?  That is a wonderful non-profit group that is working so hard to correct cleft lips and palates in children in 3rd world countries.  Well the 10% of the sale of the Halo shirt adds to this cause. 

I know that College Girl has had fun showing up where she is not quiet invisible backstage.  It has garnered some smiles from her fellow teckies during play practice.  But on opening night she will be back to her original blacks.  I do wish to thank Little Lamb Kidz for sending us a shirt.  And for telling us of ways to help others too.  

I Can Not Take Anymore Tonight

This is the one place I promised myself to be honest at. And it is hard to be this honest with you or myself. If you do not suffer and I do mean suffer from depression and mental illness this wi

Image by Yuliya Libkina via Flickr

ll not make any sense or sound right in any way. If you do...you understand you can not not matter how hard you try to make things right that things do not work that way for you.

How do I get this out for what I feel and what is understandable. I am not sure.

It is more strain then most understand for me to turn from someone I love and have trusted. To willingly break ties and know I am doing the right thing. But...to at the same time hate myself for it. You see I have told myself (and I don't know why to be sure) that I can only be mad at me. All others I am to forgive and make any sacrifice to have all calm and happy with the world around them. Ok, this is not logical....I got that....I am just say the way I am.

Anytime I let go and especially if I feel good about me...then the dread, darkness and the deep despair of myself comes in. Only then can I get myself together. You see, why, oh I don't know and do not want to point fingers either. I feel such guilt when I feel good. And if I feel good and let go of others peoples issues at the same time is almost a certain time bomb. Tonight it has gone off. I am screaming inside myself that I hate me....and that in doing so I can be ok. How stupid is that? Dumb. But it is what holds me together. My own hate keeps me sane. Is there a logic to that.

Otherwise the guilt of feeling good...feeling ok...Lord forbid I actually like me lil on love myself come into play that the overwhelming guilt and all hits. I cry. Dry my dear hubby nuts. Wanna die. (no I know better but does not change feelings) Is there anyway I can explain the overwhelming desire to not be here anymore to anyone? It is so much and feels so large that I do not know how to escape. All I have ever learned is to start getting really mad at me.

Yell inside...I am fat...ugly....no go....not worth loving.....and repeat it over and over until I am so filled with self loathing that I believe I am not worth much. Only then can I breath, stop crying and feel like I can have some kind of control.

BTW--why this today? I let go of someone who did my friend morally wrong. And bit my tongue and did not say a word about it. I suffered also while someone else today maligned my family who is blind and threw us out of their establishment for having a service dog or so they say. I still feel it is more of the fact that it was two men who love each other and are raising a child of a different ethnic race. I had to go and have a second mammogram done today to see if there is something wrong with my breast and of course they do not tell you if they found anything. I taken in all of my self respect and let someone else feel good about their bad deeds even though I hated it because I knew me getting mad would not make it any better. What else? I did all of this on 4 hours sleep and after putting together an event for 100 people single handed.

So yes I see where it all stems from....I just do not know how to make it better.

The Method that Works

I have been working on losing weight for 9 months now. And it is hard....very hard. Now I can handle the exercise I am doing. Actually ready to add more of it on. Diets are something I can do but not loving. Not too hard to cut out somethings but miss others. Most of all I suck at control. It is so hard to feel that I have to always be in control of everything I do. And my weight loss is showing that I am wearing down. Getting really tired and want to revive myself so I do not lose momentum. So I was happy to read The Anderson Method. This is not a diet book. This is not a book of exercise. This is a book that works as a companion to your weight loss. William Anderson a Licensed Mental Health Counselor shares with us how to reprogram addictive habits. And eating is a necessary habit yet quite addictive at that. William Anderson lost 140 pounds (wow!) and has kept it off for over two decades now. He shares from experience and from what he has learned in years of counseling others.

In reading this book I have found ways to gain control over habits and compulsions. What sets up craving. And how to change what we crave. Also ways to adopt new habits and to stop using food for pleasure and comfort which is something I have always done.
Now I am better at conscious eating and planning ahead. Stop using DIETS and work at having a lifestyle change and stop buying those goodies that are not good for me.
I am learning to use tools for a better self image. It is has been hard for me to see the changes in my body even though everyone else sees them. With the Anderson Method I am working on written goals and self talk. I am also learning aversive conditioning which I think will help me focus on what I am doing better. Many overweight people have tried all other diets, fads and programs only to fail. But using this method of reprogramming their thought process they have won and learned the secret to permanent weight loss.

Traveling in Life

What happened in your life yesterday? The day before? How about last week? Well, since we blog I bet we have a decent idea of the highlights. Now tell me about last year? How about 10 years ago? When you was seven? Can't be too sure can we. Our lives are made up of millions of events, billions of little things and an unknown number of who knows what. Right!
Donald Miller wrote a book titled "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years". It is a great lil ride as one man tries to catch up with all those lil memories. Finding out it is not what we remember but what we make of our lives. I had such fun reading this and thought you may want to share in some of this story. Pop over here and you will see the book cover and start reading the story for yourself.
Meanwhile let me fill you in without giving away an ounce of this tale. Here is what another description of "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" says:

Full of beautiful, heart-wrenching, and hilarious stories, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years details one man's opportunity to edit his life as if he were a character in a movie.

Years after writing a best-selling memoir, Donald Miller went into a funk and spent months sleeping in and avoiding his publisher. One story had ended, and Don was unsure how to start another.

But he gets rescued by two movie producers who want to make a movie based on his memoir. When they start fictionalizing Don's life for film--changing a meandering memoir into a structured narrative--the real-life Don starts a journey to edit his actual life into a better story. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years details that journey and challenges readers to reconsider what they strive for in life. It shows how to get a second chance at life the first time around.

Now I could not start to think of how I would actually edit my life. I mean we all take time to look at our lives and see what we have done. Plan on where we wish to be and think of how we are going to get there. But how often do we actually get out there and make those active changes. Okay, I am currently doing that in "reinventing" myself with better habits and weight loss. And it feels great but is lots of active work. Maybe that is what scares us the most. Actively working to change or become more? But we do not have to be scared. As Don reminds us, this is not a journey we do on our own. We have help. God is always with us. Walking in our steps, guiding us when we remember to follow and giving us encouragement. Sometimes we have to stop and plan, but when we do we can always focus on what changes we need and wish to make. And know we will have a great partner in that change.

From Fat to Fit Give Away!

I reviewed the book From Fat to Fit recently and loved it. It has a great story of how we can all take off a few or a lot of pounds when we put our mind to it. You might also enjoy Carole's story. She has documented her weight loss and how she achieved it in a weekly diary form. Carole shares how she lost 41 lbs and 66 " in just 4 months all at the age of 59. Yes, as a senior citizen (we all are getting there) Carole made some life changes and came out all the better for it. She then shared this with others in her community, then wider in the state and finally nationwide. She even host an AARP site of Fat2Fit. I know that there is a host of stories of how others have also made the wonderful changes by accepting their own personal challenges. And I also joined the AARP web site to be part of the Fat2Fit group there too. Luckily I won an extra copy of the book From Fat to Fit by Carole Carson. And I would like to share the book with you. So I am going to give it away.

Easy to win!
Just comment that you too want to get a jump on losing weight or getting fit. Make sure I have your email somehow to contact you and your in.
Now if you want extra turns to win then do a few more lil tricks.
You can twitter about this give away and book and put the links on my comments.
Or you can put it on your facebook page with a link on my comments.
I will go along with notices you are a follower, have my button or even sharing my giveaway with others on your blog.

You know what? I will even give you an extra chance to win if you just tell me too on my comments. How easy is that.

So if you wish to jump right in, find some helpful advice in losing weight and win a free book----then comment!

Learning I am Innately Good

I remember being told that I was fat as a child.

My brothers and sister were not fat.
They were skinny as a matter of fact.

But I was fat. As a matter of fact I am fat.

Do you remember something like that.
Something that as a child struck at your very core and you never shook it?
I think we all do about something.

Well how do we ever shake that off.
Ok, I am overweight now. And I am working my tail feathers to take take the weight off finally.
But I do not see weight loss (yes it is there 30+ lbs of it).
In the mirror I still see . . .

that I am a fat child!

We are all "Innately Good" and that is just what Jan Denise is sharing with us in her book. She

Cover via Amazon

helps us see it is a myth that we are not good enough. Weather it is our body image, our self confidence or just that overwhelming desire to be the best, many of us struggle to be better!
And this often starts as young children. But we can break free and learn how to counter negative messages from others. How we can take risk and stand up for ourselves. How to be a better parent and not pass on these negative beliefs.

So I am learning that I am
Overweight
not
Fat.
And you know what else?
I am not always going to be either!

From Fat to Fit

Well today was weigh in day for me at Curves. I am still on the down side which is good. But I want to make a bigger change. Feel I am not doing enough. And I am not. It shows a 6.5 lbs lost and 3" lost in the last month. And I know a pound a week is good for a slow steady weight loss. How do I get past the feeling I should be really working so much harder? I am sure this is something that happens to all of us. What do you do to get past the blah....I am not doing....or the "I should try more/harder/longer/something" times?

I then shook myself and said time to buck up girl. Remember what all you have done and the things you have learned? I grabbed the book I have been reading. "From Fat to Fit" by Carole Carson. She has helped me with the positive message that we all can change by doing the right things one day at a time. And beating ourselves up is not going to help us.
So I popped back over to Part 4 of her book Proliferating Weapons of Mass Reduction. I love this saying! Here I was able to revive some tips and positive ideas. I also like the 56 discoveries about eating and cooking she added.

You might also enjoy Carole's story. She has documented her weight loss and how she achieved it in a weekly diary form. Carole shares how she lost 41 lbs and 66 " in just 4 months all at the age of 59. Yes, as a senior citizen (we all are getting there) Carole made some life changes and came out all the better for it. She then shared this with others in her community, then wider in the state and finally nationwide. She even host an AARP site of Fat2Fit. I know that there is a host of stories of how others have also made the wonderful changes by accepting their own personal challenges.

Well, if she can do it then I know I can too. Along with the many other stories I have been sharing online. I need to pull up my boot straps. Drop the whip and just go for a walk. Bet I will feel better for it in the end.