The Beauty in Brilliance

An overexposed picture of from a canola field on Sunday, showing the intense heat we soaked up:

All around me there is a shocking brilliance. It has been spectacularly bright and sunny for the past two days, which has shown me the world in a completely new way. The piercing yellow of the abundant canola fields, the absorbingly blue of the sky and the calming green trees have combined to produce a stunning contrast that you can’t help but smile at. I’m not sure why this is so, why I have so abruptly noticed it, but suddenly, I desperately want to be alive. It suddenly isn’t enough to just have life, I need to live.

I’m out of practice here. I know how to work too many hours, I know to avoid people, but I don’t remember how to go out and enjoy the company of others, be it sitting on a deck, walking in the park, or sitting in the local Ice Cream and Soda Shoppe. Quite simply, I don’t know how to live. Sure, I can survive, but I have recently discovered that this isn’t living. So I’m learning. With a barbeque at a friend’s house, visiting the park with my nieces or just sitting in the sun with a friend, I’m slowly learning what it is to be alive. It’s sometimes messy, sometimes painful, but in the end, rewarding.

This is turning out to be a wonderfully entertaining experience, learning to be alive. I’ve pushed against the boundaries that have so long held my life in place. Learning to let go of my tight structure is turning out to be the hardest thing, so I continue to do all my laundry compulsively on Sunday, even when the sun is calling me outside. But let me tell you, I look forward to the times I get to spend with friends or family, to explore nature and to enjoy summer.

Maybe it’s the increase in vitamin D that I’m getting (see here for the significance in that:), maybe it’s the company of others, maybe it’s the abundance of fresh produce that I have access to or maybe it’s just the pure enjoyment of living, but something is making me happier. I think I will continue to try this “life” thing. I can honestly say, I am seeing beauty in brilliance.

A Challenge... of the "me first" variety

(photo credit to: amazon)

I think this week I learned a lesson on life that has been long in the making... a lesson that has left me solidified that time for myself (or myself in general) should be prioritized.

I have this perpetual fear of being viewed as lazy. So I try as hard as I can to be in constant motion. Literally from 7am (sometimes 8am) until about 1am - 2am I am doing something that is non-negotiable. I do try to squeeze an hour power nap in there, but most of my day is spent driving, at school, at work (on my feet), or doing work that resulted from one of the aforementioned things. I try to start my morning with a half hour walk, but lately that's not even been happening.

I should note that I am not doing it for financial reasons, it is purely out of this drive to be constantly going.  Bottom line? This is NOT healthy, especially since it means I work every day of the week.

I was planning on going into work earlier this week and telling them that I needed one day off each week, however, the same day I was set to do that, I spoke to my father on the 15 minute break we take during my Gender Across Culture class -- he told me that that's what it means to be an adult. Making sacrifices, sucking it up, and moving on. You're capable of doing it, so do it. I thought about it... and he was right that I am capable of doing it... I did it in high school (perhaps to a larger degree in fact), so I can do it now...

I didn't broach the topic at work.

But after I emailed my therapist to indefinitely cancel my appointments (I won't even have that nap-time option available to me come June 16th due to an additional three hours of class each day) it dawned on me that what my father told me could very well be wrong.

Being an adult does not mean making sacrifices and sucking it up, though it can involve those things... It does however mean taking care of yourself - be it by yourself or through knowing when to ask for help when you need it (and of course consequently asking for it). Just because you are capable of doing it, doesn't mean you should either. I was capable of doing a similar thing in high school, but should I have? Absolutely not. I wound up taking the living out of my life. That's not okay.

I'm not saying parents are wrong, I am however saying that parents, like anyone else, make mistakes. Like yourself,  they weren't given a manual of life. They don't know everything... they know what they think worked for them. There's the thing though. You are not your parent or guardian. You are, well, you're you.

Just as you are you. I am myself.. and I am my own expert. If my body is telling me something needs to give, I shouldn't allow my mind to be persuaded that I am wrong. That my body is wrong. My body knows what it needs and since it is my body and I am listening to it (truly listening to it) it can be ascertained that it is correct. And it is correct that I need a break... and no that does not mean I am lazy, it means I'm not a superhero.. that I am human. and that is okay.

As a challenge to myself, until I can straighten out this work situation,  I am going to try to incorporate "me" time into my weekly routine on the days I do have some spare time in the morning - those days where I don't have school in the morning, rather just work at night.

I am going to finally finish that green canopy I've been working on off and on. I'm going to take nice rambling walks. I'm going to relax and sit with myself.

I'm going to take a detour from my planned course and put myself first.


as a challenge to yourself, what can you do for yourself this week or each day? How can you make time for you?

(I credit the term "me first" to Kendra from Voice in Recovery)


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to continue my random self-discovery q/a :

A picture of my night:

 My Thursday night was spent at Anthropologie working. The above was our last window display -- it's a dress made of paper and dropcloth and of course thousands of clothespins that were individually placed/positioned on molded chicken wire -- the clothespin part has since migrated to the board you see behind the cash/wrap. They're in the process of taking the current one down (a wall made entirely of wine corks as part of the "Anthropologie Goes Green" theme), otherwise I would've put up a pic of that

My Happy Place

hi!

I didnt post last week, i was busy moving house. i was living in central Wellington city, the capital city of New Zealand. I have moved one hour north to the Kapiti Coast. I live right by the beach now

It is incredible how much environmental factors influence behaviour and thoughts. I remember when I got married up here, in February 2009 and we stayed at the beach for a week after, I thought to myself that if I lived up here I could be free, peaceful and rid of this disorder. I felt like I was recovered for that week I stayed up here, before going back home to the chaos. Now I live up here and am breathing the sea air and feeling the open space around me. I don't feel trapped and I don't feel like my past is around every corner waiting for me. Obviously moving here didn't magically cure my ED - that is a work in progress, but I do feel the freedom I was longing for all this time.

A few of the reasons I love being here

• the trees out the front are perfect for hanging chimes and sun catchers in
• at night time, when it is a really windy night, I can't always tell if it is the wind or the roaring ocean i can hear
• there are no high-rises here, the sky is so huge I can see blazing sunsets followed by starry nights and giant rising moons
• my view is of Kapiti island and when I see the sky changing colour I can walk down my street to the beach to catch it
• I can walk to therapy without it being considered excessive
• I have a room just for my fairies!
• there are parks with Pukekos all around me
• the soil is sandy and the grass is springy
• people have Norfolk pine trees on their properties and at Christmas time the streets are red with Pohutuhawa trees
• I have a back yard and a front yard with a big wide deck which is always warm and I can't wait to sunbathe on
• there are high fences that make me feel safe
• I can lay down and feel relaxed and peaceful and calm
• Kapiti island is always changing
• some of my oldest friends live around the corner, and I now live right between my two closest friends. So much closer to my sis.
• Stellar has carpet to roll about on and cupboards to hide in
• I can set up and leave out my sewing machine and learn to sew. I can paint and I have a workshop to smash things and make mosaic madness
• there is so much here to explore. I lived in wellington for 25 years, it is time for somewhere new and a quieter more peaceful life

I have loved the ocean and the beach for so long now. I love how huge and vast the ocean is. It puts life into perspective. It puts my problems and my worries and my anxiety into perspective. It is so calming and so ominous and ever changing. It humbles me and inspires me. This is my safe place, my peaceful place, my happy place.

Where is your happy place? Where do you feel safe or peaceful or loved?

xoxo Serra & Stellar

The plunge

"im not sick enough..." "i dont deserve help..."

have you ever said these words? they are words i have heard from perhaps every person i know with an eating disorder... myself included...

but what does it really mean??? i used to not only argue that i was not sick, surely, i had never been put in a hospital with tube feeds... i wasnt emaciated, i didnt look like the other girls... but i also used to use it against myself to fuel my quest. i would compare myself to others in the day programme i was attending. i was jealous of how thin they might have been, or that they were really sick, having been in hospital, having been really close to death, they were really the ill ones not me, therefore i should carry on with the disordered behaviour.

Although I was diagnosed with anorexia, I never lost my period and therefore never 'met the DSM criteria' – which my disorder twisted into meaning I was 'never good enough'. This bothered me for a long time and there was a time not too long ago where I considered 'trying harder' as if to prove some point, to go back downhill so I could check off that box. My therapist asked me 'why would you want to go there again? why would you want to do something you already did? you already had anorexia'

yep. I look at that through healthier eyes and think now that is crazy talk. Not having lost my period doesnt mean I wasnt sick... it just means that my body responded differently to some other peoples. And you know what? I am thankful now for that. My body speaks loud and clear to me now whenever I slip up, too loud to ignore and for the first time in my life I listen to it, I hear it and I respond to it. Feeling hungry means eat, not try harder at restricting. Feeling exhausted means rest, not try harder at exercising. My body has learnt to trust me now, and I am learning to trust it. Im not there completely, but im willing and actively trying and that is good progress.

A major part of this process is giving up the jealousy and the competition. Those twinges I get when I see someone who is thinner than me, or more toned than me, or more whatever my mind is jealous of than me still plague me. Those rose tinted glasses that tease me telling me that it wasnt all hideous, they still find their way out. That drive to do more, do better, do the extreme still infiltrates every area of my life. The hope that somehow ill wake up and weigh less, that even though I eat well and am at my set point ill somehow lose weight, that is a daily affair. These are the things I need to let go of. Physically I am healthy and well and I no longer act on my disordered thoughts and I have given up virtually all of my disordered behaviour. The plunge I need to take now is in letting go of the mental aspects of my disorder

there are so many metaphorical shackles and chains in my past, but my future is unwritten... why on earth would I want to sabotage that. I used to be afraid of the future... afraid of failing, afraid that the future would continue to be just as hard as life had been thus far, but now I look at things far more optimistically and with an open mind. Maybe the future will be awesome, maybe it will be awful, but I cant find out if I dont take the plunge to get well...

it is time to hold my breath and jump. who knows, maybe i will fly free? if not, at least i can swim and try again...

xoxo serra