Personal Armour

I've decided this week that I no longer need my personal armour.

That's the flub I carry around on this 5 ft. 3 in. frame that my inner critic believes will keep it safe from 'everyone out there'...at 30-something years old, I've been walking with the wolves 'out there' and am fine. Mostly because, it's not all wolves.

I've spent a long time acquiring and keeping this flub.

I've even had spells of time where I've lost it all. ALL of it. Skeletal me.

It's irrelevant HOW I look to the outside world...people are still drawn to me, I am still drawn to them and relationship's still form. Keeping myself fat isn't going to change any of that, other than the amount of time I'm likely to be able to spend on this earth forging those relationships into life-long magical moments.

I still have sex.

Whether I'm 118 lbs or 180 lbs, and I'm sure (if I were) 280 lbs...although my ability and agility would be compromised at the latter...I'd still be able to be intimate with someone.

SO WHAT THE HELL AM I HOLDING ONTO TO THIS FAT FOR!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?

Underneath my loving, warm, amicable, often seemingly outgoing demeanour...is the little me that believes that if I'm fat then I am safe from the hourds of men and women who'll want a piece of my womanhood. There are a number of myths in this statement:

1. Fat people still get laid.

2. Not everyone I meet wants to have sex with me.

3. Even if they did...that's not really a bad thing...it becomes a bad thing IF they act on it.

4. There is no safety in fat. Only a lifetime of health issues, which include: an overtaxed liver, adrenal stress, onset of diabetes, depression, ill-body smells (fat people smell bad...I've yet to meet one that doesn't), nerve malfunction, inability to move freely, poor self-image and oh so many many more things that decrease the longevity and quality of living.

5. I am woman, whether I'm healthy or unhealthy (which is to say, ideal body weight or overweight) so wanting to be anything OTHER than that is ridiculous. I am a woman whether I'm fat or healthy. Better to be a healthy woman, than an unhealthy woman.

So...this past week, I've made the conscious decision that I don't want, nor do I NEED, my body armour anymore. It protects me from NOTHING. In fact, when I sat down and thought about it fully, clearly, fairly, non-judgmentally but rather matter-of-factily, I realized that I've created this pocket of self-delusion about my weight for almost an entire decade. If not longer.

I've blamed having babies for it. NOW I have the convenience of crapped out thyroid readings, weirdo liver readings, waiting to see an Endocrinologist-doctor-person, and a multitude of other health reasons, to NOT take responsibility for the fat person I've created. And, perhaps I do have a crapped out thyroid...chances are, I've created that problem, as quite frankly, I haven't always had this problem. It's 'crept up' on me, so my kind doctor tells me. Years of not loving myself, is more like it.

Nope...scarfing bread/toast/pasta before bed (because it makes me sleep better...apparently I use it as a sedative, which loads of people do) is a really bad idea. I'm not exactly getting a good workout at 10 pm, am I? Even IF I were to have rambunctious sex with my husband, it still wouldn't burn off enough calories...so, those carbohydrates get stored as flub.

I use carbohydrates as a sedative. My blood sugar spikes and then drastically drops (surprise...ok, not really, I'm hypoglycaemic...like soooo many North Americans.) Ummm, that toast knocks me out at night. It's better than valium. Or so I tell myself. Or have done.

(Meditation is a much healthier way of relaxing.)

This isn't all that surprising given my life history. In fact, this is fairly text-book case scenario.

WHAT I've never wanted is to be a statistic or a text-book case. And since I am...I need to shift that paradigm. And, the choice is MINE to make.

I can choose to feel sorry for myself and carry on looking and feeling the way I do (or getting worse) OR I can choose to get off the damned couch, go for a walk, MEAN IT WHEN I SAY I DO YOGA and damned well DO it daily (rather than once in a while), I can be kind to myself, take rests as I need them, choose foods that don't hurt me and understand the relationship I've had with foods that hurt me, AND I can implement these DOABLE changes in moderation.

So, that's what I've decided this week. And, I happen to be the kind of person that once having decided something, can and does stick to it.

I'm committed to my own well-Being. And that means, I give myself permission to no longer need this armour.

I do not need protecting.

I do not need to continue punishing myself (my body) for allowing it to be raped; for allowing it to be abused; for allowing it to be neglected; for allowing it to be bulimic or bullied for sooo very long; for allowing it to starve, and for allowing it to be hurt, over and over and over. I do not need to exert THIS kind of control.

I am allowed to LOVE me.

I am allowed to be WELL.

I am allowed to be HEALTHY.

I am allowed to be STRONG.

I am allowed to be ME, in all of my imperfect incarnations.

I am allowed to REST.

I am allowed to SAY NO.

I am allowed to GIVE freely.

I am allowed to ENGAGE IN LOVE.

I am allowed to HAVE A VOICE.

I am allowed to HAVE A BLOG, so I can SHARE.

And, I am allowed to FEEL SAFE, as I am.

I am allowed to be me.

May each of you love the YOU that you are. May each of you walk without armour. And, may each of you have no need for it.