Progress Not Perfection!

This morning whilst making my bed I realised that I can not even remember the last time I slept in bed past 8.30am.  Then came the revelation, I didn't care!  Not in a sulky kind of 'nobody loves me' I don't care kind of way but in the 'I don't mind in the slighest'.

What a change this is!  I often used to hanker after the long lie-in.  Dh can still be found in bed at 10am on a Sunday and many a time I wondered why he got all the luck.  Then more recently I have started to think about life differently.  Should I really be feeling hard done by when my life in general is completely blessed. Do I want to trade places with dh?  Do I have a desire to work 5 long days including every Saturday and have the weight of knowing that I have the main job which pays the mortgage - hell no! (as Gok Wan would say).

So today I am very thankful for the progress I am making in recovery and overwhelmed with the gratitude and love for the people I have found at my fellowship.  I may still be fat on the outside but inside I am feeling more sane and recovering day by day.  As the 12 step program says it is progress and not perfection that is our aim. Today I am OK, I feel good about myself.

Don't you think progress not perfection is just the best slogan? It is so easy to beat yourself up and label yourself a failure when actually if you are trying hard and making tiny steps then this is plenty.

May you all be blessed today, thanks for stopping by  Leave me a comment and spread the love. I promise to come visit you all.

Mich x

I am joining in with a couple of blog hops today -

 
 

I Don't Know If I Am Ready Yet....

For days now I have not felt as if I could blog. On the one hand I really want to blog and have so many things I want to say, I keep noting topics and post titles on a pad by the side of my bed, but on the other hand I have been in work extra days this week and been really busy. I have got loads done around the house and am therefore knackered. More than that though I just have this awful feeling in the pit my stomach, you know that horrible butterfly/ sinking feeling you get when something is troubling you.

I think my 'something' is to do with my eating issues, weight and general health.

A couple of weeks ago I woke up and thought 'Who am I?' and my first reaction (which they often say is the most honest one) was that I am a fat pig. Isn't that sad that I am allowing my body to define me? I feel as if I have gone off the rails at the moment. I am not interested in going to my eating disorder group, I do not want to talk to any of my friends in recovery, I do not care what food I am putting in my body, I have put on weight and I feel that I look yuck but I am not in the right place to do anything about it at the moment. I do not feel ready. I feel scared to expose myself and to let myself lose the weight and perhaps this will mean that I will lose my hiding place. Boy am I being honest with myself in this post.

I know it sounds crazy, but aren't many things. I think some of this comes down to the miscarriage I had earlier this year. The other night (you know the night I hardly slept before my paddy at work) I was chatting with dh in bed and got all upset and could not stop myself crying. I said to him I feel as if I am hiding in my fat. Just not ready to emerge yet and to deal with the scary big world. By having my extra weight I have a big tummy and this tummy could easily look pregnant to the untrained eye and I think secretly I like this. I think a woman's pregnant body is very beautiful, whereas I think fat is very, very ugly. I do fairly often think to myself what stage of pregnancy I would of been at now if I had not lost my babe. I would of been a good 7 months pregnant now and whilst I truly think it is for the best that we will not have any more kids I think this could be the grief catching up with me a few months later. Everyone did say how well I coped at the time. I am hoping by putting all this down in writing it will help me move forward and be ready to sort myself out. It is no good ignoring issues and hoping they go away, because they do not.

I wonder if people will read this post and think I am ga ga (and not as in Lady - just plain nuts) or if some will understand that many emotions, thoughts and feelings are not sane and do not have good reason behind them. Trying to be real and honest with yourself is a really scary thing I am discovering......but is so essential if I am ever to be fully well.

Perhaps this is me on my recovery journey, taking another step towards really being able to say yes I have completed Step 1 - that I am powerless over food, that my life has become unmanageable!

I feel better just having written this post, that horrible feeling is not there right now and at this precise moment I believe all will be well with God's help. I just need to remember to give up my will and allow God to work in my life instead of my trying to control everything.

A big thank you to all those who support me both in real life and my virtual friends.

This week Josie pressed us all to write about 'Change' as part of her writing workshop. She left the prompt open and as such my offering is a self-indulgent one. If you want to read some other entries from people who are trying to press for change in the third world then visit Josie's blog and have a read.

Tomorrow...

Tomorrow is a new day, I am looking forward to tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will live in the day and savour the moment

Tomorrow I will not yearn after things I do not have

Tomorrow I hope the sun will shine

Tomorrow I do not have to get up for work

Tomorrow I will laze in my PJ's and enjoy a snuggle in bed with my little ladies

Tomorrow I am a lucky Mummy as I get to spend a whole day with my girls

Tomorrow holds a fun picnic and playdate with good friends

Tomorrow's dinner is already prepared

Tomorrow I go to my ED meeting in the evening and get to spend time with people who 100% accept and love me

Tomorrow is 1 day away from Friday when my Dad is coming up to finish decorating the new playroom

Tomorrow is only 2 days away from my girls weekend to Birmingham (a make over, meal out, dancing at Flares, sleeping out with the girls and time to be Mich)

Tomorrow is 3 days from my birthday

Tomorrow is unknown and I am looking forward to exploring it .......

What does your tomorrow hold?

Can't See The Wood For The Trees

That is where I have realised my life is right now. How sad is that? I always pride myself on being a glass is 'half full' person and actually I think that is just the image I want to portray and the feelings I would like to have but the reality must be that my glass is 'half empty'.

I seem to be stuck in the rut of spotting all the tiny negative things in life and not appreciating the bigger picture. The big picture is that I am a very lucky lady - I believe in a God who loves, provides and forgives, I have a fab husband who loves me and the kids, 3 healthy and energetic kids, OK paid job with excellent hours that suit my family life, wonderful family, great friends, nice house that we are on the way to owning, a garage conversion being done so we have more space, good Church yada yada yada....

What do I possibly have to get me down? Not a lot, but often I just find myself getting caught up in the small stuff. Have you ever read any of the books by Richard Carlson 'Don't sweat the small stuff'? He is excellent, his books make so much sense. I need to get my copies out and re-read them. They are the kind of positive life books that really inspire me to be grateful and to live my life to the fullest. What is it that they say - Yesterday has gone, tomorrow is unknown, today is a treasure that is why it is the called the Present!

Here is an example of the crap small stuff that I allow to drag me down. Below is a picture of my car (ignore the funny sun and shade spots in the photo). What do you see when you look at it? An OK car? dodgy pink sun screens on the back windows? rubbish parking? What ever it is, I expect it is not the same as me. I see scratches and a small dent in the drivers door that JJ did about a year ago. We do not have the money to get it fixed or to buy a new car and looking at this photo I can see that it really is not a problem anyway. I just need to get over myself.



So here I am yet again laying my flaws out in the open and baring myself. I find writing so therapeutic and sharing stuff means that it is out there and I have to deal with it. My commitment to myself is that I will not sweat the small stuff anymore, well not for today at least!

Anyone else like me? Do you allow yourself to get drawn into things that really your logic tells you there is no need to worry about but your heart/ emotions just draw you in? Bare all here and make a commitment that by putting it down on paper it will have no power over you any longer and you too will not sweat the small stuff.

A few good days

I am feeling pretty happy right now. I have had a couple of really good days. I met a friend in recovery on Thursday and that has been such a great help to me. Thursday and Friday I did what my meetings term as 301 - 3 meals a day, nothing in between and taking 1 day at a time. My food sponsor is also such an inspiration to me, giving me such invaluable advice and coaching each day. I think that is wonderful that someone is willing to give me 10 minutes every day to help me along the road to recovery. One day I will be able to offer that help to someone else and that is why this program of fellowship works. Have you seen the film 'pay it forward'? No, you should it is such a feel good film and if everyone worked that system in real life we would have no problems. Such an idealist! lol

The new meeting I have been going to the last few weeks also has lady there who could be a potential sponsor. I need to have a chat with her and take things as they come. I have accepted that God was obviously shutting the door to the treatment centre that I called. There must be other people who need it more........ but that is OK as I am doing fine right now and all I have to focus on is today. It is when I start to project and worry ahead that things go tits up!