Conversations…My Dragon & I

“Don’t fight your demons. Your demons are here to teach you lessons. Sit down with your demons and have a drink and a chat and learn their names and talk about the burns on their fingers and scratches on their ankles. Some of them are very nice.”

Charles Bukowski

Making peace with one’s self is so much easier than making war…well, maybe not easier but less bloody…Incredibly adverse to the hatred that it takes to kill something…even the thought of killing something within myself was abhorrent…

So how to reframe it all… losing weight…which is letting all the trapped trauma go…self-sabotaging…self-hatred…to lose weight without limited massive willpower… and keep it off means changing something deep within myself…so here I am taking the time to talk to my big personal dragon of self-sabotage…why does he decide to burn down every attempt to cross this mountain…

My Protector and I

It made no sense when I was so confident that this was the time… Determination was at an optimum level…I was going to conquer the mountain of weight loss come hell or high water…becoming healthier, more confident, and happier…and then I quit…BLOP…sat right now and quit…doing the same thing over and over gets exhausting…

During introspection, I realized that I had been in a situation that triggered all of my fears of being “not safe”…being “pretty” when I was younger brought attention that was dangerous and hurtful…the fear (Fear is a powerful, deeply wired reaction that is designed to keep us safe from perceived threats) of being taken advantage of again caused the “inner child” to freak out again…huge anxiety…

There are several reasons (smaller dragons) that have caused me to sabotage my weight loss…feeding worry and anxiety… a way to soothe, rewarding myself and suppressing feelings…but the biggest one is fear in all its incredible glorious form…

Recognizing it is the first step…the fear is irrational…I am in a safe place with a man that loves me for who I am… understands and is supportive of where I’m at…acknowledgement has been a good beginning…I have started talking with a therapist and we’ll see where that leads and if it is helpful…

The trauma of when I was younger apparently was horrible enough that my self-protection has blocked my memory of most of my life between the ages of 5 and 18…our brains are such beautiful… I don’t know if I even need to remember or if I ever will…and that’s ok…I have forgiven and I am no longer a victim…my focus is staying mindful and being in the moment…”sucking the juice out of every moment that I am blessed with”…

Now it is taking one step at a time…loving myself and the dragon that I live with seems to be a smart step right now…gently acknowledging the fear and learning to love myself…

Daily self-love is being gentle with myself…focusing on doing at least one productive thing per day that I can do towards my goal…living the fact that being healthy makes me less vulnerable, not more…

Helpful Book-The Mountain

This week I have been Intermittent Fasting 16/8…it’s easy and I enjoy the feeling of not being weighed down with food or worrying about what to eat…even though there are periods of hunger…I have made an appointment with my nutritionist for Friday…I will meet with her once a week for support…

Making friends with my dragon so we can learn to fly together …my dragon and I

Much love, laughter, and magic for your day❣

Day 216…Journey to Forgiveness

Saying Good-bye…

And in the end…he loved
February 16, 1931 – February 24, 2020

…May his heart now rest in peace…and may mine also

My Father’s Family

…quite a handsome young man that looks very happy in this photo…but as I look at this photo, I remember the frequent times that he voiced that he blamed his Mother for all the anger that he felt toward’s women…and I felt the brunt of that anger as the eldest…both emotionally and physically…and more that my mind has ever would allow me to remember…

“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.”
― Oprah Winfrey

The year that I was about 9 years old…with a family that he needed to feed and only a seasonal sawmill job…plus the promise of religious fulfillment…he put his wife…all four of his children, our German Shepherd Sheba… in a beat-up jalopy with a huge hole in the back floorboard…and with $50.00 left for Jeffersonville, Indiana…

…and there my life in the religious cult started…the abuse became more profuse there…he was either fervently and brutally religious or demonically violent…the pain traumatizing each cell in my body…until the only way to survive as not be inside of my body… in anguish and agonizing a-loneness…bleeding in my child’s soul…

…my mother was the perfect example of grace and beauty…inside and out…even in the place of her own pain..for once I had wanted to see if she remembered what had happened in a place that we had lived in Wisconsin…to this day, I don’t remember anything about that time…yet when I asked her about it…she replied that it was too painful to remember…

….Smiling on the Outside

After the age of 18…for many years I didn’t see or have much to do with my Father or any of my family…and life moved on…time moved on…as I had my own family and dealt with another abusive relationship with a cheating husband…

After finding out that my husband had an affair with my sister…all my Father could say was that… it was my fault…for I had not been a good enough wife…and the abuse was still agonizing…

Yet over the years…I realized that I did not want to continue to feel the pain and live a life less than…to continue moving forward and through was by forgiveness…forgiveness and healing is never a one-time process and it took many years of therapy…prayer…and every book that I could find…step by step…small slow steps…backwards…then forward again…day by day…year by year…the healing slowly and gradually covered the open wounds of my heart…soul…and mind…

…when I came back to Indiana in 2013…it was different now when I saw him…he was physically frail…and he was changed…altered somehow…he often talked about how sorry that he was that he was not a better father…and asked for forgiveness…on more than one occasion…with tears in his voice…not for any specific occurrence…but for a lifetime of hurting his children…

Another layer of forgiveness…I knew in my heart that I would probably never have the chance to see him again once I left for South Africa…I spent as much time with him as I could…loving him and letting him know that I forgave him…so he could have some peace…and I could also…

“Forgiveness is not a feeling: it is a commitment. It is a choice to show mercy, not to hold the offense against the offender. Forgiveness is the expression of love.” ~Gary Chapman

In my life I found that…most of the world contains good people that do the best that they can…with what they know and understand coloredand tightly bound by their life experiences…be patient and forgiving…for if they knew and understood…they would do things differently…

Love is still the answer…and it will always be…

The most highest and most beautiful form of love is forgiveness…

Dad, may your rest be filled with serenity in the arms of our loving heavenly Father…

your daughter, Renee