Monthly Archives: December 2013

by

Multiple Choice Questionnaire

Multiple Choice:

Please read the scenario and choose the most correct answer from the list below.

You randomly wake with your head in a fog, suddenly your work pants feel two sizes too small and you feel approximately 6 months pregnant with a food baby. You:

a) Acknowledge that yesterday your clothes fitted fine, and that it is likely just fluid retention or a case of flash insecurity and you refuse to panic;
b) Decide to take the “logical” objective approach, taking your measures to compare to yesterday and determine that it is, in fact, a large exaggeration from your mind’s eye;
c) Throw your entire wardrobe on the floor and begin to throw a tantrum, hating the world;
d) Think “fuck this, I’m not eating (indefinitely)” and feel the calmness warmly ooze over you knowing that you are going to be just fine…..
e) All of the above, in any given order.

I’m going to propose another option, option (f): The Two Day Rule. Given that the majority of us out there will indeed pick option (e), probably several times over, and put oneself at the risk of the relapse-merry-go-round, we need a set strategy for days like this (good tune, Van Morrison).

Give yourself two more days. 48 more precious hours. You’re not having to be so strong that you’re defiantly pushing Ana to the curb, you’re just gently turning your back on her for a couple of days. You only need to be strong for two days. All you have to do, is just keep on keeping on…..give the body nourishment, just like you did yesterday. Baby steps (meal-snack-meal-snack-meal-sleep repeat x 2). One foot in front of the other. Don’t go and punish yourself with a 3 hour training session. Head up, face the world. As a random side note, I find it helpful on days like this where your self-confidence is about the size of an ant, to utilise the self-affirmation “fuck you, world!”…..for no reason in particular except that it gives me the strength to leave the house, face other humans and pretend to be normal….and sometimes provides for some humorous self-talk while walking down the street. Fake it till you make it, or something like that.

Then on day 2, you can reassess. Chances are, your soul has gathered that ounce more strength to fight; your body gained that much needed fuel to cradle to mind through the dark room and out into the glorious sunlight. You’ve probably managed a few moments of clarity, sane thought, objective reasoning, realistic assessment…..hopefully all of the above.

And it becomes much easier to flick Ana back to the dark room where she belongs. Don’t let the Wrecking Ball win; fight the good fight.

Two days. You can do it.

K xo

....note to self: when faced with a bar full of Moet, do not drink yourself into oblivion, tempting as it may be.....

….note to self: when faced with a bar full of Moet, do not drink yourself into oblivious, tempting as it may be…..

by

The Importance of Nothingness

“Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.”

IMG_20131202_130502_1

The Importance of Nothingness:

The ability to sit still with oneself in a non-anxious state
And truly be present in the Immediate Moment.

A heartbreakingly very difficult ability to learn, for us…

And yet perhaps the ultimate Yardstick to one’s true sense of Mental Health.

Can You be content in the company of You?

IMAG0514

K xo

by

Here comes The Fighter

“Only a man who knows what it’s like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even”. – Muhammad Ali

Today, I commiserate celebrate the half-way point of my foot rehab journey. 4.5 months since the surgery, 4.5 months until I can run again.

.facebook_-1892723131

Never before have I yearned for running, the first and longest love of my life, so fiercely. When I was running competitively at university, I had a beautiful old man of a coach who was in his 70’s (and still running…) and had been coaching distance runners for most of his life. After thrashing ourselves and giving 100% of what our hearts had to give at any given session, we would warm down and joke and laugh amongst the group. When all was said and done, he would look at me with those wise wrinkled eyes and say “I have never met someone who loves running like you do”. In my youthful naivety, I used to laugh at him. But right now, if you asked me to choose between running and my husband – my two grand loves – well I’d have to think about it! I’m joking sort of.

Early days....

Early days….

And yet, never in my life have I found it so hard to keep the “athlete mindset”. Not as in, screw training why bother. As in, screw rehab I want to go run, PRONTO. I want to get back to racing weight fitness, PRONTO. Hell, I want to race, and feel the best pain in the world. Not rehab pain. Not idle resting pain. Or surgery pain. Just the deep, all-encompassing fantastic pain of racing. I want that. And my heart yearns so extremely deeply for it, I feel a black hole that can’t be patched back up.

And God knows all too well that I am not patient. Ironic given all those years of being a patient. I suspect this may be God’s way of testing me….so that I learn patience. And so that I learn the most valuable lesson of my life to date: I am an Athlete. I am no longer Anorexic. Or an Athlete with an Eating Disorder. Facing the surgery, all those months ago, I remember with clarity driving home from the surgeon’s office crying, desperately hoping, but desperately fearful that I could not do this. I could not do this, without Ana. This was going to be the hardest test of my “recovered” life.

And in these last weeks that have passed, I cry again – because I know I am there. Throw vulnerability to the wind, I’m fighting the good fight.

There you are. I finally found you.

K xo

2013-09-05 med ball 1

by

Clarity

IMAG0562

High dive into frozen waves
Where the past comes back to life
Fight fear for the selfish pain….
It was worth it every time.

Hold still right before we crash,
‘Cause we both know how this ends
A clock ticks ’till it breaks your glass
And I drown in you again.

‘Cause you are the piece of me
I wish I didn’t need
Chasing, relentlessly
Still fight and I don’t know why.
Why are you my remedy?
– Clarity, ZEDD

Oh for the sensitive ones, the ones who love too much, feel too much, strive to be too perfect and fracture a little too easily. Even when pieced back together, ‘recovered’ for one of a better word, the fact remains: we feel what we feel, and we are the way we are. Different. And you still have to learn how to manage those emotions. Without that.

But the question remains. If you could change it, would you? Would you still be Ana you?

K xo

by

Ramblings of a Healing Heart

shot_1374273315251

We are all beautiful. It breaks my heart to see so many stunning, talented, inspirational and kind human beings walking the earth with their guarded self to the wind, scared of being hurt and lonely, and the saddest part is that by closing themselves up in such a way, they become the ones who are inflicting the self-harm, negative self-talk, and ultimately the self-destruction.

“IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you”…..

More often than not, these are not the people you suspect, as you all know too well, those of you who have been drawn here. I look around me at the amazing athletes who I have grown up with, laughed with, who have blossomed from scrawny little kids in to breathtaking women, the type that light up the whole room and inspire you to be a better person just with their presence.

“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same”…..

Those are the blessed (cursed) few who the whole world holds up on a pedestal. For they are like the perfect rose – distracting the human eye with their breathtaking radiance all the while harbouring thorns with which they can too easily harm oneself. It breaks my heart to see such souls broken – spiritually, physically, psychologically.

“If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss”……

Often the physical trauma (injury, illness, starvation) is simply the final straw to the spiritual trauma that has been dwelling within. But the human spirit is strong, and the brighter the soul’s light in the world, the stronger the heart that lies within. Time and time again, I see these athletes get knocked down, shattered into a thousand pieces, and yet somehow clasp at the remnants of themselves and watch them slowly but surely build themselves back into a whole. Love can take you a long way, just as hate and manipulation can fracture you.

“If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’”…….

Be smart about who you allow into your circle of life, and be strong in your love for yourself. You are so much more incredible than you allow yourself to believe, if only you could step outside your physical being and see yourself from others’ eyes.

Build on your strength, learn from your breaks, and foster self-love daily. Meditate on it. Visualise your life and self as beautiful. Reflect on your support and let the love in. Never forget, it is the thorns that allow the rose to hold its head so high to the world. It is the strong woody branches that allow the delicate rose to scaffold itself against the harsh conditions of its environment. Without that, the rose may be beautiful, but it is weak and easily damaged.

“If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.”

Be strong.
You are amazing.

xoxo

– “If”, by Rudyard Kipling