B.A.M.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, for reasons I’ll get into later. But, I think it’d be just grand to start a movement called Body Acceptance Movement. Mostly because I think it’d be sweet to have the acronym BAM. I mean, BAM! I totally love and accept my imperfect perfect body. Right?! I know there’s already a BIM (Body Image Movement) but, there’s room for more, in my humblest of opinions.

So, here’s my story. About nine months ago, I set about to drop some poundage and gain more muscle. It turns out, I did. I’ve lost 28 pounds to date and countless inches and I’m smaller and more muscular and fit than I think I’ve ever been. You think that’d make me happy right? Wrong. Turns out, I’m more insecure and unhappier than I’ve ever been in my whole life. In fact, my mind has turned into a complete nightmare of sadness and agony.

Nearly every day, I go to the gym and see all these other women with gorgeous legs, butts and arms and while they are lightly plodding along on the elliptical machine, I’m over in the weight section doing deadlifts, squats, sumo squats, rows, pull ups, dips, jump squats, pendulum lunges, planks, tricep kickbacks, you name it. I follow this up by doing wind sprints on the treadmill and running mile after mile. And still, I can’t change the shape of this body I live in. I will never have legs like the girl on the elliptical barely breaking a sweat. Ever. No matter how hard I work.

We're being inundated,
daily, with being sexier,
not losing our man and
having a bikini body.
Think about it.

I don’t know what happened (that’s a lie, I really do) but, I know that I’ve become a prisoner to my own mind and I drank the poison of the media and I no longer feel that I have any value. Everything that never bothered me in the past now brings me to devastating nights of tears and misery. I wonder when my significant other is going to just up and leave me for one of the gorgeous girls he was eye-balling when we were out the other day. Or why he even bothers to have ‘do stuff’ with me when he can just go online and have everything that I’m not in the click of a button.

I spend an inordinate amount of time researching better weight lifting strategies, but I now avoid many of the websites out there because I don’t want to be inundated with images of gorgeous models that I will never look like, no matter how much effort I put in. I loathe Men’s Health and Body Building because inevitably, they’ll have the nice easy links for men to view the top 100 hottest women in the world and so and so bares it all. I mean come on, where does it end.

This relentless focus on my inadequacies is literally ruining my life. Every day has become mostly just a struggle to move past the nightmare in my head and just get things done. I distract myself for hours and hours at a time to avoid the demons threatening to take me under again.

In short, this past year has been the absolute worst year of my life. I used to write often and sing loudly and proudly in the car on my way to and from work. And now, I’m just stuck inside this white-walled elevator of my mind, going over and over why I’m never going to be good enough, or pretty enough or strong enough and basically just suffering in isolation. I don’t want to talk to anyone because I’m ashamed and embarrassed that I drank the Kool-Aid for one of the first times in my life.

All this to say, I feel as though it isn’t for naught. I always knew I wanted to do something to help women and younger girls realize their value and potential and to ignore the media. It’s something I’ve been all about my whole life and maybe I had to really drink the poison and know how it feels not to think “Bam, I’m hot stuff” even if I didn’t look like a Hollywood star. So, that’s how I’m choosing to look at it.

The time is now. There are a lot of things happening on this front in the world and I want to be involved. I’m not sure what my plan is yet, but hopefully, if I can connect with and help others heal, I might also get over this ‘illness’ that’s been plaguing me with the determination of a terminal cancer. And maybe, just maybe ‘we’ as a whole will start seeing how we’re being taught what to like and what to be attracted to. Have you ever noticed the way even certain words change a person’s mind for a moment. For example, just the mention of the word bikini to a man can take him away.

How is it that we’ve allowed the media to place so much emphasis on women as body parts, not people? And how do we aid our teenagers in focusing on their talents and changing the world, instead of how sexy they can look for a man, or to get a man. Their busy taking selfies of themselves in racy outfits, and making duck faces instead of drawing, playing sports, creating and loving life. It’s time to wake up and look at how huge this has become.

Okay, I’m off my soap box…

Do you have thoughts or suggestions? Does anyone know how to start a movement and would be willing to help me? Do you think this is a hopeless cause that should just be accepted? Or do you think it’s worthwhile to try to make a difference in someone’s life and prevent others from wasting their time, like I did, feeling absolutely wretched and isolated for no reason whatsoever?

PS: Am I afraid that the people I know, who read this, are going to look at me differently? Yes. Do I feel intensely stupid and vulnerable for revealing what I managed to keep under wraps all this time? Yes. But, I know from reading others stories of a similar nature, how it helped me to feel less alone and less ashamed. And, I also feel that true strength lies in the ability to be truly out there and vulnerable. So, maybe it'll be worth it.

that time I was a tripod

"You have to be really quiet when you're in the stand." He said, with authority. And so began the comedy of errors that was my first adventure of deer camp.

Creeping through the forest, just before dawn, I went. Silently. Out to my deer stand. I climbed up, with shards of terror in vein and cautiously sat down and worried my way through loading my father's borrowed rifle. And there I sat. Quietly.

We'll meet back at camp around 9, they said. To my drowsy eyes, the four hour sit revealed my imagination in the scenery of the woods. My mind was full of trickery and admittedly, I got sleepy. So sleepy that I felt the need to unload the rifle.

Around 8:45, I lowered my rifle on the rope and slid down the ladder, bag in hand. I crept back through the forest, onto the trail and up near Casey's stand. He looked down towards me, holding his hands up in a STOP position. He began pointing into some bushes about 10 feet in front of his stand and making the universal symbol for "Sleep" with his palms against his cheek. 

I think I get it, but I'm not sure! Something is sleeping in front of his stand. But I can't see it. I'm on the ground. I stood there, quietly... He's motioning something to me, so I start stealthily walking up the trail. Well, he starts silently ranting and waving his hands in the air and pointing at my rifle's open action. I sigh, and put one shell into the chamber, thinking how the hell do you expect me to shoot a deer I can't effing see?

When suddenly! Three larger deer come running right behind me and across the trail. The Doe that I'd been 'stalking' jumped up and was looking right into my eyes. I just stood there, stunned as Casey's yelling, SHOOT IT! 

Needless to say, all four deer got away. We laughed. And that was that.

A few more weeks into deer camp, I'd been scouting all kinds of deer. They were everywhere around my stand. Apparently, I had the best spot. That said, one I deemed to small to shoot at. Another was so close that I couldn't figure out what I was aiming at in my site. And I still wasn't sure I could kill a deer. I was a hunter all right!

Our last day of deer camp, I come back for round two at 3:30 or so and head to my stand. I get situated and along comes Casey. Standing at the foot of my tree, he says, "I'm coming up there for awhile." Well, his version of stealth mode is quite different than mine. He came STOMPING up the ladder with a vengeance. It was as though Big Foot and the Incredible Hulk were both on their way to get me and the seat under my butt was jostling and moving around with the wavering tree.

"YOU NEED TO GET DOWN AND YOU NEED TO GET DOWN RIGHT NOW!" I whisper yelled at him.

"What? It's fine, knock it off." He said, and continued up with only the slightest bit more caution.

He got up to the top and we managed to maneuver both of us into the small seat. And that's when I discovered that Casey's version of "being very quiet" was also radically different from mine. He sat there burping, farting, talking away. Farts so stinky, they got stuck in his warm gear and every time he stood up, or sat down the swamp gas was actually visible in the air. At one point, he even peed off the side.

There was one small moment in time that I thought, this isn't so bad. It's kind of nice having a buddy, it's warm and less boring. Alas, the swamp gas would prevail and I'd question the fleeting, fuzzy feeling.

Like I said, I'd been scouting and knew exactly when the deer would start to come out. About 10 minutes beforehand, I looked at him and said, "It's almost witching hour, you best be quiet!" He stood, facing the opposite direction, while I sat and covered the other ground. Not 15 minutes from those words, he motioned to me that he saw one. "I'm going to shoot it." He whispered.

The deer moved and he darted towards my side of the tree, hovering over me. I covered my ears, bent down and without words became a human tripod. BANG. We saw it fall, not more than 5 yards away from the stand.

"We have to wait at least 15 minutes, text the others and tell them we got one, but will hunt for another half hour or so." He said.

And I did.

5 minutes later?

"I can't wait any longer, I'm getting down." He said and dropped his bag off the side. We got down, and headed towards the deer. He stopped short in front of me and made violent motions for me to do the same. 

My heart started pounding and I imagined the deer getting up and charging both of us. But, it was just Casey being his dramatic self and scaring the shit out of me. We walked closer, clean shot. That deer was dead and HUGE!

And that's my first adventure at deer camp story.

the dark lord

"I see the bad moon arising.

I see trouble on the way.

I see earthquakes and lightnin'

I see bad times today."

The full moon in Scorpio today got me thinking about the dark lord. Pluto, or rather Hades that is and I thought I'd share what transiting pluto can do to your life.

Pluto has been transiting my 4th house cusp for over a year now and this is the only way I can truly describe it. I realize that it's a bit revealing, but it's the truth. I've read many stories similar to my own and now I really know what it is they mean.

Everything I thought was real, to date, has been destroyed. There are few illusions left in my eyes. My insides are filled with a rage and the energy of death courses up and through my body every day, yet in dead of night, there's some sort of peace. The dark lord has unmercifully shown me truths I never wanted anything to do with. These truths have all but killed any jovial thoughts that once easily rummaged my mind. And yet, I've spent all of this time lifting weights and shedding weight, I guess attempting to prove that I'm strong on the outside, while feeling completely miserable and dead underneath.

Truths, you ask? They are not the kind you tell people about, not even your best friend. These are the things you're ashamed to admit you ever once believed, the illusions you didn't know you had until the dark lord pulled a quick and dirty five finger discount and holds an elbow to the wound, intent on causing as much pain as possible to ensure the truth isn't dissolved.

And somehow, all of these things are happening around me. Things that are 'good,' but there's no joy in them for me. All of the innocence and romance has been removed and I don't see the point in doing anything but trying to shield myself from further intrusion.

It's all very revealing, at least to me. I imagine most would just say I'm clinically depressed, but I can see the reason for it. I know what is happening and I guess I have a very small amount of hope that the metamorphosis will transpire and I'll just accept what is now known, for what is now known and quit mourning the loss of what I wanted things to be.

And that, in a nutshell, has been my pluto transit experience to date.

Happy Full Moon in Scorpio! HOWL! 

The mind devoid of...

Sometimes the reality of our situations is staggering. When whittled down to all of the terrible or amazing details, at their absolute rarest, it can literally take your breath away. Makes you question how surmountable the truth actually is. Is this fixable? Is this even worth it? How is this EVEN happening?!

But the mind is a clowntastic playground. In those moments, it is completely devoid of the illusions that make these realities sustainable; but give it a few minutes and the Monet vision will reappear and soften the incredibly harsh edges. And once again, you'll move forward with little hesitation.

It's pretty amazing. The mind devoid of empathy and illusion face plants into the pit of despair or joy and still comes out alive. The reality of what we're actually able to cope with and celebrate in this hopelessly manic/depressive life is nothing less than exhilarating.

And that's all I have to say right now, at least that's all that will come out...

short babble.

I see faces in things. Lots of things. I used to think it was neat and mystical, but now I find it arrogant. What is it about me or about anyone that makes me see myself or something human in everything. 

Everything from flowers to stone walls to water to art to anything.

But really, what I do know about this arrogance, as I've touted; is it's driven by the genuine quest toward self betterment and understanding. If I can see myself in a flower, maybe I too am beautiful. If I see myself in a stone wall, I am strong with an eternal danger of avalanche. If I am water, maybe I’m unending and cleansing. If I am art, I am a creation, and I'm perceivable.

If I am you, maybe I have compassion for both of us.

And what is human anyway?

hu·man

  [hyoo-muhn or, often, yoo-]  Show IPA

adjective

1.

of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or having the nature ofpeople: human frailty.

2.

consisting of people: the human race.

3.

of or pertaining to the social aspect of people: human affairs.

4.

sympathetic; humane: a warmly human understanding.

noun

5.

a human being.

In #4 I back away from said arrogance and know, that this 'seeing,' is part of becoming that understanding and effectually being human and humane.

That's all I have to say right now.

the heart is a muscle...

Image from this site, which interestingly enough talks
about scar tissue... 

"The heart is a muscle and has a memory.

I wonder how far back it goes?
If it remembers incidents of other dimensions, dreams, past lives and the ethereal.

Maybe this is why difficult people are in our lives.
Maybe they aren't really difficult.

But our heart knows something we don't and it remembers them.
Remembers what they "did to you."
And so they rub you the wrong way, just by being.

I wish I had an eraser for my heart.
Clean off all the things they "did to me."
And start over.

I tried to scrub it clean with my mind.
Heart called mind pretentious and held on tighter.

So I tried again, to love with these hateful cell memories.
Clenching and strengthening the stubborn muscle.

Alas, at day break, it remembers you again..."


I had this conversation with my mind today and decided to be shameless. Tomorrow we begin a new emotional cycle with the New Moon in Aquarius. This is a very active new moon and lends a solid opportunity to begin again. Begin with compassion for man-kind and acceptance of individual differences. Aquarian 'brotherhood' if you will. And so, I thought just maybe it's a fortuitous time to detach from these heart memories. Call upon some higher philosophy to stretch the fibers into a more tolerant being.

Just maybe. And that's all I have to say right now.