Miserable in the mundane

Being a chunky dunker is not all fun and games....seriously.

How many activities come and go throughout a day that you don't give a thought to? Mundane activities like taking a shower, shaving your legs, putting on socks, tying your shoes, grocery shopping, cooking dinner, picking up a child, making your bed, etc Hundreds?  Any idea how many of these activities are a giant pain the.........er...........more difficult as a chunky dunker? The answer is many, too many....most really! 

Now as a chunky dunker I am fully aware of these challenges, and I get that it is a part of the whole plus size parcel, however every now and again it just gets freaking exhausting having everyday tasks cause pain and exhaustion and it makes me cranky.

So here I am just trying to take a shower and shave my legs and I am getting seriously irritated. The soap has made my non-slip bathtub mat slippery causing my leg, feet and toe muscles to hang on for dear life, while I desperately try to shave my entire leg before blacking out from lack of oxygen due to squishing my diaphragm while in what my chunky dunking body has declared an upside-down position, apparent from the head rush I am getting....or maybe that is from the lack of oxygen....who knows. At last....one leg done, and I lean against the shower wall, face flushed, fairly certain I will need a shower from the sweat I am working up while taking a shower and I debate how badly I need to have both legs shaved. Who's ever gonna know, right? Yeah, no, that is too weird. I'm in for one, I'm in for both. So I prep for round two and do the whole toe gripping, head- rushing, don't pass out leg shaving battle and come out victorious.....well victorious enough.....except now I am beyond irritable. I have achy muscles and a slight headache and all from just taking a stupid shower. Really? 

As I sulk in my room I start berating myself for being fat and for making my life harder because I am fat. I start mentally ticking off a list of things I could do better or do at all if I weren't fat and with each one I list I feel worse and worse. I checklist myself right into a frump....and now I want to feel better, so I get.....a snickers bar.....and I keep sulking. It doesn't take too long to realize that NONE of this helping, but now I am in too deep and I'm stuck in the frump muck and mire and with each step I try to take the muck of the frump sucks me in deeper. 

(sigh)

Now what? 

Well now, I have to wipe the snickers bar crumbs away and begin to un-frump. 

Yes, I am fat. Yes, being fat makes doing stuff hard. Yes, it sucks. And yes, I can change it. 

Today I am fat and hate shaving my legs. Tomorrow is a new day and I get to face it with hard earned, freshly shaved legs...and I will be un-frumped and ready to make it better! 

This was recently posted in the weight loss challenge group that I joined a few weeks ago.

I saw it and wanted to ignore it, but couldn't.

I tried to scroll by thinking "aww cute saying'" adding my little thumbs up "like" for Facebook and not actually THINK about what it was saying.......but I couldn't. I had to scroll back up and read it again.....and again....and allow myself to accept that this was a truth I needed to see and acknowledge.

Facebook has the really awesome knew feature where it pops up your "memories" of things you have posted in the past which sometimes is sweet and other times is an in your face reminder your aren't where you wanted to be when you shared that moment all that time ago. Facebook recently reminded me that a year ago I had begun working out (again) and was excited (again) and motivated (again) and as the memory popped up my gaze cast down and I sighed and I think would have cried had I not been too defeated and angry at myself.

Discouragement seems to be my bedfellow, especially when it comes to my weight and health. As motivated and positive as I can manage to be on one hand, discouragement always seems to be able to come in twice as strong, destroying my efforts and it is super frustrating!

What I have forgotten is that EFFORT means something....it means I care enough to KEEP TRYING!

And like this quote reminded me, every effort causes a change. Although one little effort on its own seems like nothing....like a mere grain of sand......many little efforts together become a beautiful sand castle!

Now could a great big wave of discouragement come and destroy that sand castle making all those efforts seem like nothing...yes, but the efforts are not destroyed, they are just needing to be regathered and mastered into another beautiful castle!

Effort cannot be destroyed, only ignored, scattered by the waves of discouragement, but they can always be regathered and made beautiful again....so long as the master artist continues to see the beauty within the efforts made.

Sand is only sand. 

Wood is only wood. 

Clay is only clay.

And then effort is applied by one who sees the potential within and 

great beauty emerges.

 Be the one who sees the potential within, apply the effort and let your beauty emerge!

Happy as a Goddess

I look at this picture and I feel a combination of pride and discouragement.

I absolutely LOVED this moment and how I felt being in the middle of this accomplishment.....and now I wonder.....what happened?

How did I let this moment slide into my past? How do I not have MORE of these moments? How have I not accomplished more to be HAPPY? How, kind of like this blog, have I let time slip through my fingers and let my happy become a memory instead of active part of my life?

It has been a long time, too long of a time since I have taken some time, rather MADE some time, to do what makes ME happy.

I could list all kinds of reasons, aka excuses, but the truth is I allowed my focus to shift in another direction. Not all my reasons for changing focus were bad and some were even bigger than even I could control, but all the time I held the ability to do what makes me happy and yet I didn't always choose to do those things. So here I am all this time later looking back at my kick-ass smiling self and wondering "where did she go?"

Well?

She didn't GO anywhere, she changed, she adapted and she grew. And I am going to allow myself to say she changed for the better! My happy self is still my happy ME, then and now! Yes, I did let time slip by and allowed myself to lose track of getting active, healthy and fit physically, but in the meantime I went on a detour of discovering who I was on the INSIDE and discovered that the power of believing in yourself absolutely radiates from the inside out and can cause amazing changes!

I took some time to re-discover the amazing, happy me that is more than my physical, but my goddess inside. Yes, goddess. For a long time I struggled to say that....goddess. Who am I to believe that about myself? Truth is I am a goddess in my own way and an amazingly, strong, beautiful and capable one at that! When I allowed myself to acknowledge this goddess spirit inside there was a strength that began to grow from the inside and it radiated outward and gave me the motivation and the inspiration to not just do, but BE what made me happy. To be ME. To be the me, not just that I wanted to be or wished I could be, but the me that I have ALWAYS been capable of being, but did not allow myself to be.

My inner goddess reminded me that I am smart....smarter than I have ever given myself credit for.
She reminded me I am stronger......stronger than I would allow myself to be.
She reminded me I am capable.....more capable than I imagined.
She reminded me I am talented......in a variety of ways.
She reminded me that I am allowed to be happy.......truly happy, for myself, with no regrets.

And as this goddess fire took flame she re-kindled my long forgotten desire.....to be true to me and to be happy...no regrets, no shame and fully passionate!

So here I am.....regrets behind me.....possibility in front of me......and a burning goddess fire ready to flame into awesomeness!

Where will this fire take me? Well from what I know of fire....it loves to go up, so UP it shall be!