What you focus on increases

"You don't have to take life the way it comes to you. You can design your life to come to you the way you want it."

I haven't blogged in a while. I've been depressed because I decided I didn't need a med and the decision caught up with me. I've spent the better part of the last 3 weeks in bed. Going home from work and doing minimal. Checking the chores for the house and laying in bed. Not wanting to do anything because doing them requires moving forward and movement is difficult.

Since the last time I have done any type of update I have found out that I was accepted into the disney institute, have gone through the training, and have been placed in a work group perfectly suited for my personality and abilities. Work is going good, I continue to hear good things from those around me and, just recently, at the training with my primary doctor, she even said how good I was at my job. This validation makes me feel good and I have actually started seeinng what others see: a smart, beautiful woman, with so much to offer those around me. I like what lays before me, I see purpose in everything, and I know I'm going places.

I went on a date recently. The man is wonderful and there are so many things I absolutely love about him. However, a cultural difference caused a huge relational boundary to be crossed. It took me a few days and acting on behaviors to realize what was going on, why I was emotionally shutting down to realize this. In the process of realizing this I acted on behaviors and then confronted what had happened. So, we are not going out again. I stood up for myself as an adult, but it took a few days.

In the last couple weeks I've binged for emotional reasons, purged for emotional reasons, weighed myself for emotional reasons. I'm STILL acting on behaviors, still have a scale until next year, still restrict, still have body image issues. Intellectually and cognitively I know that the weight doesn't matter. But, I'm so scared of gaining, of the weight I have gained, that I can't get emotionally past the number.

So, I must decide what I want to happen. Do I want to respond to emotional upheaval that I feel I have no control over? Or do I want to actively build up my emotional coping skills to have in hand so situations do not even bother me? Do I want to get so sick I can't pursue my dreams, or get myself-both emotionally and physically- to a place I can find and procure all that I want in life? I choose to create the life I want and that involves actively fighting what I've allowed on my path. To be strict with myself and get out of bed in the morning and allow time to do the things I enjoy. But to also be gentle because I'm just a person with faults as well as good things. The faults make just as beautiful as the things I do right.