On having fun

"Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder."
Henry David Thoreau

I do not quite agree with this statement. I certainly agree that nobody can demand happiness, insist on it or make it conditional– when I am thin I am going to be happy, when I have lots of money I will be happy etc. And I also believe strongly that happiness is not going to come just because you put the thought out into the universe and do nothing about it.

I think we have got to work at being happy. Start by being grateful for the many good things you already have in your life (especially the small and tiny things we take for granted). Forgive whatever happened in the past (forgive yourself and others – not easy but a worthwhile exercise, especially forgiving yourself) And then you have the choice between being a miserable person or a happy one. Chose to be happy and do not worry - you are not going to end up like a sillily grinning fool at all times. Happiness is like a butterfly sitting softly on your shoulder - you will not always be aware of it. But nothing compares to the joy when you become aware of it.

Enough of my round about way of getting to what I want to say in this entry - I know how to do happy but not how to have some outrageous fun. I am having fun at home with my artwork with my life in general but it has become kind of solitary fun and I want some other fun too. I have written about it before but have not acted upon it because I have been waiting to be in better shape. There I said it! This is another of those things that when I own up to it out loud, I feel like a complete moron.

How dense can one get???? I am not going to have a better class of fun because I am thinner, I have not noticed people being different with me whatever my weight. I have just noticed that I become very self conscious, my own worst critic and subsequently much less out going (and going out) when my weight goes up. As I said, there is nothing wrong with having fun on your own - a lot of people could do with learning that skill. But I want more layers and enrich my life with ‘public’ fun (is there a proper word for this??)

So I figure the same applies to fun as it does to happiness. I gotta work at it. I can decide to have fun and set up the situations I would enjoy. Yes, there will be that niggling thought that suddenly the fun police is going to jump out from behind the bush, point their fingers at me and say: you are the wrong size to have fun.

What do you think? Should I just cross that bridge when it happens?

Apart from that, life is really good. I am in balance again and today I feel a million dollars. Weight continues to go down slowly and having reduced my food intake considerably has a lot of other positive effects. Thumbs up!

I have just written a post that felt too personal to publish and share here. The insight I got from it I can share though. I came to the conclusion that my ego is way too important to me. Wanting other people to have a particular picture of me, not going full out with my art, being over-sensitive to critisism - it is all ego driven.

I want to be better, more special than others. That sounds horrible when I say it out loud!!! So why am I over weight? That does not make me better than others? Quite the opposite.

Derren Brown has a new television series and last weeks experiment explained a bit about why we do these mad things which go completely against what we really want to achieve. He put a closed box with a big red button in front of school children. Just before leaving them alone in room with it, he told them NOT to touch the red button. Of course they all did. He uses negative suggestions to cause an experienced high wire artist to fall off for the first time in his career and a young woman to push the button to kill a kitten (no animals were hurt of course).

We rebel against boundaries, of course we become more sophisticated when we grow up and without Derren Brown messing with your head you probably can stop yourself from electrocuting a kitten. But negative thinking also becomes more sophisticated and not that easily detectable. What we resist persists!

I am rebelling against imaginary boundaries I have set for myself and most of them are ego driven. My mission is to get rid of my ego. It sounds ludicrous to even attempt that, but at the same time it sounds right. There are no 'real' barriers in my life - I have worked so hard to get rid of the barriers which other people control. Only the ones I have put up in my mind are still there. I need to take away the barriers so I have nothing to rebel against.

For example in my attempt to becoming a mixed media artist I came up with the idea to allow myself to just be 'playing' and experimenting. I decided that if there was no expectation to achieve anything that has to be good, has to get the approval of others or (god forbid) could be sold. But I keep forgetting and put up my barriers again that stop me from really embracing my desire and going for it. I have a weekly call with a wonderful friend where we support each other to follow our dreams and make them reality. She is the one who reminds me again and again that I am just playing and experimenting and it is beginning to work.

For my weight loss I am trying to do the same. Day by day - the best I can. Nothing to rebel against like a big huge goal or telling myself I MUST NOT EAT (just writing these words get my my inner rebel stirring and ready for action) Sometimes it does not work that well but there is today and I will try again

It was yang time last week

I wisely put a proviso into my euphoric posts about how good I was feeling - where there is light, there must be shadow. And shortly after my last post the shadow time set in. There was no good reason for it and little I could do about it. I said to G that I was feeling disconnected. I also was very very tired which lets me to believe that it was thyroid related. I no longer get painful chest pressure when I am over active (thank god for small mercies) but I get tired and turn purple when I exert myself only a little. By Friday I was feeling so poorly that I went back to bed at noon and fell asleep immediately for three hours having had a good 9 hours the night before.

So I had some white wine on Sunday but that did not do the trick and I switched to red last night (all my scientific research leads more and more to the conclusion that red wine is a very good therapy indeed). I have not been drinking and the alcohol had quite an impact. This morning I am feeling much much better and am ready to prepare the mother of 'things which need doing' list. Actually me feeling really good again this morning more likely means is that my thyroid is in balance and I need to take another tablet to keep it that way.

Another note worthy point today is that one year ago we were already on day 8 of our walk from Bavaria to London and I love re-reading our diary. Without our notes and pictures it would not seem real and I would not believe that we managed to complete such a big challenge.

Much lighter

Yes yes yessssss I can report that I lost nearly 20 pounds during the last month and I am thrilled. Overall I am feeling very good but I am sooooooooo tired. I reckon it is my thyroid playing up but I have hopes that I will get some plan of action from the specialist I am seeing next week (what can I say - I am an optimist!)

In myself I am so much calmer about the weight issue. Losing weight obviously helps but there is the bud of something else too. Being the best I can today is still what is working for me - I am thinking very little about yesterday and the future even though I now have a clear goal I would like to get to. As part of my continuous improvement program I will add my self image this month. That should be fun! Any bright ideas are welcome because I know that just telling myself that I look fine ain't going to do it in those dark moments when I am vulnerable and not at all sure of myself.

Bottling that feeling

Wouldn't it be good if we could do that...... I am trying to anchor a memory of the empowered, positive way I am feeling about myself and my weight. At the moment anything is possible. I have been trying to be my very best every day and it is obviously working.

I know life is an up and down, yin and yang and where there is light there must be dark, so I know it will not always be this way. But my overriding personality trait is optimism and I believe that what I am doing this time is a huge step forward.

Being on a very strict diet teaches me a lot of things about emotional eating. It is similar to the lessons I learned when I gave up smoking. Dragging on a cigarette always 'helped me' to ease any stress. Not having that crutch after giving up, I realised that I coped with stress just as well without - probably better.

After some initial adjustment, I have not felt hunger nor fullness for the last 10 days and because I am so focused it has been blissfully easy. Feeling the same all day long has side effects. For one I think it must be good for my body not to have the ups and downs of differing sugar levels - I truly feel amazing in myself. At the moment I need to sleep much more than I usually do and will be in bed way before midnight(!!!).

Not feeling hungry or stuffed also creates empty space. It is difficult to explain what it is like, I think of it as a large, white and very bright room that is nearly empty and feels very peaceful and empowering. What an unfamiliar place for me to be. The room I am usually in when it comes to food is cluttered, all the colours under the sun, it is busy, there is pressure and stress and I am spinning around in the middle of it, often in despair.

So what will happen the next time I feel emotional and will want to administer some food to make myself feel better?? Which room will I go to?

Weight loss journal prompt

I use these prompts to write in my personal weight loss diary (I use a moleskine and the lovely ink pen I got for Christmas a couple of years ago with THE most funky colours of ink. If you have never come across a moleskine notebook you do not know what you are missing)

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.

Anais Nin

I am just thinking, if this statement were true - how true and reliable is MY truth? And I am thinking about my need to be right (which I usually am of course ;)

Feeling grrrrrrrrreat

(My impression of the Kellogg's tiger) - hormones are lining up with the universe again and I am losing weight steadily now. It really is a head thing, not a will power thing and it is a today thing not a I am going to do it tomorrow thing.

My mantra is about what I do right now to contribute to where I want to be and often that just means I can not fulfill impromptu needs like eating something tempting. So what I am doing right now, is writing my journal and that has helped me no end to get my head straight. A big thank you to my two wonderful comment leavers - your support is so invaluable to me. I know I am accountable and supported.

I can not stop thinking about Dr. Who' s first episode of the new series 'Partners in crime' which, in a way, is about weight loss. Evil woman sets up big corporation and sells diet pills. People who take pills are delighted. Every morning they wake up and are lighter without exercising or eating less. At night little people made of their fat remove themselves from their bodies. They have eyes and little feet and just waddle away. Of course there is more to it, it is Dr. Who after all! But the thought makes me crack up every time when my scales have moved down. Another little fat person has left from my hips, or my thighs - next week one from my stomach please.