http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWEkbAwIUYE&feature=plcp
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gf29zAyn_4&feature=g-upl
Even better? This giveaway is open to my Canadian friends as well as my friends in the States. I love companies willing to reach out to beyond the lower 48. Want in on this awesomesauce of a giveaway? Of course you do! Welcome to my playground; here are the “rules”:
You can leave a separate comment for each entry. If you do it all in one comment then that’s one entry and if you’re happy with one entry so am I. The giveaway will be open until December 8th, 2012 12:01a…That means one minute into my birthday day the giveaway will close because seriously it’s my birthday and the first thing I want to do is wake up and pick a lucky winner!!!!! I’ll use Random.Org as usual when picking a random number from total entries received. Good luck everyone! And as per usual: I was not compensated for my opinion. I was sent products to review (for which I am very thankful) and all opinions expressed about the products are mine and mine alone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GybchfduZPQ&feature=g-upl
Over the last week or so I’ve let an instance of a situation bring me down and I’ll be totally honest it’s been a hard few days trying to get back to some sort of “I’m awesome” frame of mind. I really thought I would be okay when I wasn’t offered the position I had applied for at the beginning of November. Before I was even told whether I was the successful candidate I had expressed to other people (and to myself) that if they didn’t hire me it I was going to be okay with the outcome. I had already started the Life Coaching aspect of my journey and the odds were stacked against me before I even sat down with the interview panel. But truth be told; I wasn’t okay. I’m not okay. I really wanted to be able to shake of the notions of “not being good enough” or the questioning my own preference in wanting to dress closer to my gender definition. I wanted to be able to look in the mirror and know that reason they didn’t offer me this position was because the bureaucratic hoops they’d have to jump through was not worth the effort to offer me the position and not because I am lacking in skill. I let too much of my emotional stability ride on the outcome of this interview. I fought so hard to not let my thoughts shift to “what if I do get the job” yet soon after the interview I began to daydream about catching up on bills that are burying us, buying flowers for Mimi and saying things like “Let me pay for this”. I started window shopping, thinking about Christmas and upcoming birthdays and let the idea of becoming a “regular working Joe” wash over me. I tried to shake off the quick rejection email. Deleting it as quickly as it showed up in my in box so I wouldn’t obsess over the “WHY(s)” and yet that’s exactly what I did. The email came Thursday morning and by the evening I felt that dark cloud descend. Immediately questioning everything about myself. Everything. I failed. Again. I’m taking up too much space. Again. I can’t do anything right. Again. I don’t deserve anything in front of me. Again. As the impending cloud of self negativity descended, covering me in those familiar voices of “I told you so” and “How can you believe you’re good enough when it’s obvious you’re not” with a shitty dose of “Once again you’re a burden on Mimi because you can’t get a damn job and help pay for things“, everything that I was doing was allowing that beast of self deprecation to sink it’s claws into my skin and shake me around like a wet paper doll. I allowed myself to make food choices that I knew would make me feel shitty physically because I wanted it to match how I felt emotionally. I didn’t want to move because I didn’t want my physical self to talk my emotional self out of feeling sorry for the entire self. I would stand in the kitchen looking at the mess in front of me and instead of trying to make sense of needing to clean my surroundings I just laid on the bed and played on my phone. I used the excuse that I was in pain (which I was) knowing full well that moving was what makes it feel better because I wanted to sit on the “I suck” piss pot and let the crud surround me and drag me down. It’s been a hard couple of days living in my head, my body and my emotional state. Last night was especially hard and after a long (and much needed) talk with Mimi I realized what was happening and that how I am feeling just needed to be acknowledged. I am disappointed I didn’t get the job. I’m disappointed that I am now in my 14th month of waiting for my paperwork to be approved. I’m disappointed that Mimi has to continue to support us in our day to day needs. I also need to understand that just because I spend much of the day with myself, that does not mean I’m taking the necessary steps to take care of my emotional well being. I’ve started feeling guilty about the things I wanted to do because a) they cost money – like going to boot camp or needing winter running clothes b) they take time and sometimes that means that time is taken away from Mimi. Today I woke up and really wanted to make it a better day. It got off to a rough (and messy) start. The blender we have has a busted rubber ring. We can’t really afford a new one so we sort of jerry-rig it to work. This morning though it didn’t want to work for me and instead of making smoothies for us, I made a mess (and in the end the smoothies sort of sucked in taste). Already in tears by 6:30a I was setting myself up for a crappy morning. By 9:30 I had already had a dozen conversations about not running. How I needed to do the dishes. How I needed to mop the floors. How I needed to change the bed sheets, clean the cat litter, and for fuck’s sake fold the clothes that are all messed up in the office. I knew if I didn’t get out the door by 10a I wasn’t going. I let all the reasons why I shouldn’t go running be heard without listening. I slowly got my running clothes on while looking at all the things around me that screamed “STAY HOME” knowing it had nothing to do with what needed to be done around the house. My final thought before deciding whether or not I was going: Mimi would prefer a sweaty smile on my face and a dirty home than a sad heart and a clean house It wasn’t much of a run. Short in distance but long in lifting my heart. I let myself be sad about not getting the job. I let myself feel disappointed about the struggles we will continue to experience as we wait for the paperwork. I let my mind wander to the things I convinced myself “I should” be doing and remembered that there will always be time for that “should be doing” list. The mess of my life needed more attention than the mess in the kitchen. I needed to cleanse my heart more than I needed to mop the kitchen. I needed to just.be. with myself because some days I’m the only person who truly understands what’s happening in my mind and if I don’t take care of me first then I can’t take care of those around me. I ran. Sometimes fast. Sometimes slow. I ran stairs. I practiced my pull ups at the play ground. Most Importantly:
I found a little bit of my awesome today.
If it was easy we’d all be doing it to so much perfection that there would be no need for “magical” weight loss pills or late night advertisements to “buy the latest weight loss gadget”. We wouldn’t spend hours digging through our refrigerator looking for that chocolate bar we *knew* we had in there and eating everything in site looking for it. We wouldn’t find ourselves crying in the car in the corner of the parking lot ashamed at having gone through the drive thru when we promised “today was the day…” Staying in the moment. Is about as easy as never running and then attempting to earn the illustrious 26.2 when after the first 2 minutes you feel like puking your guts out. It’s about as easy as looking in the mirror and loving every.single.thing. you hate about yourself when day in and day out the voices in your head berate you for the smallest mistake. Yesterday I needed this reminder. To Breath. To Stay There. In The Moment. Even when that moment was painful. Even when that moment brought disappointment. Even when that moment caused me to feel unsure of myself and what I bring to this journey of Life Changes. Dealing with the physical pain of my back was coupled with the emotional pain of not being offered a position at the University. Double Whammy! The two things I take extreme pride in: Running and Interpreting. Yesterday both of those things were knocked down, stomped and spit on, then rubbed all to hell with dirt. If one had happened and not the other I would have been stronger. I’ve dealt with back pain. I know it takes only a few days to work itself out. I’ve dealt with not being offered an employment opportunity and not taking it personally. Yesterday fucking sucked dirty monkey balls. The last thing I wanted was to stay in the moment. Laying in bed with a back reminding me I can’t run, thinking about a job I wasn’t offered all I wanted to do was to strike myself down emotionally. To stomp and spit on myself. To rub salt in an already painful day. To berate myself into believing that I deserved all the negative thoughts and feelings I was throwing at myself. Breathe Deeply… I am okay. I knew before the interview that even though I am a kick ass interpreter there were other hurdles they would need to get over in order to hire me. Temporary work visas take time. This may not be the path I was meant to take. I’m taking on clients and pursuing a dream that I’ve held deep in my heart for a long time. Meegan and I have survived this long and for the first time in a year I’ve been able to pay my own bills and while I can’t go out and buy something new and shiny for her, I am contributing. It was just that one moment of being denied the job that I felt horrible about myself. Not good enough. Inadequate. Then I wrote out some important emails and felt strong. I felt good about my words and my ability to care deeply about the Life Changing Journeys of other people. I didn’t stray into the future of not having this temporary job with the University. I stayed in the moment of my dreams and the inadequacies passed with each “send” pressed. I’m okay. I know how my back reacts when it gets that “twinge” I hate so much. It hurts. A lot. Moving is slow and deliberate. Sleep is interrupted. But it doesn’t last too long. Staying in the moment of “Oh my fucking hell, I can’t put on my socks” and saying “this is temporary and hey socks are overrated right now” allowed the panic of “MONKEY POOP, I’LL NEVER RUN AGAIN!” to subside. As soon as I shifted in the night and woke up enough to realize it was easier than the night before, I relaxed. Yes it still hurts. But I’m walking around better today than yesterday and tomorrow it will be even better. All to often our reaction to a moment in our NOW is because we are jumping to a moment in our PAST. Take that deep breath. Let it go (even if just for a moment of two) and look at your now. You are stronger than you think. You are emotionally ready to stay here even if it’s just long enough to say “It is painful to stay right here, right now but I acknowledge this moment”. You are alive in the NOW. Stay there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2mKW22BQ84&feature=g-upl  Etsy Artist: FractalBurst I’m in a lot of pain. Early yesterday I managed to throw my back out (as it happens once every 6 months or so). I didn’t do it lifting heavy weights, or running double digit miles. I did it sitting in a chair. Shifted wrong and BAM! As soon as I felt the twinge I knew what had happened and just like clock work, a few hours later I can hardly move and everything I’m used to doing comes to a screeching HALT! Here’s what I know about the back pain: It happens every so often. It has to do with a shifting of my hips (or so that’s what the doctors tell me). It’s really intense for the first few days and then it starts to subside as the shifting starts to settle again. Any and all physical activity stops happening. I can’t put on a pair of socks or sit on the toilet without feeling like I’m going to fall over from the sharp dagger like pains radiating from the base of my spine. I wake up every time I need to move while sleeping because I brace for the pain, I need to methodically shift an inch or two, wait for the pain to subside, shift again, wait, shift, wait…It takes me several minutes to get out of bed and if I’m not careful the pain will literally force my legs to stop working while walking down the hall to the bathroom in hopes that I get there before I relieve myself of bodily fluids. I know it’s only temporary but in the midst of feeling the pain I feel like it’s never going to go away. Here’s what I also know about back pain (or any pain for that matter): It fucks with me on such a deep emotional level. All logical thoughts vacate the premise to make way for crappy emotional thoughts. With those C.E.T(s) come mindless eating, feeling sorry for myself, frustrated at my body and the crazy intense urge to lock myself away in the pantry and magically try to turn “healthy” foods into sugar laden, calorie dense “why the Fuck can’t this can of Tuna turn itself into a tub of chocolate frosting with a delicious slice of gooey cherry pie on the bottom???” When I’m in pain I spend a lot of time being angry with myself. Every time I eat something I go right back to that “well Tara, you won’t be able to work off those calories so you better watch what you’re eating” then it turns into “It doesn’t matter what I eat anyways because I’m such a freaking loser for hurting my back that I deserve to feel sick to my stomach as well for overeating”. Laying in bed because walking is painful turns into “you’re so lazy” and walking (ever so slowly and methodically) because laying in bed is painful turns to “Way to fuck things up yet again Tara”… On top of all that, I still haven’t heard about the employment position at the university here in Halifax. Logical Tara knows it takes time for a university to decide to offer this type of position to someone. HR has to look at budgets, and proposals and then decide who is the best match for the faculty member they are hiring for. Emotional (and in pain) Tara thinks “I’m not good enough for the job and they are just waiting to tell me that I suck but I could save them a phone call because I already know I suck”. Nor have I heard anything on the permanent residency status. It’s been over 13 months and all they can say is “we don’t know where you are in the process”… I’m frustrated. In pain. Cranky as all fucking get out and to top it all off; so is my partner in crime. The Martin/Dowe household is in need of some serious emotional flushing. And yet, there is nothing I can do at this point about any of the frustrations of being in pain, of waiting to hear about the job position or of waiting to hear back from the Canadian Government about my permanent residency. Well that’s not entirely true. I may not be able to take the pain away this instance but I can try to remember that this is only temporary. I may not know about the employment position today but I am in the time line of when they will be notifying people. And well the thing with the Government is just all the bureaucratic bullshit of being a big entity of power with not enough people working to keep things going smoothly… I want to eat. Like eat eat. Like drive through the first fast food establishment I can find and order some hot fries and double cheese burger, then as I’m ripping into that bag scope out another fast food establishment… Eat until I’m so uncomfortable I berate myself. Eat until I’m crying because I want to stop but can’t… It won’t happen. For one I’m in too much pain to get out of bed right now (a blessing?). And two, that’s not how I deal with frustrations and anger any more. Better to just sit with the pain of the back and the frustration of the mind rather than add the pain of my over bloated stomach and the frustration of having sugar headaches and all that comes with not eating in congruency with what my body needs. Instead I’ll just try to remain calm and give my body the chance to heal… (but please don’t take too long)
Why do we allow the choices of our past to dictate the drive of our future? As I begin this new portion of my own Life Changing Journey with the life coaching, I hear an underlying “theme” (one that I played in my own head for so many years). No matter how many times someone has tried to change somewhere down the line, old behaviors creep back in and before you know it all the movement forward has reverted into moving backwards and along the way some extra weight has tagged along for the ride. The fear of change is detrimental. The understanding that you have the power and do nothing with it is also as detrimental. We allow “excuses” to determine our actions. We allow what feels like past mistakes to drive our emotional choices. We’re afraid to stand up and say to world “my life is worth saving” because most of the time do we not believe we’re worth it but we don’t think we have the ability to save ourselves. I talk with a lot of people that are afraid of the actions of others when they want to make the necessary changes in their lives to eat well, to live well, to move the body the way it was designed to be moved and for maybe the first time (or the 100th) to really make a commitment to the one person that has the power to change: Themselves. It’s never easy putting yourself first. Want to know what not putting myself first got me? Depression. Anxiety. Obesity. It got me feeling angry at a world I thought hated me. It got me looking in the mirror and seeing so much disdain for what I saw that I chose to comfort myself with disgusting foods bought from an industry that didn’t give two shits about me. Driving in and out of fast food drive thru(s) too embarrassed to even leave my car when eating. It got me hiding spoons in the bathroom so that I could make myself vomit hoping the pain of the retching would ease the pain in my mind as I continued to fester in my own thoughts of inadequacies. It got me eating quantities of food well beyond my comfort level because I thought I deserved to be morbidly obese. That I deserved to sit on the couch and dream about moving instead of actually do it. That I deserved the life I had been given because I didn’t have the power (nor the courage) to change. For 40 years I never put myself first. I never cared enough about myself to think I was worth saving. I relied on the love of other people to validate me even when I didn’t want to be in a relationship any longer. I was afraid to stand up not only to those in my life but to myself. Change is scary. You have no idea where the road is going to lead you. I had no idea that a year after I started taking control of my life, my relationship with Mitch would end. I had no idea that running marathons or lifting heavy weights would become a priority in my life. I had no idea that gender variance would begin to play a major role in my journey. I had no idea I would be coaching other people as they begin to understand that they too are worth saving… Yes, it’s scary. But it’s necessary. IT’S NECESSARY! Without it we’re destined to stay in the exact same spot and never see our potential. If I hadn’t begun to make the changes, put myself first and believe that I was worth saving I wouldn’t have this blog, I wouldn’t be with Meegan, I wouldn’t be 2 years post weight loss and helping others see that they absolutely have the ability to stand up, take control and move forward… Change may be scary. Not changing is worse.
If she were alive today she’d be preparing for her 74th birthday on November 19th. Instead, I’m very deep in thought as I remember that 22 years ago she left this world nine months after being diagnosed with lung cancer. She was a beautiful woman. More than beautiful in appearance, my mother was beautiful in her continued search for happiness, for acceptance and more painfully understood, today, twenty two years after her last breath, for love. This is my mother’s high school graduation picture. The hand written inscription is to Johnny, her first husband and father to my older brothers. I know very little about him. The “us” she is referring to is to my oldest brother who was named after the man she hoped would bring her the love she longed for. I could stare at this picture for what seems like an eternity. By the time I finally came along, that deep sense of beauty my mother exuded had run it’s course. Replaced, instead, with depression and demons that followed her where ever she went until that early morning when she took her last breath and hopefully felt the relief she had so desperately needed. When we experience life in ways we feel unfair, we often want to point fingers and blame someone else. “Look what you did to me”, “It’s your fault”, “I’ll never forgive you”…My mother was no different. It took Death coming at her full force to finally return home and be with her mother and sister after almost 30 years of a strained and non existent relationship. A few weeks together, trying to forgive a lifetime of pain, did very little to ease her conscious but it was needed much more than any medication she could take to ease her into her final days. I spent many years, after she passed, festering in the very same depression and being chased by the same demons that chased her for 52 years. I blamed my life on her. I blamed the abuse on her. I blamed everything on her. On top of blaming her for what had already happened, I was pointing my finger at the ghost of my mother and blaming her for what I would never be able to make happen; finding my own happiness, loving who I was and instead of pointing the finger outward in blame, pointing it inward and figuring out how to stop living in a shit hole of mental illness that has plagued this family long before I was born and long before my mother was brought into this world. I often wonder what life would be like today if she had lived into her 70’s. I miss her immensely. But to be honest, I miss her because of who I am today and that wouldn’t be possible if she had lived. It was in her sickness that I was able to heal. It was in her death I was able to live. It was in her desperate search for happiness, acceptance and love that I am on a path of truly finding what it means to have all three things in my heart not just for a few weeks before I take my final breath but for a lifetime. November is a “trigger” month for me. This is the time of the year that those demons come creeping back into my emotional state of being. I think about my mom a lot both in her years of life and her many many years of death. This year it seems to be especially difficult as this week marks the one year anniversary of Mimi’s accident and my panicked state of leaving the only place I’d ever called home to forge a new life with the one person who brings me exactly what my mother spent her life hoping to experience: Happiness. Acceptance. Love. You always hear people say “I’d give anything for 5 minutes with a loved one” after they pass. I think about what I would do if I was given those precious 5 minutes. I’d ask her to sing for me. She had a beautiful voice. One that was never allowed to sing loud enough for the world to hear. I’d hold her hand, look her in the eyes and tell her it was in her death I found my life and as much as I wanted her to stay she would have to go… Not because I blame her for my life. But because I thank her for my life. 11/19/1938 – 11/06/1990
It seems natural that this would make sense to us. We already know healing is not an overnight process and yet we find it so difficult to even allow the process to have a beginning. I’ve been thinking a lot about healing in all aspects of my life. The person I am today would not be writing this blog post if I didn’t allow myself to feel the pain that comes with “cleansing”. I didn’t just heal myself physically by losing weight and taking my body from a state of morbid obesity to a thinner self, but I also heal by losing the emotional weight that I continue to struggle with on a daily basis. Just like making poor eating choices or not moving your body the way it begs to be moved will bring back that weight you’ve been trying so hard to lose, emotional weight can creep it’s way back into your life if you are not continually working to “keep it off”. When I was fat I wasn’t an active participant in my life. Physically, I wasn’t moving forward. Emotionally, I wasn’t moving forward. Staying in the same place doesn’t mean my life was shitty, it just means I wasn’t reaching for my potential. Staying in the same place meant living with depression and not seeking out necessary answers to help relieve the emotional pain. Staying in the same place meant living with a body that was getting larger and larger with each passing year and not seeking out the necessary answers to help relieve the physical pain. Staying in the same place meant wondering if there was something more to my life but allowing the pain of my past to feed the fear of my future… I’ve been thinking a lot about Mitch. I feel bad for thinking about him because most times when you think about an ex it usually comes with a “bad” taste in your mouth. I mean they are your ex for a reason right? But in truth I think about him because I didn’t end the relationship because of something he did. I ended it because of who I was becoming. I often wonder if I should write him a long letter trying to explain my reasons for leaving the relationship the way I did. I often wonder if an explanation would lesson the pain that I caused him and in return lesson the pain that I caused myself. I don’t, for one second, second guess my ending of the relationship, but I do second guess how I ended the relationship. Could I have handled it better? Should I have been honest sooner (and by sooner I mean years) with him? Should I have tried to talk to him afterwards? Could I have been more patient in his anger towards me and his confusion towards my decisions to seek out a new relationship with Meegan? I used to lay awake at night wondering if he was alone? If when he got up in the morning was he looking at an empty side of the bed wondering what happen to the life he had planned out for us? I was never very good about healing myself from the guilt I felt for leaving him. Over the last few days I’ve been feeling disconnected to myself. What I want is a good cry. A healing cry. A down right slobber all over my face, snot running down, I can’t catch my breath type of cry. I want a boxing class where I stand in front of my bag knowing I’m about to beat the fuck out of because I’m in a phase of healing that is hard to be present in. In that guilt I’ve been feeling over Mitch, I held on to a piece of him. A piece of us. Sending money every month for the dogs that we took care of together for 8 years kept me connected to him at a safe distance. Always wondering if he’s okay because when I knew he was okay then I would know it was time to let go. I got the okay not too long ago. We don’t have many conversations. It was mostly me just letting him know the check was in the mail and him wondering why I still carried his last name and why my checks still had “our” address on it. The conversation I had been secretly hoping for came a few weeks ago when he told me I wouldn’t need to send money for the dogs any longer. I could never bring myself to not send money for two dogs that I miss immensely even today so I needed him to do it. It was during that brief conversation he felt okay enough to tell me that life for him was turning out pretty good. He’s getting the recognition in life he’s always deserved, in both his professional life and his personal life. He told me he was seeing someone and in that instant I knew it was okay for me to let go. Not to let go of him. We will continue to re-build that bridge that I so violently tore apart. It’s time I let go of the fear that I hurt someone so deeply that they can’t put their own band aid over a wound and heal. It’s time to let go of the idea that I have to explain everything I do to lessen the blow of ending the relationship. He of all people understands the struggle of waking up and realizing that the body your occupying physically is not the body you occupy emotionally. The disconnection I feel in myself is because I am going after things I know I deserve but in order to go after them I have to be true to who I am both in gender congruency and in my ability to trust that becoming a life coach for other people on their Life Changing Journeys is the absolute right path for me. The disconnection I feel is because while chasing these entities that bring me closer to the Tara of true self, I have to allow the Tara of old self to heal even more today than in 2009 when I started taking those baby steps to losing weight and more so than in 2011 when I ended my relationship with Mitch to follow my heart and marry Meegan. I tell people to stay present in their emotions. To allow all feelings the rightful place in our bodies and hearts. I say this as a reminder to myself too. I’m not without my own emotional lessons on a daily basis. This week is a prime example as I go into job interviews truer to myself today and in fear that people won’t “get me”, or as I face people on Skype asking the question “How can I help you get to where you deserve”. Healing is hard. It’s painful. It can be downright excruciating. No longer reliant on food to sooth the ache. To soothe the fear. To bring back the calm we so desperately seek. Relying on the self to ease the pain instead of the fridge. In order to fully move away from what can no longer be accepted as “life” means having to stay present because when the pain eases then we can move toward the LIFE we deserve… Spend a little time with yourself in a place where you can hear your heartbeat. It’s trying to tell you something It wants to heal.
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I need to get real honest with myself.
Staying in the moment.
Why are we so fearful of taking control of our lives?
Do you have one of those “things” you find difficult to talk about no matter how much time has passed, and how much healing, understanding and emotional work you’ve done around that “thing”? For me that “thing” is my mother. I haven’t seen her face, touched her skin or heard her voice since the very end of October 1990.
There can be so much written about the powerful message in that little box to the left.