time to tattle on myself a little

Keeping it honest, I need to share with this blog a few things about myself.

1. After that 20 days or so of grinding up raw juices and drinking nothing but raw, blended vegetable juices, now, there is a deep part of my that has rebelled, and I refuse to juice any vegetables at all. I just refuse. I am noticing this, witnessing it, and letting it be for now.

2. I also notice that, in the past week or so, I have been porking out a lot more, and I know that it is because it has been my way of concealing my pain. So, I have been consciously working on keeping my diet under control, with some success, and some not-so-success.

I have a memory of when I was a real, small boy. Don't know what age. But we had this maid who didn't speak any English. Anyway, I figured out how to overeat with her. I would point to the peanut butter, and she would make me a sandwich. Then, when I was done eating that sandwich, I would point to the peanut butter, and she would make me another. I kept eating, and kept pointing, and she kept making them, and I continued eating them. I think I ate like 6 or 7 sandwiches in a row.

So, now flash-forward into this strange future of mine where there is the internet and all this fancy stuff, and here I am, a 41 year old man, and that little boy is still pointing to the "peanut butter" and there is a part of me that keeps making it for him.

In college, I porked and porked and porked out, and ballooned up to 200 pounds, which on my 5' 8" frame, I looked really big.

In my first year of law school, I played a lot of basketball, and really worked my ass off, and got back down into the 160's. Then, in the middle of my second year, I had an "emotional smackdown" of sorts, and bailed for a year. This was 1991.

Then in 1992, I really lost even more weight, got down to 145 because of being on a "macrobiotic diet" for about 2 years.

Then, when I came back to Missouri to study for the bar exam, I kept eating really good, and in 1994 I was doing a lot of really awesome emotional work, had some major breakthroughs, and then it all stopped when I was severely violated on a massage table by a male Rolfer.

Then I plunged deep into eating. Deep, deep.

From 1994 through 1999 I tried to keep it off, but I was not able to stop the compulsion to hide under a nice layer of belly fat. This is where I hide my "emotional baggage," way deep down in there where my belly meets my lower back: way, way down in there.

And I have had back problems off and on the whole time.

1999, I meet Christine, fall head over heels in love, get married, and from there...

I go up and down, gaining 10, losing 10, gaining 10, losing 10, but never really getting rid of my blanket of belly fat, never really stepping out into the world emotionally naked.

There is a part of me that believes if I lose all this belly fat, then I will be exposed and vulnerable to attack. The only way for me to lose this belly fat, and get back to my light, healthy weight is to do what I am doing now: Sending Light, Love, and Energy back through time to my inner child, and creating a safe place in my heart and mind for my inner child, right here and now.

So to the present moment regarding my physical weight: I just went from 175-177 down to 164, and then went up to 166-168. I feel myself turning to food to comfort myself, and my hope is that writing about it, will help me be more conscious of it.

My back, my back, my back. What can I say about this nagging, reoccuring back pain? Intuitively, I feel like this: The more weight I lose, the more my back hurts, the more exposed that trauma is. Losing weight is like walking back down a road I have been on before, and I come to a sign that says, "back pain, up ahead, turn around now if you don't want to hurt" Time and time again, I have kept walking past the sign, only to encounter the inevitable back pain. And time and time again, as I go deeper and deeper into the THORNY FOREST, I turn around, because it's not just the physical pain, but the emotional freakout as well, that I am running from when I turn back to the LAND OF GLUTTONY.

The solution?

I think I keep doing what I am doing. I am feeling really good, like I am really, really healing something deep and primordial within me, each time I give the little boy in me all that Light and Love.

And I am going to do another physical health challenge, a shorter one this time, like going to the doctor for a quick shot of MOTIVATION. Because I need it.