It's a Practice

I just discovered Lizzo and truth … I think I’m a little obsessed.

And, yes, I know I’m behind the curve when it comes to Lizzo. You don’t have to tell me. But bitches, I’ve been busy.

I’m going to be 55 years old next month and when I look in the mirror, even on a bad day I think “look at me, I know I look good. Look good, look good, look good.”

That’s pretty new for me.

I’ve been in therapy and I have done a LOT of inner work. You can’t even imagine how hard the work is if you haven’t done “the work.”

Two years ago when I started trauma therapy, yes trauma therapy, when I looked in the mirror I had a very strong inner critic that insulted me.

I looked in the mirror and the insults would flow as easily as turning on the sink faucet. I wasn’t even really aware of it. It was automatic. Glance in the mirror and think the nastiest possible thing you could say to yourself.

Two years ago I was also so afraid to tell people that I have a mental illness. There were fewer than a handful of people that I worked with for more than two decades who knew about it. And here I am posting it on social media.

I have PTSD. And it took a while, but I finally realized the voice that I was hearing insult me when I looked in the mirror was not mine. It was mostly my father’s but there were other voices throughout the years that echoed the things that he said to me and taught me to say to myself.

I repeated them to myself as if they were my words for more than three decades after I broke contact with him.

I had a weight problem my entire life. It started when I was around 8. I am pretty sure I know why but that is a story for another day. But when I started doing this work (“the work”), I started looking back at the few photos I have of myself as a young girl (I don’t have many childhood photos, my father got them in the divorce). I was shocked to see a girl in photos who was not fat.

Stunned. That’s a better word. Why was he making me keep to less than 1,000 calories a day when I was growing? I wasn’t fat. I was in puberty. I was shaped differently than my sisters, true. They were tall and lean. (I’m a thick bitch, I need tempo.) But I was not fat.

A lot of things transpired to create an eating disorder that I feel like I have finally beaten. It’s always something I’m going to need to pay attention to. But it doesn’t run my life anymore.

My boundaries had to get really solid. I had to not care what people around me thought about what I chose to put in my body. It’s Christmas, you’re not eating sugar? No, I’m not. It’s just one day. Maybe for most people it’s one day. For me sugar was an addiction that whispered in my ear constantly … “you’re sad? Stressed? Just have a little.”

I did the Whole 30 after going to an osteopath for gut issues that traditional medicine didn’t have the answers for. Turn out, I’m sensitive to sugar. And things that turn to sugar in my gut.

And for those of you who don’t know, and I consider myself pretty well informed and this shocked the shit out of me … your gut talks to your brain. My gut was overrun with yeast. Because yeast likes sugar, it was telling my brain “yo, send MORE.”

I’ve broken the sugar cycle many times in my life. And then gone back to it. Because I needed to heal other things for sugar not to be a substance I abused. A lot of other things actually. Including having boundaries.

But I think, I hope, I’m finally there with my diet.

I have experimented with how much sugar I can have. And how much bread. Anything with a high glycemic index. The answer is not much. And it’s not just the addiction, my gut doesn’t like it.

So I’m careful. And I really don’t give a fuck if you feel threatened by my healing and my self control. I spent a lifetime being out of control of this. This is how I take care of myself. By not putting things in my body that are bad for me. This is called self care and self love.

It’s a process. I bought a scale. I have to be very careful to only weigh myself once a week. And also not to judge myself by that number. I was judged by that number from a very young age.

Simple things like buying clothes for myself are a challenge. Because my father checked the labels every time we got home from clothes shopping. What size is she in NOW? So I don’t dress the way I would like to. Because I still abhor clothes shopping. And sometimes I just can’t push myself to go try on clothes. And no I don’t buy online. I don’t know my size.

I was supposed to go clothes shopping with my bestie tomorrow. I canceled on her. We are going to karaoke instead.

I can’t track my calories or macros. It’s too close to the way my eating disorder worked. I have to be in touch with why am I hungry right now? Oh, I ate 5 hours ago. Yes I guess it is time to fuel.

Why am I craving sugar right now. Yes, I guess I am feeling a little blue today. But am I hungry? No. I just ate 30 minutes ago. Have some water.

It helps being surrounded by supportive people like my boss who is thoughtful enough when ordering food for the group to ask me discretely … what can I order you? That kind of support … you can’t throw enough light around a person like that.

I had to work on the relationship with my critic. It started with it insulting me and me screaming at it to shut the fuck up. BUT I had to replace that anger with curiosity and love. Where did you come from? Why are you so mean? Turns out it was trying to protect me. So we talked. I need you to change your tone. I need you to be a little more constructive. And slowly replaced those voices with my own voice, a kinder voice. A voice that knows to be gentle when it has something it wants to recommend about how I look and what I eat. (Now it might say something like you look tired today and I say back, yep. Only caught 6 hours last night. This is what it’s going to look like today. It’s fine. You’re still gorgeous.)

I have changed a lot in two years. This is just scratching the surface. I changed so much, it required a name change.

And it was a LOT of work. A lot of painful fucking work. And I’m still in it. There is so much that has been healed, but there’s still a ways to go.

So please use my new name. Don’t dead name me. Because I am not the girl you knew two years ago. I’m not the woman you knew even 6 months ago.

I am Esme.

So I’m posting this photo today. At the end of the day. No shower. No makeup. No filter. In my yoga space that I created for myself in my house. In celebration.

This is what healing looks like.