I jumped. I asked for what I wanted and I jumped. I was on my first Women’s Quest adventure in 2007 in Colorado and our task was to climb a very high pole and jump off. I was connected to the other people in our group by a long rope.
The group was loudly cheering me on while I was attempting to connect to my gut feelings and when I stopped for a breath (a new practice for me) I noticed that I was unsettled. Was it the height? Yes, but mostly because I didn’t want the loud cheering. What I wanted was concentration from the group. So, I asked for it, for the very first time, I asked for what my gut was telling me. And guess what? I got the intense, concentrated attention that I needed. I breathed through each step up the 30 foot pole. When my heart felt like it had stopped, I breathed. When my head told me I couldn’t do it, I breathed. When my legs started to shake and I felt weak, I breathed. And next thing you know I was at the top of that pole. I had made a promise to myself that if I got that far, I wouldn’t think too much, I’d just jump. I hesitated for a few moments, the women below were all looking up at me and it was silent. And then I jumped and there were cheers and hugs all around.
It wasn’t so much about the jump as it was about the journey up the pole. I had been living all my life holding my breath. Afraid to breathe through the things that I decided were difficult. But I had been practicing. I had been meditating and taking yoga and taking care of myself since the mid 1990’s. I just hadn’t applied it to “real life”. So, given this golden opportunity, I practiced in “real life” with a group of people I’d just met and I was successful.
Most recently I have been working to “get healthy”. In 2008 I decided I wanted to be around healthy food. So, I called up a brand new local dairy that had been getting some great press in my area and asked them if they had any jobs available. I looked up the number and it rang into the dairy production room. The owner just happened to answer the phone and after hearing my story said, YES, we want you to spread the word for us and pass out samples of our grass-grazed, local organic milk at the local Farmers Market. So, I did just that. Along the way I met local artisan bread makers, local bakers, local produce growers and local egg and grass grazed chicken farmers. I was eating the simplest, most local, freshest, most organic food on a daily basis. I was sure that my quest for healthy food was going to be the ticket to less weight and better health. I started working out again. I connected with a monthly wellness program at Ohio State University in order to have emotional support. I got into a wellness study through my doctor at the university (to keep me accountable) and I continued to practice yoga and meditation.
I have always been very good at following directions. I am the type of person who reads the instruction manual to every appliance in my house. The only award I ever won in elementary school was for Best Direction Follower. I was following the health and fitness guidelines to the very best of my physical and mental ability and not seeing any real results. I lost a few pounds over the course of a year, gained it back and lost a little again. I also worked out so hard, I injured my knee.
I was browsing my local bookstore one day and came across an interesting book called, “All is Forgiven, Move On Our Lady of Weight Loss” by Janice Taylor. Although it looked like just what I needed/ I was so sick of reading about the next health fad that I put the book down and said to myself that I’d check it out at the library because I didn’t want to spend another penny on health and fitness books/dvds/equipment/food, etc.
I checked out the book and guess what? It was exactly what I needed. For the first time in my life, I signed up for an e-coaching course with Janice Taylor. I looked at Janice’s online website and found out that she had 21 day E-coaching course that I could sign up for (very affordable too).
I signed up and was greeted every morning by an email encouraging me to set my own goals, to do what I needed to do for myself and to be happy and have fun. She provided daily questions to think about and also fun tips on how to keep things fun. I learned that if It’s not fun, I probably won’t stick with it. I repeated the 21 day email course 2 more times and then ended up at a weekend workshop with Janice in the spring of 2011. It was the kick in the tush that I needed. I was in the process of switching my negative thoughts to positive ones (I thought a lot about Happy Molecules during this time!).
SO, I was still plugging away at getting healthy when I realized that I had to do something about my injured knee. I went to visit a Network Chiropractor that I had seen for a back injury for about 4 years in the mid 90s. He informed that he changed the scope of his practice and was now practicing Functional Medicine and that he could help me. I started to think that maybe it wasn’t about my knee injury…..
After many tests, I found out that I have strong sensitivities to the proteins in Wheat, Dairy, Egg, and Soy. Finally I found a doctor who would test me outside of the standard tests and tell me what was going on in my body on a cellular level. Under his care, I stopped eating the 4 allergens to my body and within 7 days, my joint aching/knee pain, skin problems, and lethargy literally disappeared. Really. No lie. I couldn’t believe it. I felt great. No more bloated stomach, no more taking a nap after work every night. No more low daily low energy. Gone.
What I didn’t see coming was the weight loss. Avoiding those allergens (remember, I am a good direction follower!), my body was able to release the weight it no longer needed. I lost about 25 pounds in 5 weeks. I thought that people would notice the weight loss and compliment me, but NO, what friends and family would say is, Wow, your face is so different, you look so good, your eyes are brighter. I’ll take it. I was feeling so good on the inside, that I couldn’t help but project it to outside. That was Summer of 2011 and today I feel like I did 25 years ago. I feel so good that I decided to do what I have been wanting to do for years, learn to Surf. And that’s what I am going to do this spring with Women’s Quest. All along, even though I didn’t feel great, I felt ok, I participated in activities. I didn’t wait until…….I was thinner, richer, prettier, happier, fill in the blank. I persisted. I kept asking my traditional MD if she could do more tests. She kept saying no. I knew something was not right, but didn’t know who to ask or what to do. Instead of curling up in a ball and hiding (well, maybe a few times I did that) I kept looking, kept asking, kept moving. I landed right where I needed to at just the right time. I trusted the process, followed the directions and learned something new about my body. I’m not sure why, but I do know that the changes I’ve made are exactly right for me. The question I get asked most of all is do I feel deprived of the foods that I love? I tell them I don’t and that IF I didn’t feel soooo good, that I wouldn’t keep the diet. I am very thankful that I have such wonderful teachers in my life and that I gained some trust in my own intuition so that I could nurture the parts of me that needed softness and understanding. I learned to take care of myself and even if the thing I’m tying ends up not being what I needed, at least I took the leap.
We sometimes tend to push ourselves, string ourselves out too thin and exhaust ourselves. Although this may not always be avoidable, we need to step back at the end of the day and figure out how we can give back to ourselves.
