New year and new me

It's amazing what a vacation to the mountains will do for my soul. I had so much time to think and ponder and resolve to many thoughts spinning in my head.

This year I give myself permission to achieve whatever I want.

I put some mental puzzle pieces together over the weekend and when I did, it was like a stadium being lit up in my head. I've been reading about mental roadblocks to weight loss and one of the categories is power.

I will not reveal names but a particular professor said things to me that still make me tear up when I think about them. Perhaps I needed a little thicker skin, and over time my relationship with this professor got better and better but it was always tainted. I really struggled during my master's degree and when I look back on everything I was dealing with, I sometimes get a little bitter. I get bitter because I feel like I started off on such rocky ground and spent two years just trying to find some light in all the darkness around me and I never really got a chance to focus on ME and my voice and the whole reason I went to graduate school in the first place.

Basically I feel like life was so full of unexpected events that MY time in graduate school wasn't really MY time and consequently I didn't really accomplish what I set out to do. (don't worry, there will be another post on recognizing that there is a lot of blaming going on surrounding my graduate school experience and ultimately it's time for me to LET GO and move forward from this very emotional time of my life)

What in the world does this have to do with my weight and power?

During my master's degree I spent some time in counseling and several sessions were devoted to how unworthy I felt of being in the program and how the words of others and the words of a particular professor were so cutting to me that I questioned why in the world I was there. I felt so betrayed and so confused and didn't know who to trust or who to believe. I also felt powerless and trapped. I felt that because I didn't have full trust in my professor that I was not able to be offer all I wanted to during my lessons and I felt very afraid to sing because I was so afraid of criticism. Singing requires so much trust and when your voice is choked by fear, it's very difficult to get better and be vulnerable. The feelings of unworthiness, shame, and fear were overwhelming at times. Interesting that I was afraid to sing while getting a master's degree in singing....

I was also encouraged to lose weight and work on my health while in graduate school (by professors) and in learning more about power and weight loss, I think this is one piece of my puzzle that will be important for me to resolve.

The only way I could do the opposite of what I was told to do by someone who I was so angry at was to stay fat and then get fatter. In some ways the only way I felt I had "power" over my situation was to rebel. It was as though someone told me to lose weight and because I wanted revenge I deliberately gained more and more weight. I felt so insignificant and so powerless against this professor who was very much in charge of my future in the program and the only way I could be "disobedient" without jeopardizing my place in the program was to stay overweight. I couldn't practice less. I couldn't perform worse. I couldn't "get revenge" in any other way. Man just thinking about that time of my life makes me sick to my stomach even right now.

In the book I'm reading, there are references to children who have parents who are abusive or controlling and the only way the children can have control in their lives is to gain weight. Now this is where I feel guilt because my professor wasn't a bad or malicious person. There were just some situations where we had different expectations from each other and it took a long time to be on the same page and understand one another. Unfortunately these situations were very emotionally charged for me and had a big impact on me at the time. Emotionally it's the same a child who doesn't want to be controlled or abused yet they feel incredibly powerless against the demands of their parents.

This is all in the subconscious and not something most people are even doing consciously, but since our subconscious is so powerful I really believe the solution to my problem lies with getting to the root of all my issues with food, weight, etc. and this is just one of the many many things that I know has been contributing to my weight problem. There are many things I realized this weekend and one by one I will do my best to journal them and work them out.

Now I am not saying there is only ONE subconscious reason for my weight issues. I know it is a complicated combination of many factors but I know that these are the types of things I am talking about when I say I've hit he tip of the iceberg.

Man I wish I didn't have so many feelings.

Like I said in the beginning, I am going to accomplish whatever I want this year.

No excuses. No blaming. No holding on to the past. No apologies. No fear. I have a lot of work ahead of me but I can do this.