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~ When life doesn't turn out as you had hope it would – It may not be 100% factual truth-but, it is 100% me.

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Tag Archives: Victory

A New Year

05 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by Heather Irwin in All Posts

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Accomplishments, Attitude, change, Changes, Childhood, Choice, Choices, Confidence, Control, Courage, Creativity, Determination, Diet, Dreams, Empowerment, Exercise, Friendship, Goals, Growth, Healing, Health, Healthy, Healthy Eating, Healthy Habits, High School, hope, Hopes, Inspiration, Journey, life, losing weight, Mature Student, Me, Memories, Memory, Nostalgia, nutrition, perseverance, Progress, Reflection, Reflections, School, University, Victory, Weight Loss, Writing

I know I have been extremely slack in writing. This will be no surprise to anyone who was followed or known me for any length of time. I have a history of writing faithfully for bursts of time, followed by not writing for a length of time, only to pick it up and start again. On and on the cycle goes.

The main reason for this is that there are many, many, many things I want to write about that involve other people and I am not quite ready to put the stories that include other people (even if I withhold names) out there just yet. But, that doesn’t mean the writing isn’t happening. I still have to go through the process of writing about what’s in my mind. I just can’t share it yet.

These stories invade my mind and I still have to allow myself the time to go through them and let the stories work themselves out before I can move on to something else.

This often includes a process of revisiting the past and sometimes even reaching-out to a long, lost, friend or just trying to come to terms with how an old relationship ended.

There has been a lot of this for me in the past 6 months as our move back home has brought-up many memories and experiences with which I still needed to process and come to terms.

I have also become a full-time university student, via distance ed., working towards a degree. This has been a dream of mine ever since I left High School, when depression and anxiety held me back from being able to attend university. It has been something I had always missed-out on and, being someone who loves school and loves to learn, had always dreamed I would be able to do.

Now I’m doing it and it feels great!

I am also continually improving my health and nutrition and constantly striving to treat myself well.

I feel great.

2018 is going to be a good year.

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251.5 Celebrating a HUGE Victory

16 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by Heather Irwin in Seeking Health Now

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Addiction, Chocolate, Choice, Food, Food Addiction, Lose weight, losing weight, Mindfulness, Overweight, Progress, Victory, weight, Weightloss

After a particularly exhausting therapy session (for non-recovery PTSD), I left the Psychologist’s office feeling torn-apart, raw, vulnerable and extremely exhausted.

‘I just want to eat my feelings away’ I thought to myself as visions of French fries and deep fried wontons from my favourite Chinese delivery place danced in my head.

I pictured all the yumminess that I could stuff in my face to avoid how I was feeling and dull the pain. I could feel myself start to salivate. The crunch of the wontons mixed with that tangy sweetness of sweet & sour sauce. The hot, salty warmth of a perfectly fried potato…

Then, from somewhere inside of me, this other voice spoke-up and said ‘We need to stop doing that. We need to stop ‘eating our feelings’.”

And then the most incredible thing happened. I listened.

This is the first time I can recall, since I’ve been aware of those thoughts and my food addiction (using food to dull negative thoughts/feelings) that I had been able to say ‘no’ to the pull to make myself feel better with food.

This is monumental. It is HUGE.

It is what I’ve been working-towards, and writing about over and over again, but it’s the first time I have had such a clear, obvious, perfect, undeniable victory.

In the past, I would justify ordering- ‘I’ll just have the fries and a few wontons…’ ‘I deserve this, I’m working through a lot, it’s the least I can do for myself..’ ‘People eat this stuff all the time, why can’t I?’

Why can’t I?

Because, unlike most people, I’m not just eating it because it tastes good, I am eating it to dull something that is going on in my life. I’m eating it to escape. Food is to me as alcohol is to an alcoholic, or drugs are to an addict. I use food to escape. I use food to feel better. I use food to dull the pain/thoughts/fear, etc.

And so, on this day I made a conscious decision NOT to use food that way. I went home and ate a normal dinner with my family. Since then, I have had other victories, making the choice to not eat something because I was aware I only wanted to eat it so I would feel better.

I ask myself ‘Why do I want that?’ and if the answer sounds like ‘to feel better’ than it’s a red-light (a no-go). However, if the answer is: ‘because I really would like a piece of chocolate right now’, than it’s a green-light because there is no emotion involved.

Having a food addiction is different to other addictions. We don’t HAVE to drink alcohol to survive. We don’t HAVE to consume narcotics, etc. to survive. But, we do HAVE to eat to survive. We need food. Therefore, as an addiction, it’s not something that one can avoid. I have to eat.

That’s why I’ve been working-on teaching myself to be more mindful of ‘why’ I want to eat. Do I want to eat that because I’m hungry, or because it will taste good? Or, do I want to eat that to make myself feel better, dull the senses, escape, etc?
I’m feeling pretty stoked about that massive victory and excited at the idea that I might, actually, be able to start getting some power over all of this. Feeling that I have the strength within me to conquer these things is really inspiring and I hope to just keep pushing-forward and becoming more reliant on myself and less reliant on food when things are tough.

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To Thine Own Self…

31 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by Heather Irwin in All Posts, Seeking Life Now

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Canada, Choice, Counselling, Empowerment, Friendship, Gap Year, Help, hope, life, Marriage, New Zealand, Reality, Romance, Struggle, Truth, Victim, Victory

*

I was terrified when I moved to New Zealand.

I wasn’t 100% convinced that it was the right thing to do, but the people I trusted around me seemed to be, so I was doing it with the faith that they knew what they were talking about.

3 years earlier I had joined a gap-year program in Toronto, where I had been living and working for the past year, feeling lost, in way over my head and struggling to make ends meet.

There were 6 other people on this program from USA, Canada and New Zealand.

Over the years, I developed a deep friendship with the guy from NZ. We spent a lot of time together and were given more responsibility in the organisation, culminating in the request for us to return the following year as team leaders for the program.

By the end of the first year, this boy professed his love for me. But, I just wasn’t feeling it. He was like a brother to me and when he started to be at all romantic towards me, I felt like I would puke. It just felt wrong. I loved his friendship, but was not attracted to him or interested in him in that way.

After 3 years in the country, he decided it was time to return to Aotearoa-the land of the long, white, cloud. However, the leadership of the church did not want him to leave, as they still had plans for what we could do together. I was sent-in to talk to him because they all thought I would be able to convince him to stay.

But, even I could not persuade him to stay.

My minister pulled me aside and told me that she thought I was making a huge mistake by letting him go. She told me that she thought I had been blinded to my real feelings for him by feelings I had for someone else, the focus I had on the ministry I had been doing in the community and even a fear of commitment.

I trusted that she knew what she was talking about, especially since she wasn’t the only one saying that we were meant to be together. Everyone in that community had been pushing me to be with him and expressing the belief that it was what God wanted.

So, clearly, I was missing something. I began to feel as though I couldn’t trust my own mind or my own emotions, so I had to trust that everyone else knew what was right. And, so, I did what she told me to do and I went to this friend and suggested to him that we should give “us” a real chance.

It didn’t change his mind about going home, but he did agree to come to my hometown for a few days and meet my family.

It was a horrible week for me. I felt uncomfortable, nervous, odd, sick to my stomach, miserable and confused for most of our time together.

I just kept telling myself that I couldn’t trust my thoughts and that my “real”, romantic, loving feelings would eventually come to the surface. They never did.

Despite all of this uncertainty, I found myself in Toronto, saying my farewells and crying to everyone I trusted that I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing. I shared that I didn’t think I had feelings for him, that I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to be with him and I was afraid I was making a horrible mistake. I was hoping someone would hear me and tell me that I shouldn’t go.

But, time and time again these friends and mentors made me feel like I was silly, confused, and didn’t really know what I wanted.

I sobbed the day I left the city, my chest heaving with every breathe as though it had the weight of a thousand bricks on it. My other best friend was with me at the airport and I sobbed and clung to her for dear life, hoping she wouldn’t let go of me. I didn’t want to go. I really didn’t.

The next 5 years would be the hardest, most miserable, most terrifying, troublesome, difficult and challenging of my life. There would be many, many, many times I would be seconds away from packing my bags and disappearing. I had never been so sad, so depressed and felt so lost and helpless.

Those people, all of them who thought they were speaking for God, were wrong. Totally, absolutely, 100% wrong.

I felt like a victim for years about this. I felt that they were all to blame for this horrible life I found myself stuck in. They were responsible for making me be with this person to whom I wasn’t attracted, leaving everything I loved to follow God’s plan for my life.

This all changed when, 7 years after she had left me at the airport, my friend visited me and said words that made me so angry because they were filled with undeniable truth. I wasn’t a victim. I had made the choices all along. I made the choice to go. I could make the choice to leave. I couldn’t blame anyone but myself for staying and feeling trapped.

She spoke frankly with me and for the first time in my life, I actually felt like someone was talking to me adult-to-adult.

This year will mark the 10 year anniversary of that flight and as I sit here, writing this tale, the guy from New Zealand is in my kitchen cooking himself some eggs and watching “Dancing with the Stars” and we are happy.

We are happy because I made a choice. We are happy because he made a choice. We decided, together, that we were going to make this work, no matter what.

It’s true that we never had the “head over heels” romantic phase that most people do before they get engaged. We never went on dates. We didn’t get giddy over texts. We didn’t giggle with friends and chat about stolen kisses or the silly things being done during the wooing stage. We skipped all of that and went straight to the ‘married for 20 years, romance is dead, have to work on it’ phase.

And so, that’s what we did. We worked on it.

And, the most incredible thing happened-the further we got from the church, the healthier our relationship became. When we removed all of that unhealthy, outside influence, the added guilt and pressure to be something we’re not, and the expectation to fit into roles that didn’t suit us, we found that we really could enjoy being together. We went to counselling and with the guidance of someone who actually knew what she was doing, we worked on things together.

As I said before, I have spent years doing what others wanted me to do and believing that other people knew what was best for me-even more than I could know for myself until that autumn day, while walking the streets of Toronto my friend put me straight.

Today, I take great pride in my marriage because it has been forged with fire. Tested with tears and fights and moments where the desire to run hung as heavy in the air as an elephant would hang from a weeping willow.

This is our marriage. Our relationship. Our friendship. Our victory. It doesn’t belong to anyone else. It doesn’t belong to the church. It doesn’t belong to God. It doesn’t even belong to our counsellor. It is ours.

And, just as I couldn’t blame anyone else for where I found myself back then, I get to take the credit for where I am now.

“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.” –(Hamlet Act-1, Scene-III, 78–81)

I am in charge of my own life.

*

 

 

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Day? i’v e stopped keeping track

16 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by Heather Irwin in All Posts, Seeking Health Now

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Changes, Choices, Daylight Savings, Decisions, Low Energy, Over Calories, Overwhelmed, Stress, Vegetables, Victory, Weight Loss, Yoga

So, I’m nowhere near organized enough to do what I had originally planned and touch-base every day with my stats.

So, you’re going to get what you get for now.

I weighed in this morning at 269lbs. So, 1 lbs down from my previous check-in. I think this was, mostly, due to a decrease in appetite yesterday.

Today I have eaten to make up for it, so bye-bye 1 lbs lost.

I hate daylight savings. I was doing great and my energy was up and then BAM! It’s like someone pulled the carpet out from under me.

Suddenly, I’m thrust back into darkness in the mornings and my energy drops through the floor.

I haven’t been logging my food, either.

But, I can tell you that I had a chocolate glazed donut, 5 mini hershey squares and 4 blueberry waffles today. That’s not all I ate, of course, but that’s the unhealthy stuff.

I also had, about, 6 servings of vegetables. They were on 2 six inch subs from Subway and in our chicken fajitas tonight….so, I’m guessing my calorie intake is, probably, about 700 over my goal.

I have done a bit of exercise in the past couple of days, but really nothing major. I’m talking a few push-ups here, a 16 second plank there, 12 squats…

My work has been extremely stressful for me for several months and this week has, truly, had me run off my feet. The fact that I spend my day in a “spin” is part of why I’m struggling. Having to log food just feels like even more responsibility and work that I have to try and fit in, despite the fact that I’m not keeping-up with my job.

However, I know that I have to put some healthy boundaries in place and take care of myself. If I can’t make 30 minutes for myself every day, there is something seriously wrong.

So, despite the fact that I just made 4 blueberry waffles and am watching “The Amazing Race” with my husband, instead of returning to my hole on the couch, I came over to the table to write.

Another little victory.

Every time I make a good decision like this one, I feel it gives me strength to make even more good decisions.

Maybe I’ll even try a quick yoga session before bed tonight.

Little choices. Little victories. Little moments.

Lifelong changes.

 

 

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