I am ready

I was extremely blessed this week beginning on Sunday with a sermon that led to yesterday’s post and now a great talk with an old dance teacher that has become one of my truest friends. We spoke about a number of our struggles and how we can tackle them in our future. How appropriate since 2013 is upon us. After everything we spoke about the thing we both came back to is this:

When you are ready…

It is a great thing to talk and know what I need to do to find freEDom and recovery for good but I will always be in the same place unless I do something. Unless I change things I will be the same as I was yesterday. That isn’t a bad thing, I am healthy and happy the majority of the time. But I am not free yet. I know of some things that I can do to help me become free but I cannot do that until I am ready. I am ready. I am not scared of what I have to do. I am nervous and I am scared of the uncertainty that comes with every new thing. But I am ready. I am ready. I am ready.

My goals for 2013

1. Work on freeing myself from my fear food. I have alluded to this in many posts but never revealed what it is I fear. I fear grains. It stems from years ago and is a story in itself. But I know that grains are healthy and needed in the diet. So to begin conquering this fear I will be reintroducing grains into my diet a little at a time. As with anything you have to start small and work your way to the top. How appropriate for the name of my blog. I will be plating those grains, enjoying them (hopefully- if not I will be trying a new grain that I do enjoy) and then climbing on to the next thing.
2. Put myself out there to meet people. I pretty much live in the school and study environment. And I study in my house. There is not much opportunity to meet people there. So 3 times a week/3 hours a week I will be finding a place that I enjoy studying. It might be a Starbucks, Panera, library, Student Union… Whatever I just have to enjoy being there. And then once a month I will do something recreational. This could be going downtown to meet people/hang out with friends or going bowling at our student center. I just want to put myself out there to meet people and this is where I am going to start.
3. Try new things. I am currently working on a list of things I have always wanted to try but have been too afraid/self-conscious in the past. To give you an idea it includes running (short distances and no races just for fun and for feeling my body better), yoga (especially Hot Yoga), Pilates, Horseback Riding…
4. Do something nice once a day. Wake up and be thankful and love others. Stop judging others. I want to find something nice that I can always do that helps someone else out. I want to write down what I am thankful for. I will show compassion. And when I make a judgement I will work on checking myself. Everyone is different and they should be loved for that individuality.

None of these will happen with the blink of an eye. But I hope to look back a year from now and see that I have made progress in each of these so that I can add to them and keep working to grow as a person. And back to Sunday…

NOTHING IS POSSIBLE WITHOUT GOD.

The End Begins Now

I honestly do not know where to begin on this last day of 2012. All of you have written beautifully composed posts about what you experienced this year and what you are looking for in the year of 2013. But I don’t think I documented this year as well as I would have liked to. Sure I have some amazing memories and experiences…

Goodbye to dance

Climbed the Arc de Triomphe

Cheers!

Done with my last day. See you in the winter Chesapeake Regional!

Ordering my first drink

Rebekah came to VT

Coffee obsessed

Hokie football = sad season

New friends! All thanks to blogging

Started running and no longer hate it

And I learned a ton about myself through all of it. A beautiful sermon that felt very much directed towards me yesterday plus a few internal struggles I have been dealing with as of late have caused me to want a few resolutions this year. But I never stick to resolutions or goals or whatever you want to call them. I get caught up in school and all of my normal routines pretty quickly and by the end of the year I normally cannot remember what goals I set at the beginning of the year. I don’t want that to happen this year. If I keep going on the same track I will never grow and the struggles I had this year will follow me for the rest of my life. I do not want this.

Yesterday I was asked to contemplate what takes me away from God. My answer was everything. Until I realized that God wants me to have talents, he doesn’t want me to stop studying or exercising or eating a healthy diet. But he also doesn’t want those things to be done without him. I need him to guide me on a path in life that will lead me to a destination only he knows of.

What really takes my life away from God is an eating disorder that I have carried with me for over 7 years now. For most of this time I have considered myself recovered, and I still do. I wrote in the past about how I felt stuck. Well I still feel stuck and that is because I was too busy making excuses instead of sitting down and deciding on a plan of action to one day rid my life of this part of my life completely. I have fear foods that I refuse to release because the fear keeps me safe. I still struggle with what exercise is supposed to be for me, although this is something my mom was kind enough to point out I have been working on and succeeding in. And I am still consumed by appearance, the thin body ideal, and perfection in everything. Until I let go of these things I will forever live a life in which I am in a constant battle with anorexia. I might be winning for the rest of my life, but as long as the battle is still going on there is a chance for losing.

I don’t want to live my life on the battlefield. So in 2013 I will work to end this war. I am not making it my goal to rid my life of this thing that has consumed me so long. I cannot set a time frame for when this will be over and not longer consume me. I making 2013 the first year of the end. There will be a time in my future that I am completely free.

I am currently working on a short list of short term goals that will help me to end this battle. I hope by posting this list in the next week it will keep me accountable to trying new things, challenging myself, and taking risks so that I can begin to experience life that is led by the light of God.