The Experiment: Day 25 ~ On Deciding That Maybe I DO Want To Live In My Body Afterall…

I have not, for a very long time, cared very much about what I put in my body. Oh, I didn’t keep sweets and junk around, and only had fast food 3 or 4 times a month, but I rarely ate fruits or vegetables, just what was easy. I am now going on the ketogenic diet — again, this is just me, I am not purporting that anyone else do this — it’s just that I’ve been on every diet known to woman, include Weight Watchers more times than I can count, and these thing just do not work — for me. And it’s not just about going on a certain kind of diet, it’s about wanting to be in this body at all. Being sexually abused from 4-18 fractured me. I have long felt like my mind and soul were traveling through time and space together with my body bumping along behind me on the ground. I have not ever thought that I hated my body, I am just somewhere between terrified of it and disconnected from it. I am making slow gradual changes moving into keto, reading and studying, but the huge thing is that I finally care at all.

I have not wanted to make any promises to myself. I am not going to share here what I am eating or how I am doing it or what I weigh or how much I’m losing. Somewhere down the line if I have been successful I will likely do before and after pictures, but right now I am just moving through my days learning what and how it is to live in a body, what it means. I used to always be bruised or hurt from bumping into things, not paying attention, or even falling down. I was so not in my body I didn’t even notice it until I tripped over it. It is just unimaginable to me that some people love their bodies, move in the world with a kind of ease and grace that comes only for those who are comfortable in their own skin. And it’s not about how much some women weigh. The most beautiful women in the world, if you ask me, are women that most of the world think “should lose some weight.” I love goddess images of ample curvy bodies. But my body went way past that when I wasn’t paying attention, and I became less and less interested in having a relationship with it, and I began to hide more and more from the world.

I have only recently realized that much of my agoraphobia comes from not wanting to be looked at, being afraid and feeling unsafe in the outside world, knowing that people are judging me, or maybe not noticing me at all. Just one more “large woman” in a sea of them. So many women are suffering. It hurts my heart. All of a sudden it matters to me that I am able to go out into the world with confidence, feeling good about myself. I don’t know how much I will weigh then. I need to lose a good chunk of weight but I have no desire to “be skinny.” I want to feel womanly, and sensual — not sexy, I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about the kind of woman who just moves through the world with confidence and ease, both physically and emotionally. I want to feel good being me. I have not felt good about being me for so long I can’t remember when I did. Or rather I do remember but it is way back in the mists of time. I want to feel that way again in the years I have remaining to me. I want to Celebrate Myself! Sing Myself! as Walt Whitman wrote. I haven’t had anything to celebrate or sing about in a very long time.

It’s amazing that I am even at a place in my life where I want to do this. I think I can honestly say that while I have gone on diets and lost weight before and felt good about it, I was never doing it for myself. I was doing it because of what other people thought about me, or thought I should do. I believe that this is the first time in my life I am doing it just for me. I am sitting here, kind of shy, in a state of awe and wonder. I don’t know what it all means, or how it will turn out, or who I will be by the end of this 365 day project but I know that I will never be fully happy unless I take care of all the bits and parts and pieces of me. It’s not just mental illness I deal with, it is this mind/body split, this weight that I carry around like an albatross around my neck, and I’m not at all talking about wanting to look like a fashion model or follow the latest trends — I never have and I never will — it’s about being able to walk down the street all of a piece, not with my body bumping along on the ground separate and apart from the rest of me.

I think I’ve said enough. I think I’m having an awakening. Nothing earth shaking, just quietly finding that I want to live in the world as a whole woman, inasmuch as I’m able. This is new for me. I will share thoughts along the way, not so much about the diet and what I’m eating, more about the way getting better situated in my body in a healthier way feels. I will say it again, this 365 day experiment may end up being the most important thing I’ve ever done, it is touching every part of my life, slowly, but surely, things are changing, incrementally, I think people won’t notice very much for a good long while but someday maybe those I love and I will wake up and say, “Well gosh, look at you, something’s different.” And it won’t be simply about weight loss, it will be because I will have become a woman who glows with self-love, a woman who has reconnected with the goddess within, a woman who has finally determined that she will do what it takes to reach her full potential.

I never thought I’d be here. I am so happy that I have finally begun…

 


The Experiment ~A 365 Day Search For Truth, Beauty &
Happiness: 
Day 1 ~ Introduction To The Project
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Yoda

Comments

  1. May this new path bring you to a place of contentment in your body Maitri. <3

  2. In the short time that I have been following your posts I do feel a change in your approach. You sound more positive and calm. I am hoping for the same in my own life. I am taking small steps to feel better about myself, and it is a comfort to follow someone else in the same process. Have a wonderful week!

    • Thank you so much Lorraine, I hope that you have a wonderful week too. And I so appreciate your lovely thoughts. And you are exactly right, I always say “Baby steps gets the job done,” and I am truly baby-stepping it all the way now. I also have a post-it note stuck to the side of my computer that says, “Small changes eventually add up to HUGE results.” And of course, indeed, they do. Take care Lorraine and stay in touch. I love hearing from you… 🙂

  3. you say, quote, that you haven’t had anything to celebrate or sing about for a long time.
    but when i think of your 100 ladies project, the wonderful paintings and biographies that went with them, i think that is just ONE example of something to celebrate or sing about. or your photography, the beautiful images you share with us in your blog posts, that is something to celebrate. the beautiful quotes you pass down to us. the uplifting messages from your heart. that is something to sing about. love your past as well as your future. love the beauty you have given the world, that you have given to us, no matter how broken you might have felt, you rose up and delivered kindness and
    heart connection. that is something to sing about. in fact, i think right now you should open your mouth and your lungs and your whole being and sing, sing, sing! sing
    to beautiful maitri, to marcia who is still within you (as nina is still within katya),
    sing to your pugs and your dear bird companions, to all the rescues… sing for all the flowers you have planted. oh maitri, my dear, i celebrate your evolution, from the moment i met you, till now, you have always been your goddess self, inside the fear and torment and craziness… here she is, stepping out and doing a dance with herself, hugging herself, writing love poems to herself, YES!!!!

    xo
    ka

    • Oh my darling Katya, thank you so much… You know there is an old saying or quote I heard long ago and I’ve no idea where it was from but it’s “Been down so long down looks like up to me…” I have been mired in depression for so long, now I am on an upswing, a gentle, gradual one, but being down for so long I COMPLETELY FORGOT about some of the things I’ve done, and you, dear friend, are there to remind me. That Ladies! Somehow I always forget about my Ladies, and I did love them so. I kept wondering what I could do with them but they and their stories were like a spontaneous poem, in the moment, and then POOF, gone, not something you could hold onto, something that came as a little fable or tale or story in the moment, some to teach, some to heal, and by the time I was doing the next one I couldn’t remember the one before. It was like being on a journey, as I truly was. I always wish I could do something with those dear ladies but I could never figure out what? Perhaps they did what they needed to do at that time in my life, they taught me and healed me too. And yes! I sing! I haven’t been singing for a long time but that’s how Kevin and I met, we were in a jazz class in college and in lieu of writing a term paper at the end you could do a performance. I was singing, Kevin was playing the piano, and they paired us up and the rest is history! 🙂 Oh my sweet Ka, where DOES the time go? I’m so glad you’re still here.

      Now I am getting off the computer for the night and I’m going to curl up with the pugs and read your book! I am loving it so much. Thank you for being here with me dear sister. It means more to me than you will ever know…

      xo
      M.

  4. Please celebrate you are having a positive impact on me and my own awakening. Thank you for sharing so intimately with us all. I will be making a small donation. Please buy yourself a posy of flowers to celebrate.

    • Oh thank you so much Lindi, if I may call you that? It means so much to me knowing that I have helped you in some way, you bless me by telling me that. And thank you so much for the donation, it means more than you could possibly know, and I’d love some flowers for my studio here, that would be just lovely. Thank you so much dearheart…

  5. Susan Phelps says

    You sound like you’re on a good path to becoming your best you! I’m so proud of you & grateful that you’re sharing your journey with us. As always in your writing, you touched on something that is so pertinent to me right now! You wrote about being comfortable in your body, & how that allows you to move confidently & with ease through the world. I realize that although I have accepted the fact that I will never be thin, I am not comfortable in my own skin, & this has contributed greatly to my being “clumsy” & accident prone! Working here in rehab with the therapists, has already improved my balance & slowly my endurance! I have been making better food choices & that is beginning to impact how I feel. Once I leave here on Saturday & go home to my apartment for the first time in over a month, I will be going to my home that, thanks to my siblings is decluttered, safe & livable. When my husband died almost 4 years ago, I never took the time to care for & nourish myself, physically, nutritionally, & emotionally! I feel like we’re traveling similar roads, if for different reasons! 💖💗

    • Oh Susan honey I know so well what you are talking about re being clumsy and accident prone. When you don’t fully inhabit your body you are at risk. As I said I’m not looking to be skinny! I am looking to being more comfortable and healthier. There are many ways to go about this and each must decide for herself how she will do this, but making changes, no matter how small they may seem, is a path to a kind of wellness and wholeness we may have never known. I am going to do this, for me, and that feels good. All the best to you dear sister, and love, so much love. Take care…

  6. Dearest Maitri,
    I followed you to Dragonfly Cottage having delightedly read your posts on SARK and friends. This thing about bumping my body along! Thank you for something to think about, feel about, finding a new way really wanting to be in this body! Looking forward to your next steps on your way and finding inspiration for a new path for me.
    Best regards from the Baltic Sea
    Yours
    Silke

    • Ah Dear Silke, thank you so much honey for being with me for so long on this journey through life, it means the world to me, more than I can say, and I’m so glad the post meant something to you. Yes, I think many of us are not properly rooted in our bodies for many reasons, and it can be a real danger. To find a way to finally *be* in our bodies is huge. I wish you well on your journey.

      Blessings and Love,

      Maitri

  7. You’re unfolding like a flower and it’s beautiful! Bless you Maitri. x

    • Oh Jenny what a lovely thing to say, thank you so much. It means so much to me to have you on this journey with me. I hope you are well. Blessings and Love… Maitri

  8. Yay!!!! So happy for your epiphany or awakening! Hugs, Marge!!!

    • Oh sweet Marge, thank you so much honey, and yes, it feels good to be finding my way, step by step, on this path. Thank you for being here with me, it means so much… 🙂

  9. I think there are a lot of us with a disconnect between our mind & our bodies. I know what you wrote really touched me and how I feel about myself.

    • Oh dear Eva, I think it is all too familiar a thing for women. So many suffer and struggle and are afraid or numbed out in some fashion or other. I hope by writing this I can start a dialogue or at least help women to examine this for themselves and try to begin to love themselves more and do whatever they can, whatever feels right to them, to come together, all of a piece, again. Thank you so much for writing to me. May we all find our way back together, whole women in our whole bodies…

  10. Embodiment feels like a thing I’ve struggled with my whole life. I really resonate with this, Maitri. <3

    • Oh Effy Dearheart, thank you so much for writing in today. I am so with you in this. What a struggle this is, what a journey. It just made me think of the writer Glennon Doyle Melton who says that we are all Trinities — Body, Mind and Spirit. But what I see, looking around me, is that many of us are shattered trinities, broken, spending our whole lives trying to find a way to come back together again. And we lose too many people in this world who have been broken for whatever reason and cannot find their way back home to their sacred wholeness. These words just came to me and made me shiver and tear up, beautiful Leonard Cohen, whom I know you loved dearly, singing “It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah…” I can never listen to that song without crying, it touches me so deeply. Let’s hold hands Effy, as Ram Dass says, “We’re all just walking each other home.” It helps to know I’m not alone. Thank you for being here today, it means a lot to me… <3

  11. Sounds great! More walking and choosing better foods helped me shed some pounds and kind of surprise myself. Still on that journey. Congrats on all the positive changes you have been making!

    • Thank you so much Kathleen, it’s so lovely to see you here. And congratulations on all you have accomplished! That’s wonderful! And thank you for your congrats on my journey, it surely is a learning curve but I’m enjoying the ride. Best and Blessings to you… 🙂

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