I am about to embark on a radical approach to self-love, and self-kindness. I invite you to join me too. Let me explain.

I have always been shy about my looks, especially my weight. I have struggled with weight all my life but after having my 3 children I wasn’t able to lose the weight I had gained. And depression and mental health issues made it worse. I kept gaining weight. And then a separation, divorce, and becoming increasingly agoraphobic, living through a devastating house fire which wrecked my already fragile mind and made eating the only comfort that I had, I ballooned to a high I never thought I would see, nearly 400 pounds. It was horrifying. I became pre-diabetic, I hurt everywhere, I couldn’t move around easily, and I became more and more reclusive because I was so ashamed of my weight. I did lose nearly 100 pounds over a few years going on this diet and that but I just couldn’t get under 300 pounds. But, in October 2017 a miracle occurred. I found the Ketogenic diet and it completely turned my life around. No more pre-diabetic, aches and pains and health issues I thought I would have for a lifetime disappeared. I lost 75 pounds and people didn’t recognize me. It was amazing. For over 2 years I stayed thinner than I had been in 2 decades, down to the 250’s, and I was on my way down to breaking 200. And then Covid came.

It is an interesting thing. I have learned from my therapist that it isn’t just me. People who weren’t overweight gained weight because they used food to comfort themselves, and food was hard to get so they ordered more delivery food like pizza and Chinese food and so on than they usually would have. I had not eaten anything non-keto for over 2 years. I was one of the strictest people I knew on the diet, but once Covid hit I began, when my budget would allow, to order those delivery foods, and mostly I stayed keto but I just ate too much. I gained every single pound back that I had lost on the ketogenic diet and what that did to me emotionally, along with the fact that I live with mental illness as I have written about, just made a mess of me. Covid hasn’t been kind to anyone. Aside from the terrible loss of loved ones, those of us still here have done what we could to survive emotionally and people who have never suffered from depression in their lives are on anti-depressants. And I know I am not the only one who has suffered terribly from the struggle.

And then I have been fighting harder to maintain some kind of wellness, sanity, and balance in my life for most of the last year with my medications being changed, raised, raised again, and again, and in the last couple of weeks I just really suffered a kind of collapse. I have been sick for 2 weeks from what we (my therapist and I) now know has been an emotional impact that has caused my bipolar disorder to go all out of whack and getting through a day has been very very hard on top of physical distress and illness caused by severe anxiety. And you know what, a lot of it I was doing to myself.

I have obsessively weighed and measured my food, tracked it on an app on my phone, I weigh every morning and check my blood sugar, I have worn myself out from tracking every little thing to the point that it has made me a nervous wreck. I have judged myself harshly for regaining the weight, I have feared for my life, I have not quite hated myself but surely not been happy with myself, inotherwords I have been a hot mess. I knew it had to stop.

Yesterday, after coming home from getting my 2nd Covid shot, I sat out on the deck in the sunshine with Molly and I just sat there thinking. What could I do? And then I came up with a plan. I am giving myself the month of April, my birthday month (I will be 67 on April 30) to fall in love with myself and make my life, in as much as I can, peaceful, joyful, and very quiet. It is time to go within and to rediscover who I am, at this weight, as I am right now, with the gifts and talents I have but not striving to DO MORE, BE MORE, but to simply love who I am.

Here’s how I will do it. I will be staying true to the Ketogenic diet but after the 31st of March, for 1 month, I will not weigh, measure, or track every little thing. I will eat very well, take my meds, vitamins and supplements, but not worry about the number on the scale. I know it won’t be going up, and hopefully will be coming down, but until May 1 I am not going to weigh myself or do any of those crazy-making things I have been doing daily. I know what to eat and what not to eat. And that’s that.

And I am going to concentrate on the things that I love. My work — writing, art, and Patreon, all of which are my heartwork, and I will not be judging myself or pursuing a specific goal, I will just daily work on this work that brings me joy and share it with my Patrons and here and there but I won’t be trying to do more than I can do, gently and easily, slowly. I want to learn what my real rhythm is, what really is comfortable for me, what might be the best and gentlest pace I can maintain going forward. I will of course care for my animals, inside and out, and I will be returning to the garden, one of my greatest joys ever. I will be implementing all the self-care practices that help so much that I have always loved and which have fallen by the wayside like weekly foot baths with epsom salts and essential oils. Sadly, because my feet are so badly disabled, I cannot get in and out of a tub so I take a shower instead. The foot bath is a way to relax and soothe myself, and as my feet, having been badly broken more than once, operated on more than once, and having developed severe neuropathy during my prediabetic years making me very prone to falling so that I have to wear the “fall pendant” all the time, well, they need love and care, more than I have been giving them, and I will.

And I have been going back deeply into my spiritual practices that sustain me, lift me up, and bring me so much comfort and relief. Inotherwords in the month of April I am going to treat myself like someone I love. What a concept!

Yesterday I came in off the deck and when I walked into the bathroom and glanced at myself in the mirror, something I generally avoid doing, I stopped. I looked at myself, this nearly 67 year old woman who has lived through much in her life that was very very difficult, who has survived very hard things, who has birthed 3 children, and so many more things, and I looked at myself with a kind of compassion I have never felt. My heart softened. I looked at the woman in the mirror and said, “My God, I’m beautiful…” At this weight, with a face that only smiles on one side, a left-over from a very serious case of Bell’s Palsy over 25 years ago, with wonky feet that cause me to fall, and I shyly looked deeply into my own eyes and said, “You are beautiful Maitri, if nothing ever changes, you are beautiful, right now, as you are.” And I cried.

This act of self-love is a radical act. And for the month of April while I will be living gently through the days I will not be doing any “challenges” or recording, daily, everything I do on social media. I will mention things here and there, mainly to my Patrons who are the most tremendously loving and supportive women I have ever known and whom I deeply appreciate and trust and feel safe with, but the scale will go in the closet, the app will come off my phone, I will put my blood monitor in the drawer, I will eat the food that is healthy for me and makes me feel good, and I will learn, really learn, who and what I am without all of those outer measurements and just know that I am beautiful, that I am lovable, that I am worthwhile, that I am enough, that I can do work that brings me joy that others enjoy as well, and that I can simply move slowly and quietly through my days, with my animals, in the garden, communicating with my children and dear ones, and if I find any even a tiny little thing that is causing me even a modicum of distress it will go.

It is a radical act. And it’s time. Would you like to join me? There will be no accountability measures, you don’t need to write and tell me what you are doing, although if you want to you can, but I will just be here, moving slowly through the hours, falling in love with myself and my life. It is Spring, it is almost Easter, it is nearly my birthday, and it is time of rebirth and renewal. I’m all in. How about you?