WEIGHT UP! I AM FIGURING IT OUT, MAYBE!

Weight is such a funny thing. 

Often, it's not ha-ha funny...

This is a vast exaggeration, but here's what it felt like! :)

I got hit by the urge to purge our home this weekend.  My poor husband and I ransacked every room and wound up taking over twelve bags to a wonderful donation facility.  It's always glorious to shed everything we are no longer using or wearing and giving other people the opportunity to do just that.  Humanity keeps WAY more 'crap' than it needs, that is for sure.

During this beautiful purge, I came across some of my "skinny clothes."  Five or six years ago, I was about a size 2.  I worked really hard to get that small and not get bigger than a 4, let me tell YOU!

I've been really bummed that I am nowhere close to that glorious size anymore.  Six years ago, I quit smoking and gained weight.  Then lost a lot of that.  After my wee journey of thyroid drama last year, my weight is the one thing that has yet to level out to my personal expectations.  But hey, I am thrilled beyond thrilled to be cancer free, so I try not to be psycho about it! 

                                                                  

A useful tool for the height of a doorway, but not for our worth!

However, I am a girl.  A lot of us tend to have emotions wrapped up in our body images/sizes and these things can tie into our self worth.  And like a lot of girls, I've kept my "skinny clothes" for years with that elusive hope that someday I would wear those favorite jeans again or that rad little jacket.

I always thought that if I got rid of those beautiful "skinny clothes", there would go the hope of ever being that size again.


Back to the glorious purge of today.  Clothes.  Yep.

I came across a bunch of cool little jackets I used to wear all the time.  As I started to bag them, memories started to come flooding back.

Sometimes, we recount our thinner days to be the only glory days we'll ever have.  They're days we champion and desire and crave to have back again.

Skinny Girl Version of Me!

As I ran my hands over my kickin' little fuzzy lined jean jacket, I suddenly remembered a time period in which I was rocked with toxicity.  Those glory years of skinny me yesterday were actually filled with every wrong toxic relationship from dating, to business relations to a great deal of "friends."  My self worth was not in the toilet, as some would say... It was more like it was lost somewhere in the vast sewer system of Los Angeles, tangling up with all the other muck and yuck.

I was stuck in a lot of pain and frustration and grief, that skinny little version of me.  Although I was not diagnosed with any kind of sickness, I look back at that time period as one of my most unhealthy--physically, emotionally and spiritually.

When I was folding a dress and putting it in the "to go" bag, I remembered wearing it to a party with a long ago business associate who wound up costing me a lot of time and money.   When I folded another shirt and pair of pants into the same bag, I remembered a gigantic network television callback where it was between me and another girl.  I thought FOR SURE I had booked it, the room responded to what I did work-wise, etc.  When I was leaving the callback, and reached just outside the room, I overheard one of the producers say:  "Yeah, but she's just soooooooooo skinny..."  Here I worked to become what I thought was necessary and maybe I took it too far?  It's not the fault of anyone, just my own inability to have correct perception and appreciation of what I looked like.

Folding all those "skinny clothes" was probably one of the most freeing experiences I've had in AGES.  Not one morsel of sadness for not being that size or not wearing THOSE CLOTHES.  As far as I'm concerned, all of those clothes had the stench of a toxic McT Era and I wouldn't want to wear a stitch of them in a zillion years.

I feel like I mentally lost 567 pounds and I now have no doubt I will reach a wonderful goal weight that I have in mind for myself that is healthy and will be nourishing to my entire life.... Especially since I am not dragging around that 567 pounds of a toxic past!

I am measurably happier than I've been in years.  I have a healthy and amazing relationship with my husband and family.  The friends in my life are rock solid.  In my "non-skinny" life of this moment, I have it the best I ever did.  Amazing clients are in my living room every day.  It's a blessed life.

 Girls.  Our value is not in our weight on a stupid scale.  Our value is in the weight of our hearts and intentions and emotional and spiritual strengths.  We need to continue to lift each other up and encourage each other to take that extra walk for our mental clarity or go to a yoga class to leave our stresses on the mat.  My goal is to work harder on THAT stuff and let the weight... catch up and drop off.

Peace to you on your journey.

Michelle Tomlinson