Our journeys encompass so much: our relationships and our ability to nurture healthy ones, our jobs and careers and how to balance those with the relationships, our hopes, our dreams, and...our health.
This post is about the leg of the journey that is health.
Let's start off by saying that I was never an athlete. I never played a sport in school, I very seldom participated in sports-like activities outside of school. I did take up running several years ago and did that for a while. And I did do a summer boot camp a couple of years ago. But - by and large - I have never been what you could consider an athlete.
As a kid, though, I was active in playing outside and I maintained a healthy weight all through childhood and my teen years. I never remember really thinking twice about what I ate and I had a fairly good sense of who I was and was comfortable with that.
All that changed when I was a young mom. Those years were filled with days that were tough, that were hard, and that - in the end - were heartbreaking. In spite of all the hardships and the other things going on in my life at the time, I loved being a mother to my two boys. It was - and still is - the single most rewarding thing in life. I would have been a bigger mess had it not been for those two little souls who depended on me and needed me.
Somewhere in the big middle of trying to balance all that life was throwing my way, I forgot how to take care of me. I gained weight - lots of it - but even more destructive were the changes going on inside of me.
Even though I wouldn't realize it or learn from it for many, many years, I became an emotional eater. That in itself is a post for another time, another day, but you can read between the lines. I didn't take care of my body and as a result began to suffer health issues, some of which still haunt me today.
One of my dearest and most well-loved friends would tell me, "Feed your body well and then just let your weight fall where it will." I would listen and think how in the world do you even begin to do that? Something that should be so easy and so natural - putting good things in your body and trusting it to do good work for you was just so far beyond my ability to comprehend in those dark days.
Fortunately, I was one of the lucky ones. Through the love and grace of a great God, the love of a good and caring man, and a slow, reluctant love for myself, I became healthy. Instead of turning to donut therapy, I learned to reach for things that would feed my soul and not things that would harm my body. I learned the difference between eating and feeding.
I wish I could say that once the light bulb came on, the changes began immediately. The truth in my journey is that it took me years to heal my body from the inside out and just as long to heal my mind of destructive behaviors that served to only stunt my growth in all other areas of my life.
My story is not unlike the stories of many of you. There is a silent community of us - in all stages of the healing process - that need the confirmation that not only can we live a life that is healthy and full, but we can do so without guilt, without self-doubt, and without worry about what others may or may not think.
I'm thankful for a whole host of things these days. For family. For friends. For health. For a support group of women who are working to make their lives and the ones of those they love full and happy.
And I'm so proud to be a part of this.
