POST 4

My fourth day on this food freedom journey, and my intention today is to honour my mums own journey to food freedom...her's is a great one!

Since I can remember, my mother had been on a diet or at the very least, a quest to lose weight.  And as the years passed, the amount that she felt she needed to lose increased, along with her weight.

For many years, I often felt that her feelings about her weight issues monopolized our conversations and were extremely repetative.  When she spoke about how she was trying to lose the weight, or what she was or was not eating, it made me feel really, really tired. Maybe I was picking up her own feelings about being exhausted with the relationship she was having with food.  I can't really speak about her own motivations or views towards food, but I know how I felt about her journey, and how it made me feel about mine.

Helpless to help her, and determined to not go down the same road.  I saw how she struggled with food and her weight and it scared me. I didn't want to struggle with being overweight, so instead I tried anything to stay small. Little did I realize that whether you are big or small, if you are afraid of food and what it does to you, then you are on the same journey.

But things have taken a drastic change for my mumster...in the last few years she has taken a good hard look at her life, and decided that the focus she now wanted to place her attention on, was loving herself.

She had decided that for too long now, she had placed her attention, and daresay her power, to be happy on external factors, like her weight. 

She vowed to stop focusing on  losing the weight, to instead work at addressing core issues like self-acceptance and self appreciation. 

Now think about this for just a moment please...my mum would classify herself as obese. Her current weight does effect her energy levels and health abilities.  She is very concious of how she is perceived by others and is a very fashionable, and stylish women who takes care with her appearance.  Now after years and years of her fight with food, she has decided to honour who she is, and not punish herself anymore by believing that she has to be a certain size in order to love herself. 

I think of myself in that situation and I can't imagine how much courage and self-determination it must take to look in the mirror and see a round, puffy face, and say, "I love and accept myself." 

To not be able to find the style of clothes that I'd like to wear in my size.

To feel self-concious bumping into people I haven't seen for years.

Todays blog is in honour of an incredible woman who inspires me to no end, for her strength and courage in her quest for food freedom and her amazing ability to put her focus on loving herself.

Mum, I am so proud of you and you inspire me to be a better woman everyday. I love you!