Tension & Release - Day 159

In the last two days I have been fortunate enough to have two massage therapists that I know be willing to take a crack at my sciatica. Last night was an especially enjoyable experience because the therapist was my yoga teacher who also practices Thai massage, which involved some very deep tissue work which I had to breathe through heavily and so I was very much in my body and in my breath during the massage. Today followed up in the same area so I'm eager to see how much (or how little) I experience sciatica symptoms over the next week.

I really had no idea that my muscles in my hip / butt could be so relaxed. I mean I have always flinched any time anything or anyone has touched my butt (not that that happens often, but from time to time between massages and chiropractic appointments and yoga assist massages), so obviously there is a LOT of tension there, but he worked it all out and I just felt so free and fluid and relaxed.

Also every time I have ever had a massage on my back, the therapist has commented on how tense the muscles especially between my shoulder blades are, which I'm sure doesn't help with my migraines.

I think it is interesting how this experience of loosening these muscles that are usually extremely tight is coinciding with progressing through the point of the grudge, which is holding onto energy, especially negative energy such as anger and resentment and blame, and getting really stuck there, just like the energy gets stuck as tension in my muscles. I can't tell for sure if these two matters are helping each other along, but it is interesting to me to consider how much tension my body carries and how that translates into my experience of myself, where when I experience freedom and looseness and fluidity in my body, it's like, why continue to hold on in my mind?

Is it easier for me to let go of the energetic charges in my mind because I now see the freedom and fluidity of being loose and tension-free in my body? It feels so good, and so natural.

Or is it just that the point is being reached and faced, indeed was in fact forced upon me, and that I am finally giving up in realizing that it isn't worth it to hold on? Because it definitely isn't.

Plus, I realized yesterday that this grudge is all about me. I mean I could have said that before, but I didn't really understand it and I still projected everything until it occurred to me in the imagined/projected voice and perspective of one of my coworkers (randomly I just thought, what would so-and-so say if we were talking about this? Except I didn't actually ask that; the answer just came as a thought in his voice) that within this grudge I am basically being allowed and allowing myself to play out and relive my relationship with my dad. It's all about replaying and reliving past experiences, trying to find a different outcome, or confirm some beliefs I created about myself in my past experiences with conflict, especially with my dad.

So this is all coming together in a way that seems to be working out for me, and I am going to do my best to use this co-incidence and co-operate with it to walk through this point of letting go and being free.

I also want to continue to explore releasing tension in my body through massage (self- or other -- the yoga teacher / thai massage therapist showed me some cool self-massage techniques as well, which is a really cool way to support and care for myself) and see how that coincides (or not) with being able to release energy in my mind.

I am tired of being clenched and tight and tense. I am tired of holding on! I will have resistance to work through, but if I stay with it, if I hold pressure on the point, then the energy will release, just like as in massage.


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to exist within my body and mind in a state of tension and clenching and holding-on, and grinding and stiffness and inflexibility and obstinance.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to exist as this for so long that I have forgotten what it feels like to be loose and free and fluid, indeed have even feared that experience of freedom so much that I have purposely created energy to block it.

I commit myself to continue to explore this dynamic between body tension and mind energy to see how I can assist and support myself in my totality for optimal body and mind health and freedom.

I commit myself to not become discouraged by what seem like impossibilities within this process, such as continuing to experience bodily pain, because I realize that this is a process and it will take time to clear this energy.

I commit myself to always remembering that prior to this recent instance of becoming evermore enmeshed within this point I rarely experienced migraines, whereas prior to starting process my migraines were nearly daily, as they are now as I have existed within and as this mind energy. So I commit myself to supporting myself, body and mind.

Punishing Myself with Food - Day 139

I haven't made a lot of progress (any, really) since this post about substance abuse, which included binge behavior. The alcohol is still another point to look at, but for now: food.

The last couple days I have seen a definite shift in my relationship to food, where I have used binge behavior, and thus food, as a punishment for myself. This goes deeply and directly back to my brief stint with an "eating disorder" over 7 years ago.

To give you some idea of the amount of ice cream I regularly consume:
The container of ice cream that I usually buy is 1.5 quarts. One serving is 1/2 cup, at 150 calories per serving, allowing 12 servings per carton. I usually go through a carton in 3, maybe 2.5 my-size-servings, adding milk to make delicious milkshakes.

So I'll go through 3 cartons, which I can sometimes get on sale for $10 total, in just about a week and a half, whereas if it was only one suggested serving size per day, 3 cartons would last 36 days (is that math right? haha).

Then, the other day, I added cookies to my in-home menu. In less than 24 hours I ate at least 12 cookies. Six of them, along with some ice cream, constituted my "dinner" the night that I purchased them. The next day I decided I ought to bring the remainder to work because it did not seem wise to allow myself access to so many cookies since I do not trust myself to not binge on them. Then I ate at least 6 more throughout that work day, to the point where by lunch time not only was I not hungry (but ate my lunch anyway), but I also was in such physical discomfort that I had a difficult time engaging in conversation with coworkers.

My most recent "binge" was last night, and I only say "binge" in quotation marks because years ago I used to read the blogs of a girl who struggled with a very intense bulimia, and she sometimes would list out everything she ate in a binge. I am not saying this is a "binge" like that kind of binge. But I am saying that this is me eating "mindlessly" or "compulsively" and eating in excess, indulging, feeding a need to put something in my mouth and consume it beyond being full, to the point of discomfort, completely overriding what my body and myself is communicating to myself, listening only to the desire for more food.

And the energy as I ate all of this was like that of punishment. Like I deserve the sluggishness and shame and self judgment that I allow to accompany binge behavior. I deserve to feel uncomfortable in my gut as I force my body to digest all of this, thus abusing my body for what I do in my mind. I deserve to face the consequences such as potential weight gain for indulging in all of this over-eating... Like that was a thought at one point. I'm going to get "fat," and I deserve that, and I deserve all the self-hatred that will come with gaining weight, like "that'll teach me" to... what? Not eat? So why am I continuing to binge now? Like knowing the consequence and doing it anyway, with the thought that experiencing the consequence I already understand will somehow stop me next time. I can stop myself now.

It's tricky though. I mean I have to really look at what is healthy versus what is just me wanting to live an ideal body image. Healthy =/= Thin.

And I can't use process to make myself the ultimate anorectic. No no, that would be quite counter productive.

What I can do is stop abusing my body through food. I can stop abusing food through my use of it. I can stop participating in the thoughts of self judgment in regards to the food I have already consumed. And I can try out setting up a rule / expectation for myself that I will cease my consumption of sweets by not even allowing them in my possession for a set time. Just to see how that goes.



I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to make having sweets in my possession one of my top priorities, as the main reason that I will make a trip to the store.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to sometimes eat sweets in the absence of any nutritious food.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to basically just not care, say "fuck it," and continue to eat even after I am already full.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to appreciate and savor every bite that I eat, being conscious and aware of my chewing, of the tastes, etc., instead rushing through eating so that before I even know it, the food is gone, and so of course I am likely to want more.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to overload my digestive system with too much food of a wide variety, very little of it having any nutritional value, much of it very difficult to digest.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to eat until and beyond the point that I am uncomfortable physically.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to eat sweets simply because I have them, so that as long as they are in my apartment, I will eat them, which, coupled with compulsively over-eating, means they go very fast.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not be deterred by the high price of my most favored brand of ice cream so that I end up spending a lot of money on this addiction in order to have what I have deemed the best version.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself thus to waste money on a self-abusive addiction.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be pushing the envelope with myself, to see how much I can eat before I finally say ENOUGH and look at myself and stop myself, forcing myself into participation in an opposite polarity, where here the opposite of binge behavior is starvation / restriction.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel my arms, to feel how flabby or not flabby they feel, to think about when I was in high school when I could touch my index finger to my thumb around my upper arm with relative ease, and to miss that, and I believe I have to get back to that.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to imagine by believing that I can feel fat going directly to my arms, making them flabby and wiggly.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to imagine / feel like a subtle buzzing sensation in the "flabby" part of my arm, also feeling / imagining it hanging / dangling down and swinging as I move.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create a relationship with this part of my body that involves fear of it looking or feeling a certain way, rather than seeing that this part of my body serves a function and is performing that function well.

When and as I see myself imagining / judging the "flab" on my arms, I stop and I breathe. I stop and I breathe. I commit myself to releasing that energy of that thought, that judgment, that image in my mind, and that imagined feeling/sensation of whatever I have believed fat feels like physically.

I commit myself to continue walking my process of self-embodiment to have a look at my relationship with myself as my body / the parts of my body.

I commit myself to eating healthy portions / serving sizes of at least 3 meals per day. I commit myself not to go into the polarity of under-eating or over-exercising.

I commit myself to continue to increase my menu of healthy food options, including the expansion of what fruits and vegetables I eat.

I commit myself to being aware of every bite that I take and aware of how my body feels as I eat, and listening to what my body communicates to me about what it needs or does not need in terms of food intake.

I commit myself to redefine and re-align my relationship with food to be one of support and sustenance.

I commit myself to finding something else to do besides just eating and eating more -- some other way to use that time in a supportive way.

I commit myself also to support my body to be healthy through diet and exercise, supporting myself thus to develop a strong healthy body which supports me as life.

I commit myself to continuing to look at and further define the fine line between what is healthy and what supports my mind dis-ease of "eating disorder" as a desire to be thin.


Previous Pertinent Posts:

• Healthy =/= Thin - Day 50
• Conscious Eating - Day 72
• Understanding My Physical Body - Day 80
• Routines as "Rules" - Day 94
• Substance Abuse - Day 120

Bodily Revolt Against the Mind - Day 110

Yesterday I was feeling pretty tired and lethargic for a good chunk of the day, along with feeling short on time. So I wrote some reflection on this experience, and right now I want to specifically share my reflection on sleep and tiredness, followed by some self forgiveness.

What am I doing to my body within my mind that makes me "tired'? Why does sleep feel like such a relief within my mind when I imagine it, and sometimes in reality when I go into it and wake from it? (Other times sleep becomes that battle of judgment and fear where when I wake up I do not want to get up, I am simply avoiding/evading life/myself) Is sleep sometimes the only time I allow myself to really actually stop and just breathe, even if I am not aware? Within sleep I am usually, unless I engage in disruptive dreams or surely if/when I wake up and experience friction within myself, but usually within sleep I am shutting off my mind, escaping from my mind. So it is MIND ENERGY, not a lack of physical energy, which sends me to sleep, where I find sleep as my last resort, my escape from myself as my mind, as all that I am inflicting upon myself through and as my mind as my thoughts, beliefs, judgments, fears, worries, etc. So sleep is not only a way to evade and avoid myself within all of this, but it is also like a way in which my body realizes that I am unrelenting within my mind, that I will not quit, I will not see, so I might as well sleep to give myself some rest, to disengage from the mind. Like my body taking over and telling me ENOUGH, let me sleep, give it a rest. 

So it isn't really "life" itself that "makes me want to sleep," but my relationship with life and the tasks of life and my relationship with myself and all that I accept and allow within my mind which tires me. 

Perhaps however that would only really make sense if I was a narcoleptic, because I still make the decision to sleep. What part of me is directing that decision, and how can I direct myself to do something else more productive (stop, breathe, look at myself, write)? Is the above simply a justification for allowing myself to evade/avoid myself through sleep? Certainly this framing of this dynamic, if nothing else, will assist me in seeing how my participation within my mind affects my body, affects me, and thus how it is the mind energy itself which I must face and address, or to simply stop and breathe, to let it go. 

This is only sometimes. Other times I am moved to sleep through my mind, not as a reaction to my mind, but as a way to truly evade and avoid responsibility when my body is not even tired, when my body has not yet had enough, but I am still unrelenting, I am refusing to stop and breathe. Is that even really so different, though? If I truly tire out my body as a consequence to my participation in the mind, then I guess the best way at that point that I can assist and support myself, if I am really tired, is to rest/sleep. But if I am not really actually physically tired, then no matter why I want to sleep, whether it is as an escape from life through my mind or as an escape from my mind -- really kind of the same thing here, because I am interpreting "life" through my mind and thus still escaping my mind -- either way I need to look at myself as my mind, as within both of these examples my participation within my mind is either what is creating my reality as "life" as being something from which I want to escape, or my participation within my mind is in itself taxing and tiresome and not self supportive, regardless of whether or not it leads me to want to sleep. Wanting to sleep is simply the most common symptom of participation within my mind, another example being migraine, illness, or other physical pain. 


I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see, realize, and understand how what I participate within and as in my mind, what I accept and allow myself to think, believe, perseverate on, imagine, worry about, etc., affects and undermines my body and myself as who I am.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to consider the physical energetic tax on my body when and as I participate within and as my mind.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think / assume / believe that when I am "tired" I am simply "tired" and it is only a physical experience and only needs to be addressed physically.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to so often give in to this physical sensation of "tiredness" without investigating why I am tired even though I have gotten plenty of rest, have fed my body well, and have gotten some physical activity.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to escape "life" through my mind with the behavior of sleep, where it is through my mind that I justify engaging in sleep and/or tiredness.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to stress out my body through my participation within and as my mind, to the point that my body has enough and manifests consequences such as tiredness, migraine, and other bodily pain.

I forgive myself therefore for accepting and allowing myself to escape my mind through my body by engaging in sleep or by allowing physical pain to manifest.

I forgive myself therefore for accepting and allowing myself to abuse my body through my participation within and as my mind.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to examine why I feel tired given that my physical needs are met. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to ask questions and investigate the real reasons behind my experience of myself, through what I am accepting and allowing within and as myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to divide myself such that parts of myself are like at war with each other, my body against my mind, my mind against my body, and myself not really doing anything to mediate or unify myself as self, body, and mind.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to get to the point within my mind that my body cannot withstand the energetic pull any longer and manifests consequences.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to ignore the manifested consequences within my physical body, not allowing myself to see the function of these "behaviors" of my body, wherein my body is communicating to me that I am accepting and allowing something that is self-abusive.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to just automatically exist within and as my mind, never having before seen realized or even remotely understood the consequences this has on me and my body, and my mind.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to basically just be directed by my body or by my mind as reactions and consequences, rather than being my own self directive principle, where within this it is now all the more clear that in order to be my own self directive principle I have to take absolute responsibility for myself, my entire self, including my body and mind, and so I have to know and understand myself, how I work, and why these reactions/consequences which I have allowed to direct me are occurring.

I forgive myself therefore that I have not accepted or allowed myself to actually listen to, understand, and support myself as my body or as my mind, seeing and understanding what needs must be met that I am not meeting for myself in these most basic of ways, and then directing myself to support and meet those needs.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to listen to myself as my entire self, only ever listening to my "higher functioning cognitive self."


So when and as I see myself feeling tired and wanting to sleep, I stop and I breathe. When and as I see myself experiencing any kind of physical reaction or consequence or experience, I stop and I breathe. I ask myself why. I check in with myself as my body -- have I met my body's basic physical needs? I check in with myself as my mind -- what am I accepting and allowing within and as my mind? I ask myself what effects may be occurring between my body and mind within and as myself as a consequence of my participation within and as my mind. I realize now that if I am one whole, which I am, then these parts of me must co-exist in symbiosis, and so if one part of me is "suffering" then all of me is "suffering," and if I am neglecting one part of me, then I am neglecting all of me, or neglecting to understand the effects of that negligence. I realize now that my physical body "suffers" consequences of what I accept and allow within and as my mind. So I commit myself to furthering my understanding of this (I have read for example that the mind takes energy from the body -- where can I learn more about this?), and I commit myself to examining and investigating myself as what I have accepted and allowed within and as my mind and how that might be impacting myself as my body. I commit myself to listening to and understanding myself as my body, and meeting the needs of my body, whether that means "positive" support of giving my body certain activities or forms of sustenance, or "negative" support of disengaging from my participation within and as my mind, so as to equalize myself within the equilibrium of my body, mind, and self.


There is a little bit of conjecture here as this is an area in which I have a limited cognitive understanding, and so doubt myself, but have come to these realizations mainly through writing and self-reflection. Next will be research as well as some lived application / living reflection. If anyone has any further insight or perspective on this topic and would like to share, that would be really cool.

Understanding My Physical Body - Day 80

A few points have come up for me recently which tie together in the point of understanding my physical body as how it functions and operates.


Firstly I have been "struggling" with acne on a more pronounced level over the past 3 months, and although a month or two ago I decided to "stop" judging myself for it and simply accept it as "who I am" within my physical body, I have nonetheless continued to pick at it to the point of bleeding or even somewhat gaping wounds, always making it worse, and also to try various techniques that friends have shared or that I have found online, and also to look at the skin on my face up very close (like within 7 inches) in the mirror, examining and scrutinizing it, pretty much any time that I am in front of a mirror. And then I realized last week that I don't even really understand what acne is, why it forms, what causes it, what prevents it, what is best to be done "with" it if one wishes to heal it, and yet I have come at it like attacking my own skin in attempts to eradicate the appearance of it, not understanding that it is not only skin deep. Obviously here there is still self judgment in terms of wanting this feature which has surfaced on my skin to change and go away, and acne is not really a "bad" thing to have except that it can leave scars and therefore can be permanent, although even this is not inherently objectively "bad." But it can also be painful which is one of the primary reasons that I wish to change this aspect of my physical appearance, as well as my belief that it is ugly and unsightly, for which I will walk self forgiveness. It also seems that acne could be indicative of the lack of support I have been giving my body through my self-care.

So here I see that I need to investigate what acne actually is and investigate how I have been caring for my body in ways that have produced this acne, especially this spike in how much acne I have been experiencing, and investigate how I can actually physically support myself as my body to heal the acne blemishes and prevent scarring.


Secondly I have continued to see myself in my relationship to food and just last night in particular I ate something quite unhealthy simply because I "wanted" to (so the point of compulsive eating still must be walked in more detail), and then I noticed that I felt sick and had indigestion. And then I imagined all of this food I had just consumed not only beginning in my mouth and being chewed -- which was an interesting practical point to open up -- but then traveling through my digestive system, through my stomach, through my intestines, being processed and absorbed into my blood stream, where here this whole process is in place in order to literally feed my body, to provide it with nutrients and sustenance. And so here it is like my body as this machine is trying to get whatever it can from this food, this sustenance, to support itself, and here I have fed it shit, basically. And I often feed my body proverbial shit, and this time my body actually told me about it through the physical feelings of sickness and indigestion that I experienced.

So in this awareness of my body's physical reactions to what I feed it and the realization/understanding that when I feed myself I am feeding my body in order to keep it running properly and support it in its physicality, I see that it is important to investigate further the process of digestion and also to learn about nutrition and how to support my body to operate and perform optimally in good health to support myself as life.

This point is also multi dimensional in that it relates closely to the self abuse as my participation in an "eating disorder" many years ago, the consequences of which have lingered as my thoughts/beliefs about myself as my body. So within my relationship to my body within my desire to be "thin" I have taken short cuts and round about ways in order to achieve this superficial goal without actually practically supporting my body or myself as my body to be healthy and to get the nutrients I need to function properly and to sustain myself as life.


So I will open up on these points more specifically in the future as I continue to educate myself on these aspects of my physical body.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to "solve" "problems" in my body without understanding my body and how it works and what it needs and therefore I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to undermine my body as what it needs to function in order to manipulate it and achieve superficial or experiential results which I desire without considering my body as a physical substance which requires practical physical support.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek out "solutions" to "problems" in my body without first seeking out an understanding of my body as it actually physically exists as its processes and needs for subsistence and sustenance and thriving.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to test out potential "solutions" to the "problems" of my body, where within this I have experimentally probed my body and have placed myself in opposition to my body where it is like my body is this unknown mysterious test subject and that I must use trial, error, and hope to find "solutions" to the "problems" that I perceive in my body. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abuse myself as my body through approaching these "problems" with my body as a kind of guinea pig where I have not investigated the actual practicality of any of the methods I have inflicted on and exposed my body to but instead have simply tried them and have also hoped that they will work and then have judged my body and myself as my body when they do not work, becoming "fed up" with the way that my body is reacting to its environment or to the stimuli to which I expose it, becoming "fed up" that my body is not doing what I have wanted it to do within and as my mind but that I have not actually practically physically supported it to do.

I commit myself to continuing to educate myself on understanding the actual physicality of my body, what it needs, how it works, what its processes are, and what the physical consequences are when I do things to manipulate my body, or even when I think/believe certain things about my body or myself as my body. I commit myself to investigating how I can support my body in its physicality as life as the vessel which physically moves me through and as life. I commit myself to opening up on these points and investigating who I am within them, why I have identified various superficial/experiential results as ideal, and how I can unite myself within and as my body, accept my body as myself, and support my body as myself as one with and equal to all life, as what is best for all.