Healing Me

Fasting,for me,has grounded me at times.

It’s how I heal my distorted relationship with food and the soul that wants to shine beneath the dresser stuffed to the brim,that I call my body. I apologize in advance for the ways in which I will describe this thing of a temple. I’m still working on it.

Fasting reminds me be grateful and let’s me know,I have enough. I am not lacking. It’s a sense of control and discipline. A reconnection to what’s important. And food can take a second seat. Fasting tells me that God exists or spirit exists and that there is energy in other things that nourish us.

It opens up the parts of me I’ve been hiding under food.

I’m suddenly creative. Suddenly writing a song because I’m not worrying about what’s for dinner. I’ve used food as a distraction from greatness,for too long.

For most of my life,I have been an addict. A codependent human of habit. As a child,I recall having panic attacks the second my grandmother Yndiana would leave my side. I would cry and hyperventilate to the point of hysteria. On some days,I still feel like that little child buried beneath 200+ pounds of me. She was my optimal source for warmth,safety and love. When she would migrate back to Dominican Republic for certain seasons I would cope by finding other sources of warmth.

I have found,and proved to myself,that all of my habits as an adult,closely relate to my mental development as a child.

My connection with food is maybe the only primal connection I feel with my bloodline. We didn’t express our feelings in our family much. We just..talked through food. The sharing of it,and the traditions of it. Most closely, through coffee,sugar and food. Coffee,indeed would remind me Yndiana since it was perhaps my first drink after water. I drink just about 3 cups of coffee a day,even when my liver aches,just because that’s how much I try to feel close to my grandmother. I’m sure if she knew how much I love her in these ways,she wouldn’t understand. And sometimes I don’t either,but food has become a coping mechanism for me. It’s the thing I hide under,reward myself with and abstain from the second someone tells me they don’t find me attractive anymore.

It’s sad how it runs my life.

Welcome to disordered eating.

Food has also been part of poverty and scarcity thinking among my family. My great grandmother Vita would serve us heaps of food and store plates under her chair just in case an “emergency” occurs.

Food was something my father would shame me about when I turned 19 and was 260 pounds. Not realizing,that I wasn’t eating because I was careless,I was eating because I was in pain. The root of that pain? Will be for another blog.

Have you ever seen that show Hoarders? That is the perfect example of what I grew up seeing. Except,with food.

Sometimes I would eat in the bathroom stalls in highschool just because this was such a personal ritual. Food was not something to be proud about. It was to be hidden and to hide under with.

In my early 20’s I was checked into a nutritionist by my father who wanted me to be THIN. After a diet of many diet pills,cocaine and fish I dropped a good 50 pounds.

2 years later,I gained it all back.

Why? Because the pain was still there. That deep little pain was not being covered by loads of mac & cheese and it couldn’t even be healed by showing my collar bones.

Growing up,into my teens,that reality never changed. Heartbreak, food. Lost a job,overeat. Someone loved me? Binge. Someone dumped me? Starve. My whole life has been so closely related to my body,that I have totally neglected my body.

Most days I feel like a soul,carrying around flesh & sinew. I find it fascinating when someone notices a mere pimple on their body. A small surface of dry skin. In fact,I’ve never looked that closely at my body. I’ve never really wanted to. To know the body that well..to look at it as a whole being,a whole soul,to look in the mirror and assimilate yourself and who you are with what you see in the flesh,is a balance and equality I’ve yet to admire.

I admit I’ve come close. When you are loved as I have been loved,gratefully so. From stretchmark to mole,from flabby arm to breast,by a lover,it brings all sorts of visibility into your being. You want to run naked outside. You want to let people know you are good enough.

But that lover,has never been me. I would like that lover to be me.

each time I fast, I have a better understanding of how important my body is.

Each time a more sacred approach.

At the age of 34,I’ve kept trying to find that same source of love. Of food. I’ve buried my pain,emotions,and literally,bones beneath my body. And I have to say…I am exhausted from holding the trauma in my body.

I am ready to let it go.

I am ready to release the toxic thought patterns,resentment,trauma and pain that I’ve lugged like baggage with my body for decades.

This year has been quite astonishing for me on a mental,tangible level. I’ve traveled and created smiles that are infinite. I’ve forgiven and let go. I’ve digested my past. I’ve worked through things I’ve never worked through before.

I wore a freaking bikini for the first time this year in New Mexico. That was so,liberating.

This post isn’t about weight.. or losing it. I’ve known enough to know that skinny is not the answer to my dreams. It’s the fact that I know and feel that I’m carrying the waste of 3 decades and I want to travel light. I want to be light.

One thing I have to do,is give my body the freedom and adoration,nourishment and respect it deserves. It will no longer be a closet or stuffed drawer of old emotions. It can no longer be a cobweb of suppressed desires and fears. It can no longer be the scapegoat to the sun that wants to peer through my heart chakra.

So I will fast. She will talk to me. She will tell me what she really needs. She will use me for creativity and genius. She will spend less time digesting and more time reflecting on what this body is here for. She is more than a bag. A purse. An ornament of hopelessNess. She will be pure again and I will listen to her until we reach a place of harmony and synergy.

I don't know how long I will fast. I will listen to my body and she will tell me what she needs. But I already feel like I’m healing her. ♥️