Self-Acceptance

Well.  *sniff*  I am at work, and as it happens I always get these glimmers of insight when I'm here and then I have to try not to cry.

I think I've had some of this all wrong, like not making him a priority, like I am being punished somehow for not loving him when I feel scared and hateful.  Like I am not working hard enough and for this reason God doesn't feel I am worthy for him to come back.  Bogus- not true.  Well- sometimes I feel scared and hateful because the shit he shows me is scary and it makes me hate life, hate myself and want to hate God because this process is just so damn hard sometimes, and it is fucking TERRIFYING to face my mirror!  My GOD just help me through this process of seeing my reflection clearly.  Of knowing what I still need to heal inside of me.

I am not being shown that I am "not a priority" because I have not been doing my work.  That means God is "punishing" me, and God is not a punisher.  No I think it still all comes down to not accepting myself as I am, and boy is that a harsh realization to make.

This is a highly suitable photo because I have gained a few pounds.  See when I stress out or I am in pain I do not eat.  Heartbreak will make me drop twenty pounds quickly.  I currently weigh 142 pounds and am a size 10-12.  I am 41 years-old and healthy.  But for a while I was the thinnest I've ever been which is like ten pounds less because I survived on STRESS TORMENT HEARTBREAK and basically wanting to die, not food.  I was a walking zombie begging God to kill me, knowing no one else on earth could understand the fucking HELL I was enduring!

Falling in love with a sweet, adorable, kind, compassionate, funny, loving, caring person who is your EVERY SINGLE DREAM COME TRUE and having that person speak your every heart's wish... feeling he will be your future, the one you've asked for for forever, and then suddenly for no real reason he is gone, and then he literally VANISHES from the face of the earth, all connection gone, and THEN he finally responds {like Invasion of The Body Snatchers weird and apathetic, emotionless} and seems like, sounds like and even FEELS like a totally different person- it makes a person feel like she just plummeted down to the seventh level of Hell, the one with the big-ass boiler room where Fred Kreuger lives, dragging his nails over scary-hot Hellish steam pipes.

That was my life for a while so I lost even more weight than I did with my soul mates; that sickly euphoric weight loss that feels like "Yes! I can at least control what I eat, if nothing else.  If nothing else I can subsists on four Saltine crackers and some water per day, and I can rejoice in the fact that my jeans are falling off me, my collar bone is sticking out, I can feel my hips, my belly is totally flat, and my hunger pangs have eaten my hunger pangs so now I'm not even hungry any more!  Yippee!"

Just how sick is that? 

So then some of the fear subsided and surrender began.  And I wanted to eat again.  And I LIKE to eat.  It is not a vice but it is a pleasure, and one thing my son and I love to do is go out for dinner.  So in the last six months and over the holidays I ate what the Hell I wanted to.  I do not drink alcohol or smoke or even go out to bars, etc. so going out for dinner with my child is one of my joys in life.  But I feel guilty.  Guilty for not eating like the spiritual gurus say we are supposed to when we "Awaken" because I still want cheeseburgers and chocolate cake and a mocha from McDonald's.  Guilty because I should be like Gweneth Paltrow and Apple... all vegan and healthy and just ugh.  Because I want pot roast and mashed potatoes with buttery green beans and biscuits instead of free-range organic grilled chicken atop a bed of lettuce.

And I love sweets.  OMG- and something funny?  My twin soul brought me treats All. The. Time!  Cookies, candy, suckers and pop rocks for my son.  Chocolate galore, and even pop corn balls because our last night together was right before Halloween.

Ugh.  He *also* brought me his home made perogies and grass-fed beef.  Maybe that was all a sign to tell me it was OKAY to eat.  Okay to enjoy food- he is actually a self-proclaimed foodie, and he likes dining out too.  Why did I not see that before?  Why beat the shit out of myself constantly?  Why?

WHY!!??

My belly is no longer flat.  I have a jiggly tummy.  I have stretch marks.  My boobs are huge and they, ya know, hang.  Gravity exists, lol.  But this body has been "unhealthfully" heavy in the past.  And it really changed my body- I got bad stretch marks and terrible heart burn back then.  But I got over that.  And then at 36 I got pregnant and I took damn good care of that baby growing in my belly.  And I nursed him too at 37.  And I walked with him every day, and I ran and played with him at the park.  And we explore and have fun together.  But I do hate traditional exercise with a passion, and I am a huge couch potato.  Always have been- I am very bookish and do not like exercise.  Still though  I should NOT be thinking constantly "Oh I have to be better!  My house has to be cleaner!  I MUST do yoga!  I should not eat that!  I should eat better!  I can't just sit and do nothing today because it is slovenly and lazy, etc. etc.  I have to write a book!  I have to be creative!  I'm just not good enough how I am right this very minute, sitting here reading to my son or cuddling him in bed, reading a book or even writing in my journal trying to figure out this self-inflicted Hell I am working through."

So this last go-round he pushed my buttons.  But one thing he did was to ask me this question, "So have you eaten a bunch of cheesecake and now your butt got huge?"  Of course he'd ask me that; he's supposed to bring up all my insecurities, right?  So I told him I gained a few pounds and he asked me for a full-body selfie {clothed- it was not for the purpose of him being stimulated or wanting something from me.}  So I sent one, shirt and jeans.  He wrote back and said, "You are so crazy!  You look like you've lost like twenty pounds!  You are gorgeous, and you look so young.  I'm too old for you!"  Well he's a few hours younger than me and the camera was in front of my face when I took the selfie so he didn't even see my face but still he told me "You look like you are about 28-30 years old!"

I am NOT going nuts here.  Do you SEE?  Do you see what is done through him?  I was so being told, "You are lovely like you are, love handles and all.  Eat what you want.  Be healthy AND happy.  Relax."  Lately I have been noticing my wrinkles more.  Age is starting to show.  And let's face it: single mom who works full-time and tries her best to take care of the bills and a big ole' tri-level home WHILE maneuvering a twin soul separation... can be just a wee bit stressful, you know?

This man, through him, has mirrored all my insecurities and lack of self-love.  He is also used, at times, to show me truth when he tells me how sweet and wonderful and beautiful I am.  But when I fear he does not love me after all, or that he does not want me, he shows me this too.  Intensely.  He's told me to go fuck myself SIMPLY based off the fact that I flopped in bed and told Spirit "Fuck off- I hate this!" He can shift mid-conversation.  He is my biggest mirror but through it all I have never stopped loving him or stopped believing.  I may have shit to work through but deep down inside I do believe that, in the end, we are meant to be back together so I've never lashed out at him.  I do not respond to the mirroring- why respond to the fear I created myself?  Why reaffirm it?  But it CAN be frightening, and it can be stressful, and I can see in my face that it has affected me.  The extra wrinkles are there... but that's life, right?  Beauty does not mean ageless.  Beauty comes from within, and he tries his best to show me this, like he did after asking me for the photo.

I've got a lot in my head.  I do have a inferiority complex, even now.  I still feel like I am begging for him to love me again, like his love stopped, like he forgot me and does not want me.  And that has to stop.  It has to.  I feel so inferior to him at times, and I still feel like he's not choosing me but his career instead, this other life while leaving me behind.  And he shows that to me over and over again.  And it feels like Hell.

So it is TRUE what people say, like Lois and Clark, that when your twin soul "rejects" you it is because you are rejecting YOURSELF.  OMG it makes SO much sense to me.  And I think the only way I can work through it is to accept both myself and him with total unconditional love because he is putting me through all this so I can finally see and love myself.  Just as I am.

I love this movie.  Bridget reminds me a lot of myself- she needs to love herself.  "I already feel like an idiot most of the time, with or without a fireman's pole."  That is me.  I often feel like an idiot when I should only love myself.  I am not an idiot!  I am not an embarrassment.  I am not a bother.  I always feel like a bother.  Sometimes I feel like the only person who could ever truly love me like I am is my son.  It's a bit painful to see really, what I am going through here.  How I think of myself even when I am trying to love myself.  How hard I am on myself.  It is so frightening to want to feel like you are okay, wanting to love and accept yourself right now without having to be better or do more, and being almost unable to do so.

And he tried.  They tried the easy way with him showing me love and affection again, and I could not accept it.  He told me that I am pure and genuine and that people like me are a rarity in this world.  He said, amidst a flurry of flirty text messages, that he felt it was what he loves about me most- being so genuine and pure.  A good person.  A loveable person.  He told me he LOVED me and wanted me to be his forever.  And this was after the separation.  But see- I ran from that.  I ran from it.  I was terrified I was being "fooled" again.  And when I emotionally cringed enough, doubting that love being shown to me, secretly thinking I am not worth it or him, he retreated again.  And then came the weekend when I was hating myself, wanting to hurt myself by drinking and hating and wanting to be all stupid and flirty with some random man, and he came through to beat the shit out of me with those craptacular emails  <---- had to be done.  HAD to be, and I can see that now that I was beating the shit out of myself, drunk and wanting to hurt myself, wanting to throw away my initial healing out of fear and lingering self-hatred.  He totally just showed me what I was doing to myself with my actions and my thoughts, all from 2100 miles away knowing nothing and ever since then it has been very different.  Difficult.  And for the love of Christ I've been going out of my MIND trying to figure out why.  Why?  What am I doing wrong?  Well- I think it all boils down to accepting love and loving myself and him unconditionally, and spreading this to all I come into contact with, to the world.  Because we all have these same issues.  We do.  It is a sad thing but our world {media, government, society in general, advertising which is the devil} causes us to hate ourselves, and this keeps us sad, lonely and powerless.  Unable to enjoy love with no angst... and I could go on and on.

But mainly he reflects back to me how I reject myself.  How I do not accept myself, and thinking he does not love me just tells myself "You are not worthy of his love."  I think- oh God please- I can see what is happening here, finally.  Because right now he shows me a lot of rejection, and he pops through to show me this ridiculous rejection, like so exaggerated and stupid {and he never 100% flat out rejects me, just makes it to where "I just don't see how this will work," or like he is ambivalent and doesn't want any "crazy relationship talk" where before all he wanted to do was talk about when were are married... and it makes me crazy!}  But I also know it is not real, and it is done to show me something.  But what?

Maybe I am finally getting the picture, maybe.  It is okay to enjoy myself.  To eat food that I like.  To RELAX and enjoy life.  My God. To adore and cherish myself.  *weeping*  It's okay.

And it's okay for YOU too.

I've always loved this movie, for years.  I watch it over and over.  Maybe it speaks to me and I didn't realize it then.

"I like you.  Very much.  Just as you are."  Best. Scene. Ever!!!

One thing that fucks me up is so many people say we have to be perfect in order to Awaken and reunite.  I think that is nonsense.  I think it has more to do with accepting ourselves fully, and accepting others, than it does striving for perfection.

I'd love your thoughts on this, Dear Readers.

XXOO  Jen