The past month kicked my ass.

It’s hard for me to type it, and then copy it into Wordpress, and then publish that. Here I am, the self-appointed Queen of Positive Thinking and then events conspire to knock me down and question everything in my life. To say the least, it’s been a humbling experience. Less than a week after I wrote a post Titled (oh merciless irony!) Doubts:

Stop struggling. Stop clawing. Stop working. Let go. Get out of your own way, stop making things more complicated than they are (which is not at all). Do what comes into your mind to do, when it comes into your mind. Trust that the worst possible thing that could happen to you will always be the best possible thing that could happen to you. Life is as easy or as hard as you think it is. The Universe always says yes to what you think and ask.

Stop looking outside of yourself to find happiness. That means stop waiting for people and things and money and situations. Let them go. Turn “what is” into the best day of your life. Turn your focus inside…

I was facing a situation that shook me to the core of everything I have become. The details aren’t really important—I can easily explain them away, put a positive spin on them, change them into a blessing, etc. What’s important is how they affected me: I was in a state of complete despair. I mean that literally—I was at a point where I had no hope, I was angrier than I remember ever being, where I felt the last three years of my life were a complete waste, where I felt completely spiritually abandoned, where the only thing that felt real to me was that despair. Everything I gained since I moved to Colorado felt like a joke, and once I started questioning a few things, everything became questionable. My mother called it the Dark Night of the Soul, but I called it a big steaming pile of poo.

My words about letting go and stopping my struggles and finding happiness inside were taunting me. I had even printed them out along with the affirmations below them and hung them on the wall behind my computer before everything broke open. When my crisis began, I would glare at them in defiance and think, “I’m amazed I have friends if this is the kind of crap I’ve been saying to them. I’m a jackass.” I came face to face with exactly how hard it is to hear those things when times are tough.

My mother, going through a slightly less traumatic but still difficult crisis of spirit herself, kept trying to talk me down. “There’s a reason! There’s a reason! Something’s coming. You’ll be ok. Just surrender and let go.” And the core that is intrinsically who I am desperately wanted to believe that. The fiery ball of resentment that had taken me over kept demanding, “Less talk! MORE RESULTS!” And I went into that spiral of bitterness that results from fear that being upset was just making everything worse, but who cared if I was questioning everything I believed in. My whole existence became that spiral. I didn’t even know how to live my day much less live my life. It felt like a failure of staggering proportions. Here I was, completely and utterly incapable of following my own advice and what was worse, my ever-reliable brain couldn’t figure out how to move on.

So I’ve been recovering from that. And I wish I could say that I magically got everything back and here I am in happyland again, la la la. It’s not true though. I got beaten down so far and became so tired in all four of my bodies (physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual) that I had no choice except move on. Well that’s not true, I had a choice: I could either stay upset and do nothing and feel nothing or I could just put one foot in front of the other and make little choices to make myself feel better. It was time to take my own advice by doing what I could in any given moment to make myself feel better because I couldn’t live feeling bad all the time anymore. Things are the way they are and I can either live with joy and hope or I can be sad and bitter. And since I made the decision that I was done being sad, the joy and hope have started filling the empty spaces. What a wonderful affirmation, no?

So here’s my revised plan for letting go–this is how I’ve convinced myself to join the land of the (happy) living again:

1. There’s nothing to figure out. There’s just me and how I’m feeling and how I’m reacting to my life.
2. There is only now. Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow will take care of itself.
3. I am always allowed to feel, to think, to eat, to move, to say whatever/whenever/however I want.
4. Affirm that my intuition will never fail me, even if it leads me in painful directions.
5. Tell myself over and over (whether I’m feeling it or not): The Universe always says yes.

 
Yes, the past month kicked my ass, but I’M BACK!

This post is cross-posted from the Uncover Your Bliss blog.

12 Steps to Health at Every Size
Health at Every Size is a way of life that focuses on how you’re feeling (sound familiar?) and making friends with your body instead of what you weigh or what body type you have.

Good With Cheese
This is one of my new favorite blogs because it is about a woman’s journey to listening to and accepting her body. And because she’s hilarious.

You Don’t Have to Be Pretty
Here’s an oldie but a goodie that is worth a re-read (every. freakin’. month.).  It’s about how we don’t owe prettiness to anyone.  We only owe happiness to ourselves.

Here are some particularly good posts that I’ve come across recently (they may not have actually been written recently, but they’re new to me.):

Crush-Worthy
This right here sums up one of the best thing about participating in the Health at Every Size movement: The joy that comes with a lovely realignment in priorities.

You Won’t Go to Hell Because it Tastes Good
This post challenges us to remove moral judgment from what we eat.

I dare you
The Rotund dares us to go an entire day without thinking or saying negative things about our bodies.