A couple of months or so ago, I was watching an episode of Biggest Loser. I don't really remember what it was in the show that particularly sparked my thought process, but I began to think about the fact that "weight loss" does not always mean the loss of fat. The loss of water weight and/or muscle loss can also contribute to the net number that shows up on the scale. (This is why it's important to lose weight in a healthy manner--to help maximize fat loss, rather than muscle loss, etc.)
I began to consider that perhaps other significant things could be lost as well. What if, over the course of losing 80 pounds, I somehow managed to lose other parts of myself that are generally hidden from the naked eye, but still somehow contribute to our overall self-expression. Think of all the molecules, and neurotransmitters and whatever else we have on our insides that somehow make up our complex being. Surely it doesn't seem illogical that all of that fitness training could knock a few things loose or perhaps throw the system out of whack.
The truth is, I've been worried. I went through a lot of change in my life over the last couple of years--both all at once and then repeatedly. Things were finally settling down, but I still felt like a car that had been taken all apart and put back together. After being reassembled, it looked the same on the outside. (Well, actually that's not true--got body work done and a new paint job, too!) But it just didn't seem to be running the same as I remembered it doing so prior to the dis-assembly. I began to wonder if there was a bucket of spare parts that didn't get reinstalled correctly when the car got put back together. It runs fine...and looks pretty...but I can tell when I sit in the driver seat, that it's just not running the same.
I began to consider that maybe there was a biological reason that it felt like I was missing spare parts. 80 pounds is a lot of weight. You could hide a few spare parts in there, easily!
But I'm happy to say...my worst fears have finally been absolved. I finally got my whole self back from the shop, and she's running beautifully again. I can't tell you how much GRATITUDE I feel as a result. It's a weird thing to outwardly gain your life but inwardly be missing your life. It's kind of like an inverted out of body experience. Now I FINALLY feel back in sync again. I regained a part of myself that had essentially been missing since I departed Columbus...over two years ago now.
When I try to pinpoint exactly what it was that had been missing, this is what I've come up with: the authority and respect that naturally comes with being me. It's a lot easier to be myself (and feel like myself!) when the people around me treat me as myself!! I had felt out of sync for so long because I was perpetually in new situations with people who barely knew me. Sure, we all experience new situations from time to time, but think about how different one's reality might be altered if this happened on such a grand scale. In retrospect it's easy to see why I was feeling out of sync, yet unable to fully put my finger on what it was that was still "missing." Now, instead of everyone relating to me as "a person," many people around me are actually relating to me as "Kristy" again! About the time I hit the one-year mark at my current job is when this shift started occurring for me. I'm not bad as a generic person, but I prefer being phenomenal--and let's face it, Kristy Rocks!! ;)
The best metaphor I have for how I'm feeling as a result is that I got my feet back under me again. I've been treading water for so long (I've got great endurance!), that it feels so good to finally get my land legs back again. And standing on firm ground again helped bring all my confidence back. It was harder to trust myself when I didn't quite feel like myself. With my feet back under me I feel in a better place to be more proactive in life again; whereas, before it felt like I was expending so much energy trying to weather a barrage of things life kept throwing at me. I liken it to how the body responds to an infection. So many of the body's natural resources and reserves are taken up trying to fight off the infection that outwardly make the body appear weaker. With my feet back under me again I'm better poised to spring forward and more actively engage life from a more proactive angle.
Throughout the last couple of years I've felt a certain kind of alienation from "home." At an intuitive level I understood some of the reasons why this was. So often we associate "home" with our external surroundings, and we tend to recognize those places that feel like home by the manner in which they warm our hearts. But now I understand an even deeper meaning to "home is where the heart is," because the feeling of home that has been restored inside me actually has little to do with my external surroundings; rather, it is the restoration of balance within myself. This return to homeostasis culminated in the familiarity of noticing that people around me were finally beginning to relate to me as myself again. Home is relational. It's not solely about our external relations--to people and places and things--but also about our internal relationship with ourselves.
May you all find home in your hearts...if you are not already there.
Home sweet home(ostasis).
