Still, I don’t think that people need this elusive rock bottom to follow what the are inherently good at and make a career for themselves. Some people are just cool enough to be their own catalysts even when the floor hasn’t fell out from under them.

I also still believe you should share yourself no matter what. Who knows, this post could have been my invitation . . . My order to the universe for the perfect storm that was well received**

hitting rock bottom: june 16th 2011

Upon entering the depths of digital and community entrepenuership, I have spent a lot of my time doing SO MUCH RESEARCH. I’ve been reading blog posts, buying e-books and learning everything there is to know about those successful people that launched their own passion based business and now live the life they want.

The story always goes like this . . .

• Person has a good paying job at company X making a good income.
• Person decides that even though they are doing what they are “supposed” to, they aren’t doing what they love and feel spiritually undernourished.
• Person quits their job and hits rock bottom. This could mean jail, drug addiction, homelessness failed relationships etc.
• Person starts their own business and lives to tell the tale and even charge your for it.  And . . . YOU BUY IT!

As amused as I am by these stories, I can’t help but think, what is my rock bottom?

Which one of my seemingly genius ideas are going to take many months or years of efforts only to flop so hard on my face leaving me with the most valuable thing of all

. . . A lesson.

I like lessons, I do. But lessons aren’t always good enough to pay the bills. It makes me wonder if people will take me seriously if i don’t have such a tortuous past of life changing experiences.

What if I have played my life so safe up to this point that my experiences are null?

If I told you I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up that’s just what I did.

OR

I told you I was a drug addict living in a dumpster eating food scraps and ‘found the light’ one day and landed myself some lucky ass scholarship that would eventually allow me that same job as an astronaut.

Who’s story would you want to hear? Who would you pay to take advice about how to change your livf and do what you love?

Honestly?

It freaks me out because I never feel like my story is good enough. I haven’t jumped through rings of fire that were burning hot enough. But does that not mean I can’t be good at what I’m good at?

Absolutely not.

Experiences are different for everyone. I could have gone through something as equally challenging as living in a dumpster except in my head instead. The circumstance is obviously different and I’m thankful for not having to do that, but it doesn’t mean I’m less knowledgable or good enough to teach YOU something too.

The Lesson?

Share yourself no matter what. Big or small, no experience is too small for someone out there and that is a comforting truth I’m learning to believe. Experience in REAL life is what people crave when they need help with the most important thing . . . . Themselves in the real world.

It’s gloomy in Newark that morning but honestly, I always think of grey gloominess when I think of the town I’m only in when I’m flying away from it.

This morning brings about the second time I’m flying to Hawaii. I broke the ice by spending 3 weeks in NJ with friends, family, my new niece and a better understanding of myself which isn’t something I was expecting to pack into my carry-on this time around.

I cried when I said goodbye to my family all the while knowing that these are the consequences and feelings I must deal with being the ‘exiled’ one but I can only do the things I’m driven to do even if that means being so far away from all the comforts I’ve come to known over the past 28 years.

I cried once again while Marie was away from the car getting me my last dunkin donuts coffee for at least a few months. But something strange happened. Those tears were much different. They were tears of fear.

Lately when I feel fear this outer perception kicks in automatically inviting me to observe myself outside of the situation. I quickly realized I was robotically crying tears of fear + scaredness when in actuality I wasn’t really scared at all.

In fact, I was more scared of the chance of missing my connecting flight in Atlanta than I was to come back to Hawaii where I must rebuild my life again by finding/creating a part-time job, obtaining a new vehicle and oh, launching t-shirt line.

This time around my blank slate has a foundation, it has ground to stand on that I created by throwing myself to the wolves of life and coming back scarred but stronger than ever.

It sounds crazy, but I can’t help but be proud of myself for being in a situation where I have to start over. I’m realizing that in life things go away (cars, jobs, relationships, love, et ceterea) in order to give you the chance to do things the way you TRULY want if you have the guts.

As I write this I am finally on the long plane ride back to Hawaii. The air is stale and I am surrounded by couples, young and old embarking on a journey to a place where they plan to relax, enjoy beautiful scenery and create experience for a WHOLE week, maybe two tops.

Then there is me alone on the end seat, cramped, sore, with a glass of cheap wine in my stomach and uncomfortable,  ready to create the experience yet again for her WHOLE life.

I’ve noticed that I dwell in the extremes of my writing and blogging. I’m either writing a lot or not at all. I want to keep writing about what is happening. I want to keep exploring this ‘situation’ until it dissolves and so I really am going to try my best to share the process as best I can.

I did feel a  sense of lightness yesterday. The outpouring of support through social media outlets and talks/texts with friends really fueled my motivation about putting all of that out there. I am honestly always surprised about how many people read and digest my words.

Mahalo, really . . . 

I first want to say that I think it’s super ironic that this girl I try to ‘hide’ emotionally is trying to make herself seen to me physically. I wouldn’t have noticed her had I not been looking in the mirror the past year and noticing MORE of myself. And I sure as hell wouldn’t have been able to ignore her as I tried on my old clothes back home and seeing that not one pair of pants fit me anymore.

It’s obvious that this girl needs attention. She needs to be called out, known, and brought to light. Only then will she dissolve into the universe along with the extra weight she has been using on my physical body desperately trying to get my attention.

Are we still on the same page here?

Maybe not, but its okay . . .

So let’s dissect this girl because you may know somebody just like them and you may also be ready to let them go.

What I HATE about her.

• She plays small which is so incredibly opposite of who she really is.
• She thinks horrible thoughts about herself. Thoughts that you would never dream of thinking about your worst enemy.
• She feeds on fear. It’s what fuels her and the more she gets the more she wants, the more she grows backwards.
• She’s by constantly making excuses for her behavior by over-proving herself in life.
• She seeks out validation and chases it like a dangling carrot she will never reach because she doesn’t show up for it.
• She un-tags herself in pictures she can’t bear to look at.
• She keeps her arms crossed in social situations and her body language is that of a new girl in class that just moved to town.
• She withdraws herself from certain social situations because she feels like she doesn’t deserve to be there.
• She looks at her stomach all the time wondering when it will magically shrink back to the days of when she was comfortably curvy.
• She looks at pictures of herself from the past and present and silently says to herself ‘that is NOT me’ . . . but it was, and it is.
• She’s always wishing she isn’t truly where she is right now because right now she is not herself simply because of what she looks like.

What I LOVE about her.

• She has been one of the most loyal people in my young adult life.
• She’s learned about the ins and outs of many diets, supplements and the emotions involved with losing weight and have helped many others on their journey.
• She has brought me on a hell of an adventure that eventually, albeit painfully led to my true passion in life (natural foods chef).
• She showed me what it is like to live on both sides of the spectrum.
• She trained for a body building competition back in the day.
• She helped + comforted me through break-ups, college, culinary school and she helped support me when I made the scariest decision of my life moving to hawaii with no money, job and barely knowing anyone.
• She constantly has given me the chances to explore the deeper facets within myself that otherwise would have never come about.
• She has much more power as a positive force than a negative one, and that is something that can be controlled and changed.
• She knows deep down that she is an illusion created by fear, doubt and poor self-worth.
• In other words, she knows she isn’t real.

If I let this girl go, if I give up this identity of ‘someone with a weight problem’ then who am I?

Well, I am free to be the person I’ve been all along . . .

Myself. 

this is one of the only pictures of myself with a teeth bearing smile . . . 

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I am hideous nor do I think that I am clinically ‘fat’. What I do think is that I am honest and logical, so to pretend there hasn’t been 10-20lbs of fluctuating un-natural weight on my body for the past ten years would be a lie.

It has been said that things (problems, situations, addictions, circumstances) don’t ever go away until it has taught you the lesson you were meant to learn. I wholeheartedly agree with this statement as there has been a lot of those things that have left my life, that have given me the space to learn the lessons I need to propel forward.

So what the FUCK is this weight teaching me after so damn long?!

I’ve read countless books, I became a personal trainer, supplement consultant, been vegan, vegetarian, gluten free, raw and whatever the hell else I can think of. I’ve trained to become an intuitive eating and holistic health coach and I even went to a special culinary school to help others do what I can’t seem to do myself.

It’s frustrating, its sick and the worst part is that not much of it has to do with WHAT I put in my mouth but HOW I do it and how the thoughts I am thinking or maybe even NOT thinking effect everything.

It’s SO much more than telling yourself you are going to adopt a mostly raw diet and waiting for magic to happen . . .

This is me right now, and I feel uncomfortable.

And the fact that I am singing into a sub sandwich oddly has nothing to do with it.

I feel like I have the energy to change everything but then I get caught up spending so much energy trying to make other people think that I am not this ‘person with a weight problem’. The reality is that most people don’t even care. In fact, most guys I’ve been on dates with and all of my friends have ZERO problem with what I look like or weigh and yet I feel like there is always an elephant in the room, no pun intended.

I’m sick of this noise. I’m sick of hiding and sick of perfectly pretending and calculating my clothing, words and sexuality because I think its distracting someone from the truth.

The truth is . .

I am 175lbs on a good day.

I love drinking beer, really hoppy beer.

I enjoy eating meat.

I love everything about having a caffeinated coffee in the morning.

I am really strong and muscular and always have been.

I am CONSTANTLY worried about how big my stomach looks at all times.

I expect to find a perfect person to love me so that I don’t have to do the work myself when I KNOW it doesn’t ever happen like that.

I secretly love all my curves, especially when I am at a comfortable weight.

I love exercising + hiking in nature but don’t enjoy doing it alone.

I am fearful of putting this post out there, but I am doing it anyway.

It’s no fucking wonder that I feel worthy and deserving in some aspects of my life and not others. It’s no wonder I don’t understand when people tell me I should relax because I am doing amazing in life and that I am too hard on myself.

BECAUSE IM TRYING TO BE TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE!

The loving amazing awesome person I truly am.

. . . and

The person (ego) that inhabits a body that doesn’t ‘fit’ the profile of the above person and therefore keeps sabotaging it to prove herself right.

This holds me back, a lot. More than anyone knows  . . .

It occured to me in writing this how I have tried SO many things to learn this lesson, everything except accepting where I am at right now and not pretending that part of me is not reality. I’m not sure how this outburst is going to affect my future, but I do know that I am sick of being uncomfortable and would like to finally make a change the right way. I don’t know what that means, or how it will happen but I do know that I feel a sense of relief and release going forward.

“I have a sinking feeling I’ll never be here again . . . “

And even though she had a good 3+ years left at this school, she agreed.

Marie always wanted to be a veterinarian. She’s always had a crazy sense of compassion towards animals that bloomed throughout her life. She is also very smart in that braniac scientific way that I just will never be. I’m sure she gets it from dad.

She decided to major in Biology to be a researcher in one of the smartest and most expensive schools for just that. The plan in life is usually to go to college right after high school assuming you know EXACTLY what you want to do. You get your credentials, get a job in that field, get married, start a family and work all the way until you retire  . . .

Well, shit don’t happen like that anymore . . .

These days’ kids are forced into college right after high school barely knowing who they are let alone what they want to do with the rest of their lives. They stick with a major they wish they can change, often. But they don’t, because they believe they are stuck. They believe that the path they are on is the only way and veering from it would mean that in some way they failed. They rack up so much debt so that by the time they collect those damn pieces of paper, they are in severe panic mode. To get out of debt they take jobs they are over-qualified for to make ends meet. In this state of panic and lack, they usually attract partners and situations that are not for their highest good adding compounded stress to their lives having them wish they just took the time to figure out what they truly wanted and had the guts to change from the very beginning.

To me . . . THAT seems like failure, no?

On my last weekend in NJ, I get to see my sister one last time. This time, to help her move out of her dorm and away from the college she just started. She realized that she wasn’t in the right place and is taking some time to re-configure her path before she starts somewhere fresh again in the fall.

I guess I am writing this to make it clear about what I (and super supportive family) see of this situation against what the rest of the rat race world may see. It’s my duty as that crazy spiritual ‘eat pray love’ sister I suppose . . .

With the way we work, I’m not sure that I can ever promise her or myself that our minds won’t always be changing. However, it is clear that if happiness and doing something that you love is your destination and you are staying true to yourself then there is no shame, guilt or embarrassment about charting a new course and always being brave enough to adjust your sails. THAT is the furthest thing from failure I can imagine . . .