Stories about life, food, and becoming—with simple, satisfying recipes for real life.

Janelle Hilton

  • Maybe Becoming Someone New Starts With a Decision

    Maybe Becoming Someone New Starts With a Decision

    I think becoming someone new starts with a decision.

    Not motivation.

    Not confidence.

    Not finally getting your thoughts under control.

    A decision.

    I’ve been thinking about the things that have actually changed in my life lately.

    And they all seem to have started the same way.

    I decided.

    When I stopped binging, there wasn’t some magical moment where I suddenly stopped wanting to do it.

    I decided I wasn’t going to be the woman who binged anymore.

    That’s it.

    I was done.

    It wasn’t good for me.

    It made me feel like shit.

    I hated how I felt afterward.

    And I didn’t want to keep doing that to myself.

    So I made a decision.

    But making that decision didn’t mean the urges magically disappeared.

    I had to start doing things differently too.

    I made sure I was eating enough.

    I stopped restricting.

    I started actually nourishing myself instead of spending the day trying to eat as little as possible and then wondering why food was screaming at me by nighttime.

    I focused on protein and fiber because I noticed how much more satisfied I felt when I ate enough of both.

    And that helped dramatically with the urge to binge.

    I started paying attention to what was actually happening when I wanted food.

    Sometimes I was hungry.

    So I ate.

    Sometimes I was bored and my brain suggested food.

    And I could recognize:

    I’m bored.

    That’s all.

    I don’t actually want food.

    And here’s the part that still kind of blows my mind.

    I’ve lost fifteen pounds since I made that decision.

    Not because I got stricter.

    Not because I started eating less and less.

    Not because I was white-knuckling my way through hunger.

    I lost fifteen pounds while nourishing myself.

    I ate when I was hungry.

    I stopped when I was full.

    I ate food I actually wanted.

    I stopped making every single thing I ate mean something about whether I was being “good” or “bad.”

    For so long, I thought losing weight required more control.

    More rules.

    More restriction.

    More ignoring myself.

    And somehow, what actually started changing things was doing almost the opposite.

    I fed myself.

    I listened to myself.

    And I stopped binging.

    Not because I never had another urge.

    But because I’d already decided what I wanted to do.

    And now I’m realizing I’ve been doing this everywhere.

    Writing is another one.

    For a long time, I wanted to be a writer.

    I wanted to grow Chaos & Carrots.

    But I kept waiting to somehow become the kind of person who wrote consistently.

    Then I decided I was going to write.

    So I started writing.

    My thoughts didn’t have to agree first.

    Walking is the same.

    I wanted to be someone who walked every day and got her steps in for SO LONG.

    And my brain always had a reason not to.

    I’m tired.

    I don’t feel like it.

    I’ll do it later.

    Until eventually I decided:

    Okay.

    This is who I am now.

    I’m someone who walks.

    So when the excuses start, I don’t need to sit there and have a philosophical debate with myself.

    Avatar mode.

    Shoes on.

    Start walking.

    My brain can catch up later.

    And there’s an even bigger decision I’ve made recently.

    I’m going to have another baby.

    And holy shit, does my brain have some thoughts about that one.

    I have a four-year-old and a seven-year-old.

    They’re not babies anymore.

    We’re out of diapers.

    We’re out of the newborn stage.

    We’re sleeping.

    What am I doing starting over again after all this time?

    There are fears.

    There are insecurities.

    There are moments when I think about everything that could change and wonder if I’m crazy.

    But underneath all of that?

    I still know what I want.

    I want another baby.

    The fear that comes afterward doesn’t get to make the decision for me.

    And maybe that’s the part I’ve been missing about decisions.

    Making one doesn’t mean your brain immediately gets on board.

    It doesn’t mean doubt disappears.

    It doesn’t mean you suddenly feel confident and certain every second of every day.

    Sometimes you decide…

    and then your brain absolutely loses its shit about it.

    That’s okay.

    It can have its thoughts.

    I don’t have to make a new decision every time it does.

    I think that’s where I used to get stuck.

    I’d make a decision, feel really good about it, and then doubt would show up.

    And I’d think the doubt meant something.

    Maybe I shouldn’t do this.

    Maybe I’m not ready.

    Maybe this isn’t actually what I want.

    Maybe I need to think about it some more.

    So I’d reopen the decision.

    Again.

    And again.

    And again.

    But what if doubt is just allowed to be there?

    What if I don’t have to treat every new thought like new information?

    I already thought about this.

    I already know what I want.

    I already decided.

    That doesn’t mean I can never change my mind.

    It doesn’t mean I ignore new information.

    It doesn’t mean I ignore my body or my needs or force myself through something that genuinely isn’t right for me.

    It means I don’t need to reconsider the direction of my life every time my brain comes up with a new reason to be scared.

    Because my mind can go all day.

    Seriously.

    Ask it why I shouldn’t do something and it will come up with a million reasons.

    And then tomorrow?

    It’ll have some new ones.

    It’s actually kind of impressive.

    And part of this for me has been deciding I’m not putting up with my own bullshit anymore.

    Not by being cruel to myself.

    By recognizing when I’m about to reopen a decision I already made because I’m scared, uncomfortable, tired, or suddenly full of doubt.

    My brain can tell me I don’t feel like walking today.

    Okay.

    Shoes on.

    It can tell me I don’t have anything interesting to write about.

    Okay.

    Open the laptop.

    It can tell me I’m crazy for wanting another baby when I already have a four-year-old and a seven-year-old.

    Okay.

    I still want another baby.

    I don’t need to win the argument with my mind.

    I don’t even need to participate in it.

    The thoughts can be there.

    The fear can be there.

    The doubt can be there.

    I don’t have to reopen the decision.

    I already decided.

  • The Person You Want to Become Might Be Waiting on You to Move

    The Person You Want to Become Might Be Waiting on You to Move

    I was on one of my walks when I had an incredibly profound realization.

    What would a writer do?

    Well.

    She would write.

    Obviously.

    That’s it.

    That was the revelation.

    Very deep stuff happening over here.

    But for some reason, it hit me.

    Because I had wanted to become a writer for a long time.

    I wanted to grow Chaos & Carrots.

    I wanted to write consistently.

    I wanted this to become something real.

    And then I would go weeks without posting anything.

    I think part of me was waiting for something to change first.

    Maybe I needed to feel more like a writer.

    Maybe I needed to feel inspired.

    Maybe I needed to believe I was good enough.

    Maybe I needed to somehow become the version of myself who writes consistently…

    before I could write consistently.

    Which, now that I type that out, presents a slight logistical problem.

    So I started thinking about it differently.

    What does a writer actually do?

    She writes.

    Okay.

    I can do that.

    I started writing a little bit every day.

    Not finishing a blog post every day.

    Not sitting down for some impressive three-hour writing session.

    Just writing.

    Then I started paying attention to myself.

    When do I actually want to write?

    When does it come most naturally?

    And I realized it’s in the morning.

    I meditate.

    I spend some time focusing on gratitude.

    And by then, my brain usually feels a little quieter.

    And that’s when I want to write.

    I also realized I love writing outside.

    Something about being outside gives me clarity.

    So instead of deciding that becoming a writer meant I needed to develop an extraordinary amount of discipline and force myself to write under any circumstances, I started creating the circumstances where writing comes naturally to me.

    Meditate.

    Gratitude.

    Go outside.

    Write.

    Then I go for my walks.

    And now that I’m writing more, something else happens on those walks.

    I notice things.

    An idea comes to me.

    Something that happened with my kids suddenly feels like something I want to write about.

    I start thinking about something weird I’ve been doing with food or shame or gratitude or my brain.

    I notice a thought I’ve had 700 times before, except this time I actually notice it.

    And I think:

    Oh.

    I want to write about that.

    Then I write again.

    And there’s this certain momentum that happens.

    The more I write, the more I think about writing.

    The more I think about writing, the more ideas I notice.

    The more ideas I notice, the more I want to write.

    The more I work on Chaos & Carrots, the more real Chaos & Carrots feels.

    And because it feels more real, I want to work on it more.

    It’s this weird little loop.

    And somewhere in that loop, something changed.

    I stopped spending so much time wondering if I was a writer.

    I was writing.

    So…

    I was a writer.

    Apparently the paperwork was much simpler than I thought.

    And I’ve been thinking about that.

    Because I recently read something about taking the action before your thoughts and feelings catch up.

    I don’t remember the exact wording, but the idea stuck with me.

    We tend to think change is supposed to happen from the inside out.

    First I become confident.

    Then I do the scary thing.

    First I become motivated.

    Then I exercise.

    First I believe I’m good enough.

    Then I put my work out into the world.

    First I feel like a writer.

    Then I write.

    But I’m starting to realize that sometimes becoming happens in the opposite direction.

    Sometimes it happens from the outside in.

    You take the action first.

    And then your internal world starts catching up with the fact that you’re actually doing it.

    Because I didn’t sit around thinking:

    I am a writer.

    I am a writer.

    I AM A WRITER.

    until I finally believed myself enough to open my laptop.

    I just started writing.

    And then I did it again.

    And again.

    Eventually I had all this actual evidence.

    I write almost every day.

    I notice things I want to write about.

    I get ideas on my walks.

    I work on my blog.

    I care about sentences.

    I get excited when I figure out what I’m actually trying to say.

    At some point, calling myself a writer stopped feeling like something I was trying to become and started feeling like a description of what I was already doing.

    And I think that’s the part I was missing.

    I thought I needed to change the stories my brain was telling me first.

    I’m not really a writer.

    I’m not good enough.

    I’m not the kind of person who does this consistently.

    But maybe I didn’t need to convince myself otherwise first.

    Those stories could still be there.

    I could write anyway.

    Because it’s a lot harder for my brain to tell me I’m not a writer when I keep writing.

    Not impossible, obviously.

    My brain enjoys a challenge.

    But now I have evidence.

    And I don’t think that’s “fake it till you make it.”

    I’m not walking around in a beret telling strangers about my manuscript.

    I’m just doing something I genuinely want to do without waiting for my thoughts and feelings to grant me permission first.

    But there’s another piece of this that feels important.

    I didn’t just tell myself:

    Writers write. Now force yourself to write every day forever.

    I started learning myself.

    I learned that mornings work better for me.

    I learned that meditation helps.

    Gratitude helps.

    Being outside helps.

    Walking helps.

    I started building my days in a way that makes writing easier.

    And maybe that’s part of becoming too.

    Not endlessly forcing yourself to behave like some imaginary better version of you.

    Maybe it’s asking:

    What would she actually do?

    And then:

    What would make doing that feel natural?

    Because I don’t want to spend my life dragging myself toward the person I want to be.

    I’d rather create a life where I keep accidentally meeting her.

    Maybe she writes in the morning because that’s when her mind feels clear.

    Maybe she goes outside because that’s where ideas come.

    Maybe she walks because that’s when she seems to notice things she wants to write about.

    Maybe becoming her isn’t one giant transformation.

    Maybe it’s a bunch of very ordinary Tuesdays where I keep doing the things she would do.

    And eventually there’s less distance between us.

    I thought I had to figure out how to feel like a writer.

    I didn’t.

    I needed to write.

    So I did.

  • When a Weight-Loss Goal Quietly Became a Deadline

    When a Weight-Loss Goal Quietly Became a Deadline

    A few days ago, I did some math.

    Which is always dangerous when weight loss is involved.

    We’re planning to start trying for another baby in a few months, and naturally, I’ve been thinking about my weight.

    I’d like to lose more before I get pregnant.

    So my brain did what brains do when you give them a goal and a timeline.

    Okay. If I lose about five pounds a month…

    I started calculating.

    And I realized I could potentially get down to around 170 pounds by the time we start trying.

    170.

    That sounded good.

    Really good.

    And apparently somewhere between doing that math and continuing on with my life, 170 stopped being a possibility.

    It became a deadline.

    I didn’t consciously decide that.

    I didn’t write:

    MUST WEIGH 170 BEFORE GETTING PREGNANT

    on my bathroom mirror.

    I didn’t start some extreme diet.

    Nothing changed dramatically.

    It was much quieter than that.

    I just started thinking:

    How can I lose weight faster?

    And then little things started happening.

    I’d recently stopped having an afternoon snack.

    Lunch to dinner.

    I can make it.

    I’m not that hungry.

    I don’t really need a snack.

    Totally reasonable.

    I also realized I’d basically stopped drinking water in the afternoons.

    At the same time, I’d recently started doing Pilates twice a week.

    And I’m in my luteal phase.

    Then suddenly…

    I was fucking hungry.

    Especially at night.

    I started eating more in the evenings.

    I started having cravings again.

    And my first instinct was to look at the nighttime eating.

    Because obviously that’s the problem, right?

    Why am I suddenly eating more at night?

    Why am I having cravings again?

    How do I stop doing this?

    Except then I started looking at what was happening earlier in the day.

    And I thought:

    Oh.

    Maybe nighttime isn’t actually where this starts.

    Maybe trying to make it from lunch to dinner without eating has something to do with being really hungry later.

    Groundbreaking stuff over here.

    Now, I don’t actually know exactly what’s causing the increased hunger.

    Maybe skipping the afternoon snack is contributing.

    Maybe Pilates has increased my appetite.

    Maybe being in my luteal phase is part of it.

    Maybe I’m thirsty.

    Maybe it’s several things happening at once.

    I don’t know.

    But I do know something else.

    The pressure had started changing my behavior.

    That’s the part that got my attention.

    I wasn’t walking around thinking:

    I need to restrict my food.

    I wasn’t consciously starving myself.

    It sounded much more innocent inside my head.

    I don’t need an afternoon snack.

    I can wait until dinner.

    How can I lose weight a little faster?

    And individually, none of those thoughts seemed particularly alarming.

    But when I zoomed out, I could see what was happening.

    I’d given myself a deadline.

    I had a few months.

    I wanted to get as much weight off as possible.

    And suddenly every opportunity to eat a little less became an opportunity to get closer to 170.

    That’s restriction too, isn’t it?

    Or at least it can be.

    Maybe restriction doesn’t always announce itself with a meal plan and a list of forbidden foods.

    Maybe sometimes it sneaks in wearing a very reasonable outfit.

    You can wait.

    You don’t really need that.

    You’re trying to lose weight, remember?

    And this is where the whole thing started bothering me.

    Because food has finally gotten quieter for me.

    Really quiet.

    I’ve stopped starving myself.

    I eat breakfast.

    Lunch.

    Dinner.

    I feed myself.

    And somehow, after spending so much of my life believing I needed more control around food, I’ve started trusting myself around it.

    That feels huge.

    And now here I was potentially messing with that peace because I had decided I should weigh 170 pounds by a certain date.

    No.

    I don’t want that.

    I want to lose weight.

    That’s still true.

    I’d love to go into another pregnancy at a lower weight.

    Also true.

    And if someone offered me a magical button right now that safely dropped me to 170 pounds, I would not nobly decline it in the name of personal growth.

    I would smash that thing.

    Repeatedly.

    I’m not pretending I suddenly don’t care about weight loss.

    I do.

    That’s what makes this complicated.

    But I think I’m starting to care about something else more.

    The relationship with food I’ve been building.

    The trust.

    The quiet.

    The ability to eat when I’m hungry without immediately wondering whether I should have been able to go longer.

    I don’t want to sacrifice all of that just so I can squeeze as much weight loss as possible into the next few months.

    And that realization made me think I might stop weighing myself for now.

    Not because I think the scale is evil.

    Not because I’ve transcended caring what I weigh.

    Clearly I have not.

    But because I know myself.

    If I keep watching that number while there’s a countdown running in the background, I know how easily I’ll start doing the math.

    If I lose this much this week…

    If I lose five pounds this month…

    If I can just get to…

    And suddenly I’m not taking care of myself anymore.

    I’m managing myself toward a deadline.

    Even deciding not to weigh myself has this sneaky little trap in it.

    Because I could easily say:

    Fine. 170 doesn’t matter.

    I’ll stop weighing myself.

    But hopefully I can still lose ten pounds before we start trying.

    Nice try.

    That’s just 170 wearing a fake mustache.

    It’s the same assignment.

    The same pressure.

    The same countdown.

    And I don’t want to replace one secret goal with another one and pretend I’ve let go.

    So I’ve been trying to ask myself a different question.

    Instead of:

    I have a few months before we start trying to conceive. How much weight can I lose?

    What if it’s:

    I have a few months before we start trying to conceive. How well can I take care of myself?

    That feels completely different.

    Can I keep doing Pilates?

    Can I walk?

    Can I drink some damn water in the afternoon?

    Can I eat a snack when I’m hungry instead of congratulating myself for making it to dinner?

    Can I arrive at trying to conceive still trusting myself around food?

    And if I lose weight while I’m doing that?

    Great.

    Seriously.

    I hope I do.

    But maybe the number doesn’t get to be the assignment anymore.

    Because I’ve spent a lot of time getting to this weirdly peaceful place where food is becoming…

    food.

    Not a moral test.

    Not an escape.

    Not something I need to earn.

    Not something I need to spend all day trying not to eat.

    Just food.

    And I don’t want to trade that for 170.

    Even writing that feels strange.

    Because part of me still really, really wants 170.

    Both things can apparently be true.

    I want to lose weight before getting pregnant.

    And I don’t want wanting to lose weight before getting pregnant to become more important than taking care of the person who’s actually going to be pregnant.

    I also can’t say the pressure or the missing afternoon snack caused the increased hunger and cravings.

    Bodies are more complicated than that.

    But I don’t actually need to prove causation to recognize a pattern in myself that I don’t like.

    How can I lose weight faster?

    That’s the thought I want to pay attention to.

    Not because wanting to lose weight is wrong.

    But because I know how easily, for me, wanting it faster can turn into something else.

    So I have no idea what I’ll weigh when we start trying.

    Part of me really hates that sentence.

    She would like a spreadsheet.

    A projection.

    Preferably a graph.

    She would like to know exactly where we’re going to land.

    But maybe she doesn’t get to know this time.

    Maybe these next few months aren’t about arriving at the lowest possible weight.

    Maybe they’re about arriving there still trusting myself.

    And right now, that feels like something worth protecting.

  • I Thought I Was Becoming the Old Me Again

    I Thought I Was Becoming the Old Me Again

    Last weekend, I got high and ate a lot of Cheetos.

    Like.

    A lot of Cheetos.

    Which is not exactly how I planned to start this story, but here we are.

    I haven’t eaten like that in a long time.

    And then the next day, I finished the rest of the bag.

    So that was fun.

    A few days later, my husband took me out to lunch.

    Normally, I probably would have looked through the menu for something a little healthier. Not necessarily because I was forcing myself to eat healthy, but because that’s genuinely how I eat most of the time now.

    But I wanted a burger.

    And sweet potato fries.

    So I ordered a burger and sweet potato fries.

    I ate them.

    They were delicious.

    I stopped before I got really full.

    And then I ate normally for the rest of the day.

    Nothing particularly interesting happened.

    Which, I’m realizing, is actually kind of the point.

    Then my friend came over.

    We played games. We watched three movies. We got tacos from a restaurant.

    Later, I ate some frozen berries.

    And at some point during all of this, I went upstairs to put my kids’ candy away.

    I asked my friend if she wanted some before I put it away.

    She said yes.

    So apparently my brain interpreted that as:

    Great. Candy for everyone.

    And I grabbed a bunch for myself too.

    Not a couple pieces.

    A bunch.

    I brought it downstairs, sat on the couch, and ate all of it while we watched the movie.

    And afterward?

    I felt like shit.

    Not emotionally.

    Physically.

    My stomach didn’t feel good. My body didn’t feel good. And I remember having this very anticlimactic realization:

    Oh yeah.

    This is why I don’t really eat candy anymore.

    It wasn’t some virtuous health realization.

    It just didn’t feel good.

    And then it messed with my sleep.

    Which gave me plenty of time to lie awake and turn the whole thing into something much bigger.

    Because apparently 2 a.m. is an excellent time for a personal investigation.

    Why did you do that?

    Are you going back to your old patterns?

    What if this is the beginning of slipping backward?

    And my brain had receipts.

    There had been the Cheetos.

    Then more Cheetos.

    The burger and fries.

    Tacos.

    Candy.

    It had been several days of eating more restaurant food, snack food, and “junk food” than is normal for me.

    And suddenly it wasn’t just candy anymore.

    It was evidence.

    Maybe I was slipping.

    Maybe those old patterns weren’t as far behind me as I’d thought.

    Maybe this was how it started.

    And for a little while, I was genuinely scared.

    Because I remember the old version of me.

    She could turn one night of overeating into an entire event.

    There would be guilt.

    There would be calculations.

    There would probably be some kind of plan for the next day.

    Eat less.

    Skip something.

    Make up for it.

    Get back under control.

    Or—and this was always a fun alternative—I could go completely the other direction.

    Well, I already screwed up.

    Might as well keep going.

    I’ll start again tomorrow.

    Or Monday.

    Obviously Monday.

    One night could spill into the next day because I’d already blown it anyway.

    Eating “badly” became evidence that I was failing.

    And once I’d failed, there was this weird permission to keep failing.

    Until eventually I felt shitty enough that I needed to regain control again.

    And then we’d start the whole thing over.

    So lying there that night, worrying that maybe I was becoming that version of myself again, I started thinking about what I was going to do the next day.

    And that’s when something didn’t quite fit.

    Because I already knew what I was going to do.

    Nothing.

    Literally nothing.

    I wasn’t going to skip breakfast.

    I wasn’t going to have some sad tiny lunch to compensate for the candy.

    I wasn’t going to calculate how many calories I needed to undo.

    I wasn’t going to swear off sugar.

    And I also wasn’t thinking:

    Well, I’ve been eating like shit lately anyway, so screw it.

    I was just going to…

    eat normally.

    Breakfast when I was hungry.

    Lunch.

    Dinner.

    Whatever I normally would have eaten.

    And that realization kind of stopped me.

    Because here I was lying in bed worried that I was slipping back into my old relationship with food…

    while responding to overeating in a way the old me probably couldn’t have imagined.

    I still trusted myself.

    That surprised me.

    Because somewhere in my head, I think I’d created this idea that having a better relationship with food would eventually mean I wouldn’t do things like this anymore.

    I wouldn’t overeat.

    I wouldn’t eat past the point that felt good.

    I wouldn’t worry about gaining weight afterward.

    But apparently that’s not where I am.

    I ate more than felt good.

    I regretted it.

    I had anxiety afterward.

    None of that magically disappeared.

    But something underneath it had changed.

    I could regret how I’d eaten without turning that regret into punishment.

    I could worry about gaining weight without obeying that fear the next morning.

    I could have several days where I ate differently than I normally do without deciding that this was my life now.

    And maybe that’s actually a much bigger deal than never overeating at all.

    Because if my peace with food depends on me always eating exactly the “right” amount…

    that’s not much peace.

    That’s pretty fucking fragile.

    If one bag of Cheetos and a pile of candy can destroy it, then I haven’t really built anything new.

    I’ve just created another set of conditions I have to follow.

    Maybe the fact that things got a little messy and the trust was still there tells me more than several perfect weeks ever could.

    Because maybe becoming someone new doesn’t mean the old behavior becomes impossible.

    Maybe it means the old behavior doesn’t have the same power anymore.

    I can do something the old me would have done without becoming the old me again.

    Which is especially interesting timing because we’re going to Disneyland later this month.

    And after this happened, I’ll admit, that made me nervous.

    Disneyland is not exactly known for its abundance of sensible little salads.

    There will be restaurant meals.

    Snacks.

    Desserts.

    Things shaped like Mickey Mouse that I will undoubtedly believe taste better because they are shaped like Mickey Mouse.

    And for a minute, I wondered:

    What if I can’t trust myself there?

    But then I realized this whole experience might actually be evidence that I can.

    Not because I’m going to Disneyland planning to eat perfectly.

    I’m not.

    I want to eat things that sound good.

    I want to enjoy the things that are actually worth enjoying.

    And mostly, I just want to eat like I normally do—except I’ll be at Disneyland.

    I might eat too much one night.

    I might have a dessert that wasn’t remotely worth it.

    I might eat something just because everyone else is eating it.

    Apparently that’s allowed too.

    Because now I know what happens the next morning.

    I eat breakfast.

    That’s it.

    And somehow, that feels enormous.

    Because maybe I’ve been looking for evidence of change in the wrong place.

    Maybe the evidence isn’t that I never do something the old me would have done.

    Maybe it’s what happens afterward.

    The old version of me would either punish herself for yesterday or use yesterday as an excuse to keep going.

    I don’t have to do either anymore.

    I can do something the old me would have done without following her all the way down the road.

    One night can just be one night.

    And maybe I trust myself enough to know that tomorrow…

    I’ll just eat breakfast.

  • After Twelve Years of Marriage, I Finally Put My Other Foot In

    After Twelve Years of Marriage, I Finally Put My Other Foot In

    A few weeks ago, I was in a funk about my marriage.

    My husband and I have had issues with certain things over the years. Nothing I need to get into here, but enough that I found myself wondering:

    What do I do about my relationship?

    Am I supposed to be with this person?

    Is this really where I’m supposed to be?

    So I did something that may sound a little cheesy.

    I asked the universe for a sign.

    I basically said, if I’m supposed to be with my husband, I need you to show me.

    And then…

    Nothing.

    At least not right away.

    A couple of days went by.

    Then one day I was standing in my kitchen making food.

    I wasn’t thinking about my marriage.

    I wasn’t desperately looking for my sign.

    I was actually really grounded and present.

    And suddenly, I remembered something.

    About four months before I met my husband, I was dating another guy.

    And this relationship was FAST.

    It was passionate.

    He told me he loved me really quickly.

    I was young and completely swept up in it.

    And then, almost as quickly as it started, it ended.

    Except it didn’t even really end in a normal way.

    He basically started ghosting me.

    This person who had supposedly been so in love with me suddenly wouldn’t answer my texts.

    Eventually, he finally responded and told me he was moving and didn’t think the relationship was going to work.

    Except he wasn’t moving across the country.

    He was moving like an hour away.

    I remember being completely heartbroken.

    And confused.

    Because the ending never made sense to me.

    I never really got closure from it.

    And honestly, I hadn’t thought much about it in years.

    Until that day in my kitchen.

    Because suddenly, I had this thought I’d never had before.

    Maybe it ended because it was supposed to end.

    Maybe I wasn’t supposed to end up with him.

    Because four months later, I met my husband.

    And standing there in my kitchen all these years later, I could see that old relationship completely differently.

    I’m so fucking glad I didn’t end up with that guy.

    Not because he was necessarily a bad person.

    But I was young.

    I didn’t really know myself yet.

    And looking back now, I can see how incompatible we probably would have been long-term.

    The kind of person I would choose today?

    Funny enough…

    He’s a hell of a lot like my husband.

    And suddenly I just knew.

    This was my sign.

    Could someone else call it a coincidence?

    Sure.

    Maybe it was.

    But I had asked for a sign about whether I was supposed to be with my husband.

    And a couple of days later, this memory came back to me in an entirely different way.

    It was exactly what I needed.

    It felt like something was saying:

    Look.

    And I did.

    I looked at that relationship.

    I looked at everything that happened afterward.

    I looked at the man I married.

    And I made a decision.

    I’m in.

    That’s it.

    I’m in this marriage.

    I’m choosing this man.

    And I don’t think I realized until that moment that I had never completely made that decision before.

    Even though we’d been married for twelve years.

    I had spent twelve years with one foot out of my marriage.

    Just in case.

    Just in case he hurt me.

    Just in case I needed to leave.

    Just in case I let myself love him too much and something happened to him.

    That last one is probably the biggest.

    I’ve always been afraid of needing my husband too much.

    Of letting him become too important to me because… what if I lose him?

    What if I let this person become my world and then I’m left without him?

    So I protected myself.

    Or at least I thought I did.

    I held him at arm’s length from my inner world.

    I didn’t always tell him what I was really thinking.

    I didn’t let him know all of me.

    I resisted intimacy.

    I kept this little piece of myself tucked away where he couldn’t reach it.

    Because if I never gave someone all of me, maybe they could never completely break my heart.

    And I didn’t realize what that was costing me.

    I was so busy trying to protect myself from potentially losing my husband someday that I wasn’t letting myself completely have him now.

    So I made the decision.

    Both feet in.

    No emergency exit.

    No waiting to see if the marriage becomes good enough for me to fully participate in it.

    No waiting for him to become the perfect husband.

    No waiting until loving him doesn’t feel scary anymore.

    And something happened after I made that decision.

    I changed.

    I became more affectionate with him.

    I started telling him what I’m actually thinking instead of keeping everything inside.

    We’ve had deeper conversations.

    Things he does that used to annoy me make me laugh now.

    My attraction to him feels deeper.

    And when I feel myself wanting to resist intimacy, I don’t automatically listen to that feeling anymore.

    I feel it.

    And I move toward him anyway.

    And apparently my sex drive was hiding behind that wall too.

    Because holy shit.

    For a long time my interest in sex was basically…

    Meh.

    Now?

    Very much not meh.

    I’ve been wanting my husband.

    I’ve been enjoying sex with him.

    I’ve been allowing myself to experience that closeness instead of immediately putting a wall around myself.

    And something else happened that I wasn’t expecting.

    He changed too.

    Or at least something between us did.

    I don’t know how much of that is because I changed.

    I don’t know how much of it is because I’m finally noticing things about him that were already there.

    Probably some combination of a million things, because relationships are complicated.

    But he started showing up for me differently.

    He became more understanding of what I need.

    And at the same time, I started seeing so much more of the good in him.

    I think I spent a lot of years waiting for my marriage to feel safe enough for me to go all in.

    I wanted proof first.

    I wanted to know I wouldn’t get hurt.

    I wanted some guarantee that if I handed someone my whole heart, I wouldn’t someday regret it.

    But there is no guarantee.

    Loving my husband wholeheartedly means he could break my heart.

    Life could break my heart.

    Something could happen to him.

    Something could happen to us.

    And that’s terrifying.

    But I finally realized I had a choice.

    I could spend my marriage trying to protect myself from the possibility of losing him.

    Or I could actually let myself have him while he’s here.

    The fear still comes up.

    I just don’t let it make the decision anymore.

    I already made the decision.

    Maybe that memory in my kitchen really was the universe answering me.

    I believe it was.

    But the universe didn’t magically fix my marriage.

    It gave me exactly what I needed to see.

    And then I made a decision.

    After twelve years of marriage, I finally put my other foot in.

  • I Can Want More and Still Love What I Have

    Most mornings, I go for a walk and talk to myself out loud.

    Like a crazy person.

    I’m sure if any of my neighbors have witnessed this, they have questions.

    But I’ve started doing this thing where I spend part of my morning deliberately focusing on gratitude.

    Before I go out, I focus on my heart.

    I try to find that feeling of warmth and safety.

    And then I start walking.

    And talking.

    Out loud.

    Usually, I have to start small.

    I’m thankful I woke up this morning.

    I’m thankful I got a good night’s sleep.

    I’m thankful for my home.

    I’m thankful for my kids.

    I’m thankful for my husband.

    I’m thankful for my body.

    I’m thankful for my legs carrying me on this walk.

    I’m thankful for my job.

    I’m thankful I don’t binge anymore.

    And somewhere along the way, something starts to happen.

    At first, I’m intentionally naming things.

    Find something else.

    What else is good?

    But then I don’t have to work as hard at it.

    One thing leads to another.

    And another.

    And another.

    I start actually feeling it.

    Warm.

    Safe.

    Grateful.

    Expansive.

    That’s the best word I have for it.

    My life feels bigger.

    Possibility feels bigger.

    I feel bigger somehow.

    Not physically.

    We’ve covered that enough around here.

    I mean my world stops feeling so confined by whatever problem I’ve been staring at.

    And that’s usually when my mind starts wandering toward the things I want.

    The life I’m trying to create.

    More freedom.

    More money from my writing.

    A bigger home for our family.

    Work that feels exciting and meaningful.

    And instead of thinking about those things from a place of I don’t have this yet, I start imagining them from the same gratitude I’m already feeling.

    I imagine what I want as though I’m already there.

    And I feel thankful for it.

    Not because I can prove any of it is going to happen exactly the way I’m imagining.

    I can’t.

    But because something about imagining my future from that expansive place feels completely different from trying to figure out my future when I’m scared.

    And holy shit, can I tell the difference.

    Because I know the other version of this too.

    Very well.

    It’s the version where my brain starts collecting everything that isn’t working.

    Work isn’t going the way I want.

    My blog isn’t making the money I want it to make yet.

    I’m not losing weight as quickly as I’d like.

    We don’t have the bigger house yet.

    I don’t know exactly what I’m doing with my future.

    What if none of it works?

    And suddenly my whole life feels…

    small.

    Heavy.

    Hopeless.

    Instead of wondering what could happen, I’m predicting everything that could go wrong.

    Instead of seeing what I have, I’m staring at what I don’t.

    And the weird thing is:

    Nothing about my actual life has changed.

    Same husband.

    Same kids.

    Same house.

    Same body.

    Same job.

    Same blog.

    Same unanswered questions.

    But depending on what I’m focusing on, I can experience that exact same life as either:

    Look at everything that’s wrong.

    or

    Holy shit. Look at everything I have.

    I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.

    Because I’ve spent a lot of my life believing my emotions were mostly a response to my circumstances.

    Something good happens, I feel good.

    Something bad happens, I feel bad.

    Something isn’t working, I worry about it until it starts working.

    Seems reasonable.

    Except I’m starting to wonder how much the things I’m looking at over and over are affecting how my whole life feels.

    I’ve seen what happens when I focus on shame.

    My brain gets very good at finding more shame.

    And lately I’ve been wondering:

    If my brain can do that with shame…

    what happens when I give it gratitude instead?

    I think I’m starting to find out.

    Because gratitude seems to work the same way.

    I start with:

    I’m thankful I woke up.

    Which isn’t exactly groundbreaking.

    But one thing leads to another.

    And suddenly I’m seeing good everywhere.

    Maybe none of it appeared because I became grateful.

    It was already there.

    That’s actually what fascinates me.

    My backyard doesn’t become better because I appreciate it.

    My kids don’t become more amazing because I notice how amazing they are.

    My legs were perfectly capable of carrying me around before I thanked them for doing it.

    The good was already there.

    I just wasn’t always looking at it.

    And maybe that’s what I’m realizing about the things that aren’t working too.

    They’re real.

    I’m not interested in pretending they’re not.

    Gratitude doesn’t require me to look at something painful and announce, Actually, this is wonderful!

    Some things suck.

    Some things need to change.

    Some things I desperately want haven’t happened yet.

    I can acknowledge all of that.

    But I don’t have to make those things the entire landscape of my life.

    Because when I do, I become desperate to fix things.

    I start looking at the future from fear.

    How am I going to make this happen?

    What if it doesn’t work?

    What am I doing wrong?

    But when I start from gratitude, wanting more doesn’t feel quite so desperate.

    I can want the bigger house without making my current home inadequate.

    I can want my writing to become something bigger without making where I am now a failure.

    I can want my body to change while being thankful for the body carrying me around today.

    I can want more and still feel like I already have a lot.

    That might be the biggest difference.

    I’ve spent plenty of time trying to create change from:

    This isn’t enough.

    I’m not enough.

    My life isn’t where it should be.

    Lately, I’m curious what happens if I create from:

    My life is already really fucking good.

    And I’m excited to see what else is possible.

    Maybe that’s why I start imagining my future during those walks.

    Once I’m feeling that way, possibility doesn’t feel ridiculous.

    It feels natural.

    So I let myself go there.

    I picture the life I want.

    I feel thankful for it.

    I let myself experience it for a little while before there’s any evidence that it’s mine.

    Maybe that’s manifestation.

    Maybe it’s training my brain to notice different things.

    Maybe it’s just what happens when I stop spending so much time staring at everything that’s wrong.

    I don’t know.

    I’m still figuring that part out.

    But I don’t think I need to know exactly what to call it yet.

    For now, I know what it feels like.

    So tomorrow morning I’ll probably be wandering around my neighborhood again, talking to myself like a lunatic.

    I’m thankful I woke up.

    I’m thankful for my legs.

    I’m thankful for my home.

    And I’ll just keep going until I remember how much good was there all along.

  • I Don’t Have to Feel Like It

    Some mornings, I really don’t want to go for my walk.

    There’s no good reason.

    I’m not sick.

    Nothing hurts.

    I don’t desperately need more sleep.

    I just don’t feel like it.

    And if I sit there long enough thinking about how much I don’t feel like it, my brain is more than happy to continue building that case.

    I could skip today.

    I really don’t want to get up.

    Maybe I’ll go later.

    You know.

    Later.

    That extremely reliable time of day when all the things we don’t want to do magically become appealing.

    So I’ve started doing this weird thing.

    I stop listening.

    Not in some hardcore discipline, GET YOUR ASS OUT OF BED kind of way.

    I don’t give myself a motivational speech.

    I don’t try to convince myself that walking is good for me.

    I don’t argue with the voice saying, I don’t wanna.

    I basically just decide:

    I’ve already made the decision, so I’m not going to let how I feel interfere.

    And then…

    I go into this, like, I’m an avatar type thing.

    I realize how stupid that sounds.

    But stay with me.

    Instead of hanging out in my head discussing whether or not we feel like going for a walk today, I drop into my body.

    Move my legs.

    That’s it.

    Put my feet on the floor.

    Stand up.

    Get dressed.

    Put on my shoes.

    I focus on whatever part of my body is moving and what I’m physically doing right now.

    Not the entire walk.

    Not how long it’s going to take.

    Not whether I feel motivated.

    Just:

    Move your leg.

    Which is apparently how I have to speak to myself sometimes.

    Like I’m manually operating a human.

    But it works.

    Because at some point between moving my legs and putting on my shoes and walking out the door, there’s no decision left to make.

    I’m not trying to make myself go for a walk anymore.

    I’m walking.

    And here’s the part that has started making me question the whole I don’t feel like it thing.

    I enjoy myself.

    Pretty much every single time.

    Five minutes ago, my brain was giving me very compelling information:

    I do not want to do this.

    And now I’m outside.

    I’m moving.

    I’m in my body.

    I’m enjoying the morning.

    And apparently…

    I did want to do this?

    Or maybe I didn’t.

    I don’t know.

    But clearly the thought wasn’t quite as important or accurate as it felt five minutes ago.

    I’ve started using avatar mode for other things too.

    Exercise.

    House maintenance.

    Cleaning the kitchen.

    Anything I’ve already decided matters but suddenly don’t feel particularly interested in doing when the time comes.

    And I would say 100% of the time, I end up enjoying it.

    Even cleaning the kitchen.

    Which feels like particularly damning evidence against my brain.

    Because I’ll be standing there beforehand thinking:

    Ugh. I don’t want to clean this.

    Then I stop discussing it.

    Move my body.

    Pick something up.

    Put it away.

    Wash something.

    Wipe something.

    And once I get started, I just do it.

    Then something weird happens.

    It actually feels good.

    Not because I’ve suddenly developed a deep passion for wiping countertops.

    I’m not that far gone.

    It feels good because I’m so in my body.

    I’m here.

    My hands are doing something.

    My body is moving.

    I’m paying attention to what’s physically in front of me instead of sitting inside a cloud of thoughts about how much I don’t want to do it.

    And I’m starting to wonder if that’s actually the bigger thing happening here.

    I’ve spent a lot of time lately noticing my thoughts.

    Especially the stories my brain tells me.

    I’ve started realizing how quickly a thought can appear and somehow become a fact.

    I’m ashamed.

    becomes

    I am shameful.

    Something goes wrong becomes:

    Everything is going wrong.

    And apparently:

    I don’t feel like going for a walk

    can very easily become:

    I shouldn’t go for a walk.

    But those aren’t the same thing.

    Maybe I don’t feel like it is sometimes just…

    a thought.

    And maybe nothing needs to happen because I had it.

    It doesn’t automatically get to make the decision.

    That’s what avatar mode seems to interrupt.

    I’m not trying to defeat the thought.

    I’m not replacing it with:

    YES YOU CAN! YOU’VE GOT THIS! NO EXCUSES!

    Dear God.

    I’m just letting it be there.

    I don’t want to go.

    Okay.

    Move your leg anyway.

    And maybe that’s what feels so different from discipline or willpower to me.

    I’m not trying to force myself into wanting something.

    I don’t need to want to do it before I do it.

    I’ve already made the decision.

    The feeling can come along for the ride.

    And apparently sometimes it changes its mind once we get outside.

    I do think there’s an important distinction here.

    I don’t want to turn this into some philosophy where I stop listening to myself entirely.

    Sometimes my body actually needs rest.

    Sometimes something hurts.

    Sometimes I genuinely need to sit the hell down.

    That’s information.

    But there’s a difference between:

    My body needs rest.

    and

    Meh. Don’t wanna.

    I’m getting surprisingly familiar with the second one.

    And maybe I don’t have to give it quite so much authority.

    Because that’s what I think I’m learning from all of this.

    I don’t have to resolve every objection my brain comes up with before I live my life.

    Sometimes it can tell me with complete confidence:

    I don’t want to do this.

    And I don’t have to argue.

    I don’t have to convince it otherwise.

    I don’t have to wait around until it changes its mind.

    Okay.

    Move the leg.

    Put on the shoe.

    Open the door.

    And eventually I’m outside, walking along, genuinely enjoying myself while the thought from five minutes ago—I don’t want to do this—looks increasingly ridiculous.

    Maybe I don’t always need to change my thoughts.

    Maybe I don’t need to fight them.

    Maybe I don’t even need to believe them.

    Sometimes I can just let them talk.

    And move my leg anyway.

  • When Did I Stop Emotionally Eating?

    When Did I Stop Emotionally Eating?

    A few days ago, I was really sad.

    There were some things happening in my relationship, and I was genuinely hurting.

    So I went into the shower, sat down, and cried.

    I didn’t try to talk myself out of what I was feeling.

    I didn’t try to convince myself everything was fine.

    I just sat there under the water and let myself be sad.


    Eventually I got out.

    And sometime later, something struck me.

    I hadn’t thought about food.

    At all.

    There hadn’t been an internal battle happening in that shower where one part of me wanted to eat something and another part was reminding me that I wasn’t actually hungry.

    I hadn’t thought, Don’t emotionally eat.

    I hadn’t had to distract myself.

    I hadn’t even wanted anything.

    Food just…

    wasn’t there.

    And that’s different.

    I didn’t want food and successfully resist it.

    There was nothing to resist.

    When I realized that, I had this moment of:

    Wait.

    When did that happen?

    Because emotional eating used to be such a normal response for me.

    Sad?

    Food.

    Stressed?

    Food.

    Ashamed?

    Definitely food.

    Overwhelmed?

    Well, clearly this situation calls for something delicious.

    Food could change the channel for a minute.

    It gave me something else to feel.

    And yet here I had been, genuinely hurting, sitting alone in the shower crying…

    and food never even entered the room.

    So naturally, once I realized this, I started trying to figure out what the hell happened.

    Because if you’d asked me a few years ago how I was ever going to stop emotionally eating, I probably would have assumed there needed to be some big breakthrough.

    I’d figure out why I did it.

    I’d learn better coping mechanisms.

    I’d diligently practice those coping mechanisms every time I wanted to eat my feelings.

    And eventually I’d graduate into one of those emotionally healthy people who apparently goes for a walk when she’s upset.

    Except that’s not what happened.

    At least I don’t think it is.

    I can’t point to a moment where I fixed my emotional eating.

    I didn’t make a plan to stop.

    I didn’t replace it with some specific technique.

    I didn’t even realize it was disappearing.

    But now that I’ve noticed it’s gone quiet, I can look backward and see some things that have changed.

    For one thing, I’ve gotten a lot better at feeling bad.

    Which is perhaps the least impressive personal development achievement I’ve ever announced.

    But I mean it.

    I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to get away from uncomfortable feelings.

    Shame especially.

    When something happened that made me feel ashamed, my brain didn’t just let me feel shame.

    It made the shame mean something.

    I’m worthless.

    I’m failing.

    This is who I am.

    And then I needed relief from all of that.

    Food was really good at providing relief.

    Not permanent relief, obviously.

    But immediate relief?

    Absolutely.

    It gave me somewhere else to go.

    Lately, though, I’ve been practicing something different.

    I’ve been trying to notice the stories my brain tells me without immediately becoming them.

    Especially shame.

    I can feel shame without becoming shame.

    And maybe somewhere in there, I also learned that I can feel something painful without immediately needing to make it stop.

    Because that’s what happened in the shower.

    I wasn’t doing anything.

    I wasn’t fixing myself.

    I wasn’t journaling.

    I wasn’t meditating.

    I wasn’t repeating affirmations.

    I wasn’t even going for the emotionally healthy walk.

    I was sitting naked on the floor of my shower having a terrible time.

    Growth!

    But maybe it actually was.

    Maybe I hadn’t actually found a better way to deal with the feeling.

    Maybe I’d just finally stopped trying to get away from it.

    I was sad.

    So I let myself be sad.

    And nothing had to happen next.

    I didn’t have to fix the feeling.

    I didn’t have to get rid of it.

    I didn’t have to eat it.

    But I think there’s another part of this too.

    Because it isn’t only the way I respond when something hurts that has changed.

    Something underneath all of that has changed too.

    I think the place I’m starting from is different than it used to be.

    I’ve been deliberately working on gratitude.

    I’ve been trying to notice what’s good instead of letting my brain automatically search for what’s wrong.

    And I don’t mean I’ve transformed into some relentlessly positive person who wakes up every morning overcome by the miracle of being alive.

    Things still piss me off.

    I still get hurt.

    Clearly.

    My brain still knows all the old roads and occasionally tries to drag me straight down them.

    But things don’t seem to knock me down as easily anymore.

    There’s more good underneath everything.

    More gratitude.

    More moments where I actually notice that my life is good while I’m living it instead of waiting for something to go wrong.

    And I wonder how much that matters.

    Because maybe emotional eating wasn’t only about what I did when something painful happened.

    If I was already living closer to shame, frustration, restriction, or feeling like I wasn’t enough, maybe it didn’t take much to push me into a place where I desperately wanted relief.

    Now I think I’m starting from somewhere different.

    Which doesn’t mean bad things don’t hurt.

    They do.

    But maybe there’s a difference between being in pain and living from pain.

    That sadness came into my life.

    It hurt.

    I sat in the shower and felt it.

    But it wasn’t home.

    And I didn’t need food to take me somewhere else.

    There’s also something else that has changed that feels almost embarrassingly simple.

    I eat.

    Like… actual food.

    Regularly.

    And I’m grateful for it.

    I eat breakfast.

    I eat lunch.

    I eat dinner.

    Sometimes I have something sweet at night.

    And I genuinely have moments where I feel grateful that I don’t starve myself anymore.

    That sentence probably tells you quite a bit about how I used to approach weight loss.

    For so long, food existed in extremes.

    Restrict it when I was being “good.”

    Want it desperately when I couldn’t keep restricting.

    Use it when I felt bad.

    Feel bad because I used it.

    Try to regain control by restricting it again.

    And around and around we go.

    Now?

    I eat.

    And maybe that matters more than I’ve realized too.

    Because I’m not spending all day creating a physical and emotional need for food and then wondering why my brain won’t shut up about it.

    Food isn’t something I’m constantly trying to earn or avoid or compensate for.

    Recently, I actually tried tightening things up again.

    I started paying closer attention to calories and played around with intermittent fasting.

    And I noticed something almost immediately.

    Food got louder.

    I started thinking about it more.

    There was more calculation.

    More awareness of when I could eat.

    More attention on food in general.

    And I could feel that old sense of restriction creeping back in.

    So I stopped.

    Which is a surprisingly big deal for me.

    There was a time when I would have assumed that if I wanted to lose weight faster, the answer was obviously more control.

    Try harder.

    Eat less.

    Be stricter.

    But this time, I noticed what was happening.

    Food was getting louder again.

    And I didn’t want food to be loud.

    So I backed off.

    I went back to what had already been working.

    Breakfast.

    Lunch.

    Dinner.

    Something sweet sometimes.

    Walking.

    Living my life.

    And strangely enough, after being stuck at higher weights for long stretches, my weight has slowly started dropping again.

    I’m happy about that.

    Of course I am.

    But the scale almost feels like the least interesting part of what’s happening.

    Because I think something much bigger has been changing underneath it.

    I’ve gotten better at letting feelings hurt without treating them like emergencies.

    I’ve gotten better at noticing shame without immediately letting it tell me who I am.

    I’ve been practicing gratitude and starting from a place that feels a little less like I’m constantly waiting for something to go wrong.

    And I’ve stopped spending my days trying to control food.

    I don’t know which of those things mattered most.

    Maybe all of them did.

    Maybe there are pieces I still don’t understand.

    I don’t want to look backward at something that happened slowly and turn it into a neat little formula just because formulas are easier to write about.

    That’s not how I experienced it.

    There wasn’t a day when I woke up and announced:

    Congratulations! I no longer emotionally eat!

    It was quieter than that.

    Which makes me wonder how many other changes happen this way.

    We spend so much time watching ourselves while we’re struggling.

    Counting the days.

    Watching for progress.

    Wondering why we’re still doing the thing we said we’d stop doing.

    And maybe sometimes the change keeps happening after we’ve stopped staring at it.

    Until one day something hurts.

    Really hurts.

    And you find yourself sitting in the shower crying.

    Then later you realize:

    Wait.

    I didn’t want food.

    Not I wanted food and didn’t eat it.

    I just didn’t want it.

    I was sad.

    Food had nothing to do with it.

    I don’t know exactly when food stopped being the place I went when life hurt.

    Looking backward, I think maybe I’ve been working on it without realizing I was working on it.

    Not by getting better at controlling food.

    Maybe almost the opposite.

    A few days ago, life hurt.

    I went and sat in the shower.

    I let it hurt.

    And food never even entered the room.

    Somewhere along the way, I think I stopped needing it to.

  • Fat Is Not My Identity

    Fat Is Not My Identity

    I was holding one of our new kittens the other day.

    I sat down with her, hoping she’d finally just curl up on me for a minute.

    She immediately took off.

    “She never just wants to lay on me when I sit down,” I said.

    And my son, with the completely unfiltered honesty only a kid can deliver, said:

    “Well, maybe it’s because you’re kinda fat.”

    Cool.

    Cool cool cool.

    There are certain things your child can say that you know, logically, were not designed to emotionally destroy you.

    And then there are the things they say that somehow locate your deepest insecurity, walk directly up to it, and punch it in the face.

    This was the second kind.

    Because my first thought wasn’t:

    He’s a kid. He doesn’t understand what that word means to me.

    It wasn’t:

    The kitten is a kitten and probably just wants to run around.

    It wasn’t even:

    Ouch.

    It was:

    Yeah. I am just a fatty.

    And then:

    Why would she want to sit on my fat lap?

    And then, almost immediately:

    Why even bother trying?

    And THAT is the part that gets me.

    Not that my son called me “kinda fat.”

    But how quickly my own brain took his comment and turned it into an identity.

    I wasn’t a woman who has been trying to take care of herself.

    I wasn’t a mom sitting on the couch holding her new kitten.

    I wasn’t a whole person with a body that happens to carry more fat than I want it to right now.

    I was just a fatty.

    And apparently the kitten agreed.

    Which, with approximately five seconds of emotional distance from the situation, is objectively ridiculous.

    She’s a kitten.

    I’m pretty sure she didn’t jump off my lap because she conducted a quick assessment of my body composition and decided the conditions were unacceptable.

    But shame isn’t particularly interested in logic.

    It heard one word.

    Fat.

    And it grabbed it.

    See?

    Other people see it too.

    This is what you are.

    Why even bother?

    That last one is the dangerous one for me.

    Because I’ve been here before.

    The place where not seeing the progress I want fast enough becomes a reason to stop trying altogether.

    Where one bad weigh-in becomes, What’s the point?

    Where one comment becomes, See? Nothing is changing.

    Where feeling bad about my body somehow becomes a reason to stop taking care of it.

    But this time, after the initial sting wore off, another thought came in.

    Fat is not my identity.

    I can have fat on my body.

    I can have more of it than I want.

    I can want to lose weight.

    I can actively be working toward changing my body.

    And none of that makes fat who I am.

    I don’t have to pretend my son’s comment didn’t hurt.

    It did.

    I don’t have to immediately counter it with, No! I’m beautiful! I love every inch of my body!

    That’s not even what this is about.

    This is about refusing to take something about my body and turn it into a definition of myself.

    But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I don’t just do this with my body.

    I’ve carried shame as an identity for so long that sometimes it feels like I’ve been doing it for lifetimes.

    It’s my go-to.

    It’s familiar.

    It’s addicting.

    And as uncomfortable as it is to admit, sometimes there’s even a kind of pleasure in it.

    Not because I actually want to feel terrible about myself.

    But because I know this place.

    I know how to suffer here.

    I know the thoughts.

    I’m worthless.

    Why even bother?

    I know exactly how the story goes.

    And recently, I felt myself going there again.

    Back into shame.

    Back into the familiar suffering.

    Back into those thoughts that wanted to tell me what something happening in my life meant about me and who I was.

    Except this time, I watched it happen.

    I watched that familiar suffering show up and try to claim me.

    And instead of completely disappearing into it, I could see what was happening.

    Oh.

    Here we go again.

    This is the story.

    I’ve been working really hard on recognizing these stories when they come up instead of automatically believing them.

    Not necessarily getting better at feeling them.

    But getting better at seeing them.

    I could still feel the heaviness there.

    Honestly, I can still feel it sometimes.

    Like a shadow hanging around, waiting for another opportunity to claim me.

    But it isn’t becoming me this time.

    And really, that’s exactly what had happened with the kitten.

    My son said one thing.

    And within seconds, shame had turned it into an entire story about who I was and why I should stop trying.

    Then I noticed something else.

    Lately, it had felt like one shameful thing after another.

    Boom.

    Boom.

    Boom.

    I was sitting there feeling all of it, listening to that familiar voice tell me:

    You’re worthless.

    Feeling that familiar shameful identity settle over me again.

    I know this version of myself.

    I’ve been her for a very long time.

    But this time, I could almost see the whole thing from the outside.

    And I thought:

    Oh my God.

    I’ve been looking at my life through a shame lens.

    Of course I’m seeing shame everywhere.

    I’m focused on the things that confirm it.

    Something happens, I interpret it through shame, I feel more shame, and then I notice the next thing that gives me another reason to feel ashamed.

    Maybe it wasn’t just one shameful thing after another.

    Maybe shame was the thing connecting them.

    And suddenly I had this little aha moment.

    If I can do that with shame…

    Can I do it with gratitude?

    If I’m constantly looking for things that confirm shame, what happens if I start looking for things to be grateful for instead?

    And if I take it even further—could focusing on gratitude actually attract more experiences into my life that give me something to be grateful for?

    I don’t know.

    But I know I’ve watched the opposite happen.

    I’ve watched shame become a lens.

    I’ve watched one experience seem to lead straight into another and another because that’s what I was looking for.

    That’s what I was expecting.

    That’s what felt familiar.

    And for a long time, I didn’t even realize I was doing it.

    I just thought that was my life.

    Maybe that’s what I’m most curious about now.

    What happens when I stop looking at my life through the emotion I’ve practiced for so long?

    What happens if shame isn’t the place I automatically come home to?

    What if I practice gratitude instead?

    I don’t know yet.

    But if I’ve spent this long practicing shame, I think I’d like to find out what happens when I practice something else.

    Because all of this started with one completely unfiltered comment from a kid who probably hasn’t thought about it again since.

    Meanwhile, I’m over here having an entire existential crisis because a kitten wouldn’t sit on my lap.

    Motherhood is magical.

    But I’m not giving up.

    Not because I’m suddenly unbothered by my body.

    I’m not.

    Not because words don’t hurt me anymore.

    They do.

    And not because shame doesn’t still know exactly where to find me.

    It does.

    I’m going to keep going because fat is not my identity.

    Shame isn’t my identity either.

    Shame can show up.

    I can feel it without letting it become me.

    But I don’t have to keep practicing it.

    And maybe now I get to decide what I practice instead.

  • What If You Don’t Know What Your Dream Life Looks Like?

    What If You Don’t Know What Your Dream Life Looks Like?

    I’ve been trying to figure out what my dream life actually looks like.

    Which seems like it should be fun.

    Dream bigger! What do you want? What would you do if money didn’t matter? Imagine your perfect life!

    Except apparently I can turn even fantasizing about my own dream life into an existential crisis.

    Because one of the questions I’ve been sitting with lately is whether I would still choose the job I’ve worked at for almost 20 years if I didn’t need it anymore.

    And the answer is…

    I don’t know.

    Which is inconvenient.

    I feel like I’m supposed to know.

    If I’m trying to create this life where my blog grows, I write books, I keep coming up with ideas I’m excited about, and eventually I make really good money doing it… shouldn’t I be able to picture the grand finale?

    I quit my job.

    I walk away.

    I’m free.

    Except when I really ask myself if that’s what I want, I don’t actually know.

    Maybe I’d leave.

    Maybe I wouldn’t.

    I’ve been there for almost 20 years. It’s hard to separate what I would choose from something that has simply been part of my life for that long.

    And maybe that’s where I’ve been getting hung up. I’ve been trying to figure out the circumstances when what I actually care about is how I want my life to feel.

    I’ve said for a while now that what I really want is freedom and relief.

    Not necessarily a certain number in a bank account.

    Not a particular weight on the scale.

    Not even necessarily quitting my job.

    I want the feeling I think all of those things will give me.

    So I started thinking about Neville Goddard’s idea of imagining a tiny scene from the wish fulfilled. Something short. Maybe 20 seconds. A little clip I could play in my head over and over again.

    Basically: This is my life now.

    But what the hell was I supposed to put in the clip if I didn’t even know whether Future Me still had the same job?

    So I stopped trying to answer that question.

    I took work out of it completely.

    Instead, I imagined an ordinary Tuesday morning.

    Not a yacht.

    Not first class to Europe.

    Not me opening my banking app and discovering I had become a millionaire while I slept.

    Just Tuesday.

    It’s fall.

    The air outside is cool enough that I need a light jacket. I have a glass of salt water with me and my laptop open.

    And originally, I imagined myself sitting on a balcony.

    There was just one problem.

    I don’t have a balcony.

    And if I’m supposedly imagining my future life, why am I randomly giving myself a balcony?

    But then I thought… who cares?

    It’s my imaginary future.

    Apparently, I have a balcony now.

    So I went with it.

    I’m sitting outside. It’s quiet. My laptop is open and I have my glass of salt water.

    The house behind me. My family still inside.

    And me sitting there for a minute before the day really starts.

    Nothing particularly exciting is happening.

    That’s the weird thing.

    The dream wasn’t exciting.

    It was quiet.

    There was room for all of us here.

    I imagined looking around and thinking:

    I love our life.

    And something in me settled.

    I said, “I love that scene, that makes me feel safe.”

    Safe.

    Not successful.

    Not free, even.

    Safe.

    That word surprised me.

    Because I thought I was chasing freedom.

    And relief.

    And money.

    And a body I feel good in.

    And work that feels creative and meaningful.

    And a bigger house.

    Maybe I am.

    And now I wonder how many things I’ve spent my life chasing because somewhere underneath all of it, I thought once I got there I could finally unclench.

    I could finally stop worrying about what might happen.

    I could stop wondering if there would be enough.

    I could stop trying to solve the next problem before it even existed.

    I could just sit outside on a cool Tuesday morning with my stupid salt water and my laptop and look out from my apparently imaginary balcony.

    And feel safe.

    Maybe that’s why the ordinary scene does more for me than imagining some enormous achievement ever could.

    Nobody is impressed.

    Nobody even knows I’m out there.

    My life is just happening behind me.

    I still don’t know whether Future Me has the same job.

    I don’t know exactly how much money she makes from writing.

    I don’t know exactly what the house looks like.

    Apparently, I don’t even know where the balcony came from.

    But maybe I don’t need to know every detail.

    Because I think I’m starting to understand what I’ve actually been trying to get to.

    A Tuesday morning where nothing is wrong.

    Nothing needs to be figured out yet.

    My family is inside.

    My laptop is open.

    And for once, I’m not trying to get somewhere else.