Monday morning. Spring has sprung, at least it had yesterday. These days you just don't know if it is going to stick around. There may be more snow by Thursday! I was outside most of the day yesterday, pulling weeds in the flower garden and in the labyrinth, and then taking a late afternoon walk with a friend. I love being outside like that. It took a homeopathic dose of weeding on Saturday afternoon when it was still a little cool and cloudy to get it back in my bones how much I love to weed and get the soil under my fingernails.
I am painfully and shamefully aware of big my belly feels. The more that I strengthen the transverse muscle around my torso, the bigger my belly gets. Go figure that one. I don't understand the energy of my belly anymore. Before starting to heal the split with this protocol, I knew my belly. Perhaps I didn't love it, but I knew it, how it responded to certain situations, people, dynamics. Now, all I know is that it is getting bigger no matter what I eat or don't eat (I don't think it's about the eating but at least that's something that I can control!). I am losing control of my belly. Oh my god, that really scares me. I am terrified that it is going to get really BIG, that I will look like my mother's body, and that I will not be able to hide.
I have known that I hide my belly, but this fear of it getting really big - and uglier and fat - is just about enough to undo everything. I am seriously considering abandoning this whole protocol with strengthening the transverse muscle and just go and have the surgery where they liposuction as well. The doctor can just suck the fat right out of my belly and hips and I will come out looking gorgeous with a flat belly.
Damn. If only it were that simple.
Because then it's only about how I look to others, and that is just more of the same. The energy patterns would still be there, which means that the dynamic of the split would still exist and I would still feel the same way I do now, but a huge 18" scar across my lower abdomen. The split/scar would now be horizontal instead of vertical.
I say that this is not about how I look. I say that this in an internal process of healing. I say that I want to heal from the inside out. Why does this have to include a having a really big belly which then also translates into really big hips? I am feeling more and more like a pear, and I DON'T LIKE LOOKING OR FEELING LIKE A PEAR.
I feel conspicuous, ugly, fat, out of shape, exposed.
That's interesting...I feel exposed.
Exposed about what? That when people look at me they look at my belly and not at my eyes. They don't see me - they see my belly. And when they look at my belly, they are making up stories about me, who I am, and what's going on with me. Is she pregnant? What's wrong with her? She looks really good except for her belly...what's going on that she has such a big belly? Is she lazy? Doesn't she exercise? Doesn't she have enough kids? What is she doing pregnant at 50? Doesn't she know about Pilates? or yoga? Doesn't she know how to take care of herself?
These voices sound like the voices of my saboteurs, constantly on me for how my belly looks and feels. So as I feel it getting larger and more exposed, they are all over me, berating me with the judgemental questions.
It would be so much easier to just go and have surgery than to deal with these mean and hateful voices.
Putting pieces together, I realize that when I am aware of my belly, what I am mostly experiencing are these inner negative, berating, sabotaging voices. And as my belly's getting bigger, the voices are getting bigger, louder and meaner. So I just want to cut them out...get rid of them forever. I'm assuming here that these voices get cut off and cut out when I have surgery and that slicing opening my abdominal skin will allow and force these voices to leave me forever.
But what if it doesn't? What if I go through with the surgery and the inner saboteurs are still with me, judging every step of my recovery and how my belly looks? Oh my god, that would suck.
What I am getting here is that the saboteurs play way too big of a role in my relationship with my belly. It's like there's a third party that always gets in the way between me and my belly. Even when I can feel loving and accepting of my belly, they get in there and berate me for it, showing me the list of all the reasons why I shouldn't. They end up pulling me out of my love and acceptance and back into shame, fear and loathing.
This has been really good for me to see this dynamic with how I relate to my belly. I am also seeing how our saboteurs create a 3-way relationship that triangulates us with whatever/whomever it is we are relating to. They are masters at convincing and cajoling us into feeling fear, shame, separation, and judgement. We end up becoming as judgemental as they are. They are like bullies who want to control the whole deal.
I am caught in the bully-victim-savior entanglement in my relationship with my belly. That's so weird. It's like my belly is the victim, the saboteurs are the bullies, and I am the savior who wants to come in and fix everything. If I can just do it right - the right exercises, the right protocol, the right diet, the right foods, the right clothes, the right cream for my skin...then everything will look alright. I will be okay. The bully will be placated, leave us alone and go away.
If I can just do it right, then everything will be okay. When I am doing it right, then I am getting the results that I want - like a smaller belly with a smaller waistline and the split is gone down the middle. And then all is good. I am happy. I am good. I am okay. I am a loveable, likeable person...and all is okay with the world. My world.
When I am not doing it right, that means I am not getting the results that I expected, which means that I am doing it WRONG. If I am doing it wrong, then I must be wrong...which means I am not good. I am not okay. There must be something wrong with me. I am not a loveable, likeable person, and nothing is okay or good with my world, or the world.
This is a glimpse into my "either/or" world in a nutshell. And it is all wrapped up in my belly.
Suseya!
Sahara
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