I am a rock.....

Growing up this used to be one of my favorite "theme" songs.  As a kid I was often hurting, sometimes looking back on it now, it was just normal kid drama but sometimes it felt like more and for reasons I still haven't understood, I kept it to myself.  I was bullied at school due to my size, not just being a little chunky, but also being a giant.  I am 5'10" on a short day and my entire time in grade school I was always towering over everyone else.  I even remember looking down at the principal of the school because he was much shorter than me.  Being a giant of child was hard and I don't ever remember turning to anyone when I felt upset.  Don't get me wrong, my parents are awesome people and would've been there for me had I given them the chance, but I never did give anyone a chance, I was going to do it on my own.  I could handle it, I think because I thought in some strange way since I was "adult-sized" already it meant that I could do it.  

But what did this personal pain lead me to learn?  And actually I'm just starting to get the handle on this lesson...we need others.  It only took me almost 30 years to figure this out but we need to share ourselves with others.  When we feel emotions of any kind we need to let those out for people to know us.  Being emotionally balanced is part of being healthy.  You cannot be physically healthy and emotionally not.  Eventually your emotions will wear into your physical and your health will decline.  There is plenty of research to back up the mental-physical connection between your spirit and your well-being.  

So over the course of the past few years I have vowed to shed the "island" attitude.  And looking at this, I think this may be part of my roller coaster problem I've been experiencing.  Ever since I've started doing this, I've been up and down, up and down, with weight.  And I think part of that is because the sharing is hard!  Breaking out of my built-up isolation unit is not easy and sometimes leaves one open to the potential of hurt and pain.  I think each time I chip away at that, I subconsciously get scared and it causes a mini-breakdown and I go back to unhealthy habits as a way to combat the fear.  However, as GI Joe says, knowing is half the battle.  Now that I have identified part of my problem I can be aware of it and use it to my advantage.  

Sometimes, being self-aware is so damned difficult....but without knowing yourself you can't achieve what you want so it's always a positive thing to learn something even if it sucks to hear it.....