So as many of you who read my blog regularly know, I was bulimic from the age of 8 until I went to treatment at 25.  You don’t go to treatment and POOF, your healed.  It’s a way to get a giant head start (if you are willing to face your discomfort) towards healing.

I’m going to get very vulnerable and share things I usually reserve for my  closest of close.  What I’m sharing  I used to feel shame about.  How could I help other people heal if I still struggled with this shit?   What I know, is that sharing my own struggles allows you to see the real me and I know helps my clients connect and trust me at a deeper level for their own healing.  So here goes:

Over the years, my body went from a very bulimic size 4 with my ribs sticking out (compare this with a 2 or 0 by today’s sizing) to very oversized past 20.  Why?

When my size began to change:

  1. My physical body was catching up to my energy, HUGELY powerful

  2. I lived with a man right after college,  I believed I would marry.  One night he came home drunk, we had a brief conversation and beat the shit out of me.  And somewhere inside me I decided to make my size larger to protect me. (unconscious decision)

  3. I was having conflict with my mom at one point in my life and her go to was appearance.  She was raised with appearance being SUPER important.  Most specifically size.  And in my anger at her, I was saying “F-U…here I am bigger and bigger…I dare you to love me anyway.”  I know this isn’t rational.  Feelings rarely are or they wouldn’t be feelings.

  4. I lived with a man I believed I would marry (different from the earlier man).  This man I never wanted to date and ended up with him for 5 years and lost parts of myself in the process.  While he wasn’t physically abusive, he was emotionally abusive, manipulative, and vindictive.

  5. Beginning when I was young, someone super close to me told me I was TOO BIG (energetically), TOO MUCH, TOO LOUD, TOO INTIMIDATING.  So to make myself less intimidating, even after I healed my mom stuff , the physical fear, and  the emotional fear,  I reduced my size to a point and then stagnated, hitting a plateau.

I didn’t know all my whys immediately.  Each one of these whys was a layer of healing.  The healing began with awareness and then facing each belief; looking them in the eye, admitting this was my truth and my pain. Then, FORGIVING not just anyone else involved but above all ME.  Forgiving ME.  You can’t completely love yourself when you are unwilling or unable to forgive.

It didn’t happen like a light switch flipping on.  It took time.  Time for me to sit in the awareness.  Time for me to admit to myself the TRUTH.  Time for me to embrace the discomfort. Time for me to let go and forgive.  Time for me to activate my new beliefs.

And over the last 25 years I’ve done so much healing.  The connection between understanding my energy and its relationship to chakras became instrumental in my healing. And yet, I’ve known for awhile there was one sliver left tied to my body size.   I knew it was emotional.   And I was so ready to not just gain awareness but look it in the eye, forgive it and me and change my belief.  I was done dragging this around  and ready to be FREE.

The last piece is #5.  So for years I kept getting messages intuitively and through other healers to LOVE my body.  Okay…well, that came in stages.  I loved me for a long time and then I got pregnant and realized I never in all my life since my bulimic days, did I truly love my stomach.  Pregnancy was the first time I demonstrated love for this part of my body.  Not that other parts of me didn’t get larger…but it was my stomach where I held most of my shit: my anger and my fear.

When you understand the relationship between your energy and chakras, this makes complete sense.  Most of this related to my 2nd and 3rd chakras.  Feelings and Self.   For years I didn’t face my feelings, sometimes hiding through sex, food, Pot, TV, anything that would numb or zone me out.  I also spent years rebuilding my confidence in me, my self-belief, self-worth, my value.

So overtime I fell in love with my body.  It wasn’t right away.  For  a long time I equated beauty with size as it related to me.  Not when looking at anyone else.  With anyone else, I would pick up on their energy.  And their energy would either attract me or turn me off.

It took that realization to understand and accept, it works with me too.  So when my hubby or friends told me I was beautiful or glowing, I could truly receive it.

I knew I was ready a couple of years ago.  One of my energy mentors, Sonia Choquette, came to Charlotte.  I always knew I would meet her.  Well, my interaction ended up way beyond meeting.  She brought me up on stage with her and I danced, BY MYSELF, as part of healing, on the stage in front of 200+ peeps. If I didn’t know my body confidence before that night and my love, I knew it for sure then.  I wasn’t nervous.  I just put myself out there and was me and FREE.  This was a defining moment in my life.

And I thought.  That’s it.  I’m finally done with this part.  And while my size would begin to shrink, it plateaued.  And I knew there was something more.  And here is what kept coming up…

If I truly love my body, how can I ask it to change?  I believed if I truly loved my body, just like loving another person, you accept it or them, warts and all.  So if I was asking my body to change, then I couldn’t truly love it.  Could I?

YES, I could.  This was it.  This was a large fragment of what’s been stopping me.  Reframe the belief:

I love myself inside and out.  And loving myself and my BIG energy, I no longer need the protection of a bigger size.  I no longer need to put my desires in a drawer and make myself less intimidating physically to make loved ones, clients, friends, anyone more comfortable.  I can be me in my full beautiful power while my ideal physical body is  smaller in stature.  And while some people may feel overwhelmed by my energy, some of that is their own shit to heal.  It is what it is.  AND without altering my energy and who I am, I can adjust my delivery in ways less likely to overwhelm.

This reframed belief feels natural.  Easy.  And for me I feel it (my energy and energetic confirmations)in my body.  I get a tingling in my arms from my shoulders to my elbows running down and then back up and leaving me with goose bumps.

So now I’m feeling a bit emotionally naked and exposed and YET, I feel free.  We all have issues.  And if sharing mine helps you know you’re not alone, I’ve done what I set out to do.  If sharing my story stirred you up and made you uncomfortable, I’ve done what I’ve set out to do.  If sharing my story touched you in a way that you want to talk about it, I’m here for you. Just invite me into a conversation.

I’m here to share my story and help others heal.  I’m here to hold space so you can do the work you need to do.  And while I hold the space, you do the work and  feel safe.

XO

Marni