How to save a life

I haven't written a post in a while. I find it difficult to get the time to sit down uninterrupted by the brood for extended periods of time, and I'm also completing the final prac placement for my graduate diploma of early childhood education which means that in four short weeks, I will be a qualified early childhood teacher! It's been a really tough 12 months and there is no way I would have gotten this far without my amazing husband and three darling little chickens.
During this last 10 months, I've made some pretty big changes in my life. I turned 30, decided on a new career, and started on the hardest journey of my adult life - to lose weight I have carried for the last 29 years. I've never been a 'skinny Minnie' and that's not what I want now, I just want to be a healthy role model for not only my chickens, but for all of the children I will encounter both as a paediatric nurse (current career) and as an early childhood teacher (future career).
So, I started the Michelle Bridges 12 Week Body Transformation program after seeing the success a friend had with it. It was a life saver. The program taught me about not only eating well, but appropriate exercise and then helped me to figure out why my head was holding me back- or so I thought.
I've shed over 25kg since February, and I've got about 25 more to go. I don't have a specific goal in mind, it's more about feeling ok with myself and being able to maintain a healthy lifestyle. It will be nice to be able to walk into a 'regular' clothing shop and pick something that is nice to wear, rather than what fits, so I am starting to be able to do that, but that's not the only reason I did the program.
However, lately I've been noticing my eldest chicken has been talking about 'calories', exercise and being fat. He is five years old, and he is hearing this talk from me. I don't want him to grow up the same way I did - always talking about 'good food' and 'bad food' and being made to feel bad about how my body looks. I needed something to change in the way I spoke about the life I am now leading, and I found that with Emazon.
So, who is Emazon? You may have heard of her when watching Season 2 of The Biggest Loser, Australia. She was the scary looking chick with the bright red hair who took the contestants into the boxing ring and taught them how to fight. How the hell can a woman like that teach me about being a great mum? Read on and you'll find out.

Honesty corner here - I have struggled for a long long time with gender desire. Some people go through the same thing, particularly when they have children of the same sex, like my three boys, and they call it gender disappointment. Let me set this straight right from the get-go. I am NOT DISAPPOINTED that I have my three amazing, special little men. I am so incredibly blessed that sometimes the amount of love I feel for them takes my breath away. I have, however, found myself upset that my daughter, who I have craved since I ever imagined being a mother, will not come to pass. I have struggled with feelings of loneliness, frustration and sadness that the dream I have had for over 20 years will not come true, and even now, it's still incredibly difficult to talk about. Gender desire, or disappointment, however you chose to look at it, is something that NO ONE talks about. How incredibly ungrateful of someone to feel upset that they didn't have a girl, when they have a healthy baby boy! How ungrateful that you are sad because you were blessed with a girl, when you really wanted a boy, when friends of yours can't even have children. I know all of that - and believe me, I've felt so guilty for feeling this way for so long, and I've beaten myself up enough about it, so you don't need to worry about letting me know all of that stuff. It's a shameful feeling to have, and no one wants to admit it. But we're out there, walking amongst you at the shops, gazing wistfully at the little girls having coffee with their mums, and the boys playing soccer with their parents at the park. We exist, and so does gender desire.

So anyways, back to Emazon. I'd heard about her through some of the 12WBT Facebook pages, and had attended a MindFit session and a Fight Training session with her when she came up to Darra in the middle of the year. Now, she was coming up to the Sunshine Ciast, and I booked in for Stand Your Ground 1. I drove up there from school, and arrived 20 minutes late after detouring through Kawana Waters after my stupid GPS took me the wrong way. But I got there. And I did the session and it was great - until the last exercise we did, which was trying to hit the pads of our friend with our eyes closed. I threw my first punch ... and missed. Utterly devastated. I felt like such a failure. I couldn't believe I had missed, and I felt that the whole session had been a waste. I obviously couldn't listen to my authentic self - I couldn't tune out all of the blue noise in my head. I felt angry, and unresolved, and left the session feeling very disappointed.

I couldn't afford SYG2, and was quite upset by that. My amazing friend Janet (check out her blog at clearingouttheshit.blogspot.com) generously paid for me to attend SYG2 the next night. I learned so much about myself that night. I learnt to block out (most) of the blue noise, and TRAIN. In fact I trained so hard that I injured my wrist with a suspected hairline fracture! But bloody hell, it felt awesome.

We then did a meditation session, where we called on our authentic self (or red self) to help us move to a place of self love. My red self spoke to me. She said, "stop trying to be enough, and just realise that you are enough." I almost laughed out loud in the middle of the meditation. Me, enough? Hardly. So, I spoke back to her. I said, "So, why don't I believe you?" And she said, "because you are afraid of what it means." Huh? Of course I'm afraid! My whole life has been spent trying to prove that I'm good enough and worthy of love. And now I have to change all of that, all of that hard work where I bust my arse every single day trying to prove that I am a good mother/wife/nurse/student/teacher/person? How the hell am I supposed to do that? I knew Emma would have the answers to help me take the first step to that understanding, so I enquired about a one on one session. She was unable to fit me in, so I figured that it was just not meant to be, and I would catch her another time.

The next day, I received a phone call. Emma had opened up a one on one JUST FOR ME. So now there was no excuse. No reason to not go and take the first step - except for the money. I stressed over it, and spoke with my husband about it. Being on unpaid maternity leave means that money is always tight, so I told my husband that I wouldn't do it. He then walked silently into the bedroom, and came back with a full tin of money, you know, those tins you throw your loose change in to? He said, "I've been saving up for a new tool, but you are my wife, and if there is enough money in here for you to do this, and continue these changes I've seen in you over the last week then that's the best thing for all of us." So we opened the tin, and there was enough money for the session, plus $2 left over to start a new tin. Talk about the planets aligning.

I had also posted on Facebook about the money issue, basically wanting people to tell me to suck it up and do it! But I got so much more that that. I had five strangers donate $10 each - to pay for my petrol money to get there and back. My initial instinct was to say no - because I'm not worthy of such love and support. But I accepted, and attended the one on one.

The session changed the way I viewed my whole life. Not only am I lucky enough to be the mum of three boys, I now have the awesome power and responsibility to change the way they view the world, by modelling love, respect, compassion and guidance to my children. I can encourage my boys to be well balanced men, and guide them in their lives as men, fathers, husbands and sons. I knew all of this before, but it was the way Emma spoke about it that changed my perception. She also spoke about the need to seek approval, and what it means. For me, it was about showing people that I am worthy of love, but that my weight issues were a way to provide a shield. It meant that even if I did everything I could to get someone to like me, and they didn't, I could blame my weight, and say, it's just because I'm fat that they don't like me. It's not. Some people just don't get on and that's ok. The only person I need approval from is myself, and when I have that self love, it doesn't matter what other people think because they are not as important as myself. A significant male person in my life has always appeared to push me away, never allowing me to do things that he did with my brothers. I interpreted it as he didn't love me as much as my brothers. But it's not that at all. He was never give the chance to learn about women and girls from his mother, so instead of being compassionate to a female psyche, he became over protective and wrapped me in cotton wool. But now when he says things to me that previously I would have interpreted as pushing away, I can now see that he's just trying to protect his baby girl from making a mistake. It is such a relief to see things in a different way now, and I can truly thank Emma for helping me to see this, and for helping me to realise I am in such a priveledged position to ensure that my boys grow up to be men that can show their daughers love, compassion and support in a more obvious way.

So I have thrown away my scales. I no longer talk of calories or protein or carbohydrates and I don't use the words fat or skinny anymore. I don't talk about exercise. I talk to my children about health and self love, and giving your body nourishment. My son has stopped jumping on the scales everyday and talking about how many calories are in the muesli bar he just ate. My son talks about healthy food that makes him feel good. And that is truly the best gift ever.

So now the planets have aligned and Janet and I are able to do another SYG1 session in Sydney in November. I can't wait to share with Emma how things are going, and how truly blessed I feel that she was able to help me see that first footlight. Thank you to all the women who recruited me to their red army, and showed me that sometimes just being able to help a random stranger helps ourselves as well.