Just call me Louis Vuitton ...

Baggage ...

I have A LOT of it. Thirty years worth of it. And the large majority of it needs to go. If I want to move on, if I want to become this amazing woman I can see occasionally peaking out from behind the person I see in the mirror, then the LV needs to go.

What I haven't understood before though, is why I haven't been able to let it go. Why the idea of letting it go scares the crap out of me. Why it is such a hard thing to do. I KNOW what needs to be done. I know WHY it needs to be done. The rational part of my brain says to me - JUST FREAKING DO IT!! But that irrational part of my brain wants to hold on so tightly to those bags and for a long time, that irrational part of my brain has been winning.

A gorgeous friend posted something on a Facebook page the other day - about grief. About letting go, and that this letting go contained within it an element of grief.  DING DING DING, hello lightbulb!! Of course I'm grieving  - I've had this baggage for thirty years, it has become my identity - and changing that means that a lot in my life MIGHT change. So how do I become OK with that change? What if it means that things I want to desperately hold on to change as well?

During SYG with Emazon, there is a section right at the end where you 'blind box'. That is, you close your eyes and try to hit a pad you can't see. During my previous SYGs, this has been the part that has gotten me EVERY SINGLE TIME. That fear of failure - not hitting the pad, not getting it 'right'. Emma said previously that it didn't matter if you didn't get the pad - you didn't fail, it just meant you had to change direction because the pad was somewhere else. Uh dur - of course it is. But I never GOT IT until SYG in Sydney. I really struggled with the first 'blind box' session - I missed A LOT. And I cried A LOT. Janet told me to take some deep breaths - which I did ... and the word trust came to me. Trust - myself, my heart, my mind, my life - trust that I can do this, and even if I miss, it doesn't mean that I've failed, I just need to change direction. I always thought about this section too much - concentrating on listening, and watching the shadows behind my eyelids. But I FINALLY realised that it's not about that. It's about being ok with that change in direction, and knowing what that means.

So - in order to change direction - I need to let go of my Louis Vuitton. As comfortable as it has been - what purpose has it served? It has helped to create a woman who has been ashamed of herself, a woman who strives to make others happy before she makes herself happy, a woman who became a nurse because people told me I would be a good nurse (which I am) - but my heart was never in it. So now, I'm a Kindy teacher, I'm a mum to three amazing sons, and I'm finally starting to make myself happy. That Louis Vuitton is still hanging around in the background, but it's not the first thing I reach for now when things don't go to plan. And that's a huge step for me. I know it will get better, and that my baggage will eventually be a thing of the past. It's ok to grieve that part of me that is being slowly left behind. But you know what is more exciting? What amazing parts of myself I am yet to discover!!

I got told yesterday that I was 'tiny' at the gym - holy crap, NO ONE has EVER said that to me before. It was a really nice feeling - but also a little uncomfortable for me. I think I felt happy for two reasons - acknowledgement of my hard work in my transformation process, but also there was that old blue part of me that was happy because I am finally fitting into society's idea of what I should look like. So a very complex thinking process - one that I'm still working through. I'll save that for another day. 

Rockin' around the clock

Over the weekend, I celebrated the finale of Round 3 of the Michelle Bridges 12 Week Body Transformation. This was my third round, and all together I've lost just under 28kg and over 134cm of measurement off my body.

Not only had I completed the three rounds, literally on the Friday that we flew to Sydney, I handed in the VERY LAST ASSIGNMENT for my Graduate Diploma in Education (Early Childhood). I have finished uni!!

Very recently, I've been completing a prac placement in a school in a Prep classroom, and I spent 5 weeks fulltime there. To be honest, there was so much about that prac that felt so wrong, that I can't even begin to start to explain it. I was asked to be untrue to myself, to my ethics - it was awful. I really struggled with being inauthentic - to reward behaviour that should just be a given, to ask young children to complete assessment pieces that had NO authentic components, no way for them to link their learning to the real world - let's just say I didn't enjoy myself at all. I pretty much hated every minute, and I really feel it was because I was asked to compromise my integrity just so I could pass the prac. BUT - more about that later.

I had such a wonderful weekend in Sydney. It was my first time EVER away from the brood, so I found it very challenging, particularly the mummy guilt side of things. However, my two lovely friends kept my mind off it, and I had a brilliant night!

I danced the night away in shoes that were FAR TOO HIGH for me, and I was blown away with the love and support that people whom I had never met showed me throughout the night. Let's just say, 30+ crew, YOU ARE FRICKING AWESOME!!!!!!

On the Sunday, I was so insanely fortunate to attend Stand Your Ground 1 with the amazing Janet (thank you my beautiful friend) and Emazon, whom I have posted about previously. Last time I did SYG, my head was all over the place, and whilst I learnt SO MUCH, I was really looking forward to getting something different from SYG this time, and I sure did.

Last time, I HATED the blind boxing. It really freaked me out, having to trust myself and being OK with not hitting the pad - that it just meant that I needed to change direction, and that I didn't fail. Being someone who has ALWAYS judged their self worth on their ability to PASS OR FAIL, this was so very confronting for me.

The first time we blind boxed, I froze. I freaked out. I kept telling myself, 'You can't do this ... you're going to fail ..." Then Emma said, "It doesn't matter if you don't hit the pad this time - because all it is telling you is that the pad is SOMEWHERE ELSE. That's all."  Ding ding ding!! Lightbulb. It's ok to not get it the first time - it doesn't mean you give up, and cry in the corner because you suck. NOPE. You get back up, and you change direction. Because the pad is there - it's just not where you thought it was.

All this time, I thought it was about using your ears to find out where your pad holder was standing. But it was about so much more. It was about trusting yourself enough to change direction.

My mantra during the blind boxing was trust. I needed to be ok with trusting MYSELF. And I did - and I hit the pad ... a lot. I missed once or twice, and that self doubt kept flooding back, but I didn't give up. I said to myself "TRUST IT" and came back to hit the pad.

At the end, when we were all sharing how we were now feeling, I said, "On the edge." I had Lady GaGa's song, "Edge of Glory" in my head, and that's what I felt like - on the edge of something amazing, that I just needed to trust myself to get rid of my Louis Vitton baggage and take the leap (thanks for the analogy, Emma!! I'll never look at LV the same).

So - now that prac is over - I can share something amazing. I have been given a wonderful, wonderful opportunity to become a Kindergarten teacher at a beautiful little community centre. A Kindy teacher job is incredibly difficult to get, and I'm so honoured that the teachers there saw something special in me. I start on Thursday, and I'm filled with anticipation. I cannot wait to help to shape the lives of little people. It's going to be brilliant, and I'm so glad that SYG has helped me to trust that anticipation and do something amazing with it!