Wonderful to hear from you!

You have a lovely day and I look forward to hearing about your get together with your friends. Sad to hear your taproom is closing down… but onto new adventures 🥳
Take care 🥰

Anita,

What an articulate and clear way to differentiate between selfishness and selflessness. I have to write that down somewhere!

Thank you for your kind words about my healing. I would like to reflect something back to you.

I was reading through this forum, and I wished to highlight a passage you wrote: ‘Using the word Stuck in the title you chose for your thread, I have been Stuck in early childhood thinking, and only recently did I start nuancing my thinking.’

You then, on page 5, reflect on your journey to more self-compassion and self-awareness in navigating your emotions. You write: I found out that healing/ peace of mind, is about EXPRESSING (as I am doing right now), to bring out into the light what’s been in the dark for too long. So your healing journey is, too , very evident and I’m so pleased for you.

Happy International Women’s Day Anita ☺️. Honestly you make the world a better place and I am very fortunate to have met you online!

PPS – I love the tattoo. What a unique and wonderful expression of love and how lovely that you have a constant reminder of that. I hope that when you look at it, you are reminded of your strength, love and humanity.

Oh Anita, that sounds so difficult and I’m so that you had to face that during your childhood. And then carry those emotions for years, it must have felt so heavy and overwhelming – no wonder they still manifest in your body today.

Your response to your mother’s outbursts is entirely understandable, and you should give yourself grace that you tried to dissipate her tension in the only way that was within your control: by perfecting yourself. Your younger self must have been exhausted and terrified of living in those unpredictable circumstances.

As to how you expressed your feelings since then – you were not taught or shown emotional regularity nor could you express your true emotions out of fear of causing an outburst. So you taught yourself based on what you experienced from your mother (to suppress) and you taught yourself based on what you saw from your mother (outbursts, emotional uncertainty) which led to the mixed feelings of anger, resentment, love and guilt. Again, this is completely understandable.

You know what? You are so strong and selfless Anita. Not only are you breaking the toxic cycles and healing generational trauma, but you have shared your story and use your own experiences to empathise with others. I’m so glad you feel finally able to express how you feel, instead of suppressing. Your emotions and feelings are always worthy of expression. I am here to express feelings always!

You are a deeply good, kind and compassionate individual – always remember that. 🤍

How are you, Anita? 🌙🤍

Hi Anita,

I’m so pleased to hear from you. I’m sorry you’ve had bouts of anxiety but it’s so positive to hear you’ve been able to ease it through movement / exercise. It speaks volumes of your growth that you are able to resort to exercise as opposed to past behaviours to deal with your anxiety.

My typical eating in a day will be:

Breakfast:
Oats with semi-skimmed milk and a tiny bit of honey; with either blueberries or a banana or apple.

Lunch:
Salad (tomatoes, kale, spinach, peas, beans, carrots) with chicken cooked by my parents/ me in a dash of olive oil and spices

Dinner
fish with the above salad.

Sometimes I will have a snack – during the day like an orange or a handful of blueberries or a snack after dinner, like a small bowl of popcorn or ice cream, but I ensure it’s in a bowl instead of out of the packet/tub. Today I had a flapjack my mum and I made.

Hi Thomas and Anita,

Thank you both so much for your replies and Thomas, please never apologise for cutting in. I’m grateful you are here!

Yes, it is extreme, and it may not work, but I am going to just make small choices every day that future me will look ahead and be proud of and past me won’t ruminate on. So maybe it won’t always be T-total, but I have given up chocolate and cake for lent before, and that went okay. It is only temporary until I find myself to feel more comfortable around that kind of food. I will not, however, be punishing myself like I have done in the past. If I slip up or make a choice that isn’t fully aligned, I will smile, dust myself off, and tell myself don’t worry, the next one will be better. ☺️

I wish you both a wonderful year.

♥️Mollie

Anita, thank you so much for sharing. It’s so lovely to hear how you have progressed and you haven’t looked back. Of course, as with these things, there are moments of difficulty (like never liking to gain weight, I can relate to that).

I too would like to lose weight and for a long time put it off because I was scared of relapsing into restriction. But I trust myself more now. And I know that I can find the balance between being restrictive and indulgent : two ends of the spectrum that I have stood on and neither fully aligning with who I am. I think I have compared myself with how I was at school – which is hard to emulate given that I was not conscious of how much I was eating and moving, those things just seemed to flow. I one day hope to get back to that. I’ve faced the past five years of
1. Overindulgent
2. Fitting myself to my first boyfriend’s taste
3. Losing the weight due to break up grief
4. A non-focused weight year
5. Working a stressful job and using food as an emotional comfort, particularly living alone, and then living a binge-restrict cycle where I was my lowest weight ever and lost my period 🙁
6. Dabbling between the school of ‘eat what you want when you want’ but this not aligning with me and being reminiscent of year 1. I am determined not to repeat the cycle!

Why do you think these things happen to us? I wonder about that sometimes. I’ve sort of outlined my reasons, if you want to share I would love to hear.

And thank you for saying that about parental perfectionism. I am too hard on them sometimes and forget they are human too.

My intention today was be grateful and I feel very grateful that despite a tough, non-productive day, I experienced what I did; and turned to Tiny Buddha. I feel supported by you so I thank you.