Sunday, May 29, 2005

boy oh boy

It's been a seriously long time since I updated, eh?

So let's see, what's been going on with me. Been working and schooling like crazy. Honestly, that's pretty much the majority of my life right now. But in two weeks I'm done with school for the summer. And thank god for it because I am physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally just completely drained. I most definitely need the break. And then when we get back from summer, it's only one more semester until I'm done. Freaky, but awesome as well.

Just recently my class went on a three-day off-site little retreat thing. It was incredible. We just spent the three days really working on getting back to the reasons we started doing this program in the first place, as opposed to simply remembering the origin, insertion, and action of every freakin' muscle in the body. MUCH more interesting for all of us. We massaged each other blindfolded, worked on really contacting with the person's body, played around with bringing more of ourselves into the massage, etc. It was spectacular. But there was a point to this story. Ah yes. So all of the massaging that we were doing was in one giant room, not little booths seperated off by curtains the way it normally is. So we all had to get undressed in front of each other. That, in and of itself, was probably the biggest learning experience of the entire three days for me. I watched as some people took off certain articles of clothing and then quickly jumped under the sheets to undress fully. I watched as others got under the sheets and just undressed completely under there. And then there was me and a few other people who just didn't care and undressed completely in front of everybody.

Yeah, that's right ... I didn't care about getting undressed in front of other people. Now, even when I was much larger than I am now I still wasn't totally shy about my body. There is definitely a huge part of me that's an exhibitionist. But these are all people who I care about and really honor their opinions, so the "normal" me would have cared a whole hell of a lot about getting undressed in front of them. But no, I didn't.

And then maybe a week later I was at work with a friend of mine, M. A regular customer of ours who I've got a huge crush on, walked in and ordered her coffee. As she was walking out, I turned to M and said, "Oh, she's so hot." He looked at me like I was crazy and told me that he couldn't imagine anyone thinking she was that hot because she has such a big butt. Now you really have to believe me when I tell you that I hadn't even noticed. I mean honestly, I think she's drop-dead sexy and I hadn't payed any attention to the size of her derriere.

After that, I really started paying attention to how I was looking at people and I all of a sudden noticed that I was no longer judging them on their size. I believe that massaging people of every imaginable size and body-shape means that I no longer have any body issues of my own and I am no longer projecting my body issues onto anyone else. That's right ... I think I'm over it!!!!

It's a huge breakthrough in my life.

And on a side note, I weighed myself today for the first time in ... well ... probably months. I weight 123.5, which means that I've actually surpassed my original weight goal. Craziness. Truth be told, it no longer matters to me, but I write it here as a point of interest. Perhaps it's because I don't care that I got down this far. Perhaps it's because I've given my body permission to be where it wants to be, without me fighting it tooth and nail all the time to try and look like someone different. Perhaps it's because I really have just surrendered that part of me to the universe. As long as I'm healthy, who gives a shit how much I weight, right?

So that's me. How are all of you?