Internal Narrative & Body Movement

Click the photo for blog read aloud.

“Ok fat fuck… go to the gym and run.”

My internal dialogue around body movement has been ruthless from the moment I sat at a dinner table before a soccer game when I was 8. My father told me to drop the bread because I was getting chunky. He proceeded to grab the crumb of a baguette (the inside portion of the crust) rolled it into a ball, added water… and it returned into it’s dough form. He looked at me and explained that this is what happened inside my stomach when I ate bread. Immigrant parents in an America container are savage.

That was the first memory I can vividly picture of developing a hate for myself. I have been in and out of diets, eating in secret, hiding foods, binge eating, forcing myself to throw up, and using the treadmill as a way to run from my disordered eating from that age on. It wouldn’t be until this last year (I’m nearly 27) that I really addressed my relationship with my internal dialogue and questioned my dramatic/extremist coping mechanisms. What caused my ability to change? Not the ayahuasca I did last year, my brothers 6th overdose, or the words that linger from my father like a stray cat after you give a dog a bone.

Me. I am the one who finally decided I no longer wanted my internal dialogue to run my life. I no longer desired to be the victim of a shitty childhood… Fear and hate screamed louder in my head than any amount of miles I would run or bottles of Jack Daniels that I pour down my slutty little throat. I genuinely thought I could magically mask the hate I had for myself with humor, over indulging, good dick, and drugs…

I wasn’t suicidal. I was just living for other people. I never could imagine a life where I found true joy in activities like working out or nourishing myself. It would come and go in waves. But no diet or twenty second sobriety could sustain lasting changes. Food turned into my job, but mostly because it was the only thing that really turned my mind off. It felt like all the areas of my brain were in use when I was in the kitchen. Some would say flow state.

Anyways…. back to internal dialogue and movement…

I took a pill Ran a Marathon in Ibiza

I’m not a guru, or a healer, or a doctor, or a nutritionist. In fact this career shift is not even a year old, and at the beginning of this year I decided, as I would study my ass off in two separate certification programs, I would also simultaneously train for a marathon. (extremist). I got deported from the uk… and guess what?? So much life happened… and that is what goes on in this winding beautiful rollercoaster of a life. I didn’t properly train. I started off really strong but one thing after the next, months flew by. Along my path of studies, I started to really get to know myself, and questioned where my desire to run rooted from. Did I really want to run a marathon all my life? Or did I just want to continue running from my problems? Cardio, like cooking, numbed the thoughts for me. When I run I can tune out to music, envision myself in the future, process memories… but best of all it really fuels the hate I had for myself. I fully quit training, in an attempt to heal my child wounds. Almost resenting running, because it felt like now that this secret ws exposed, every-time I went for a jog felt like I was punishing myself. I explored movement outside of the conventional frame… Exploring podcast walks, photography hikes, random skips, dancing to chores, and cycle syncing… realizing that by taking the frame of conventional exercises and throwing that idea away, I was ale to find the joy in movement again. Just to find out two weeks before the marathon that I actually really enjoy running, and that I could not let this old pattern of internal dialogue surface and control my life again.

Tomorrow I run a Marathon

I run this marathon to honor my goals. To show up for myself. Because even when life fucking happens we show up for ourselves. Because we deserve to be and do anything we want to be or do. I run this marathon tomorrow understanding that if I finish or if I don’t finish I suck on the teet of this beautiful lesson. We need to hold ourselves accountable. We need to follow our joy. In my years of over consumption and excessive cardio, yoyo diets and binge eating… I have recognized I can eat anything I want and I can move in anyway I want and I deserve to love myself now. Not in 6 months when I lose ten pounds, not in 3 years when I buy that house… when is enough enough? And honestly ask yourself. What brings you joy.

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