I was sitting alone in my car in a Ralph’s grocery store parking lot, busting open a box of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, when suddenly there was a knock on my driver side window. Startled, I looked up to see a man in his 50’s I didn’t recognize peering in at me. I cracked my window an inch, as it appeared he wanted to tell me something.
He leaned down and said with disgust, “You can’t wait until you get home to gorge yourself with food?”
I was shocked. My face turned hot with a mix of anger and shame. The nerve of this asshole to say something like that to me!? Usually when people are disrespectful, I can’t help but clap back with some bitchy response to put them in their place. But I was so shocked and embarrassed that I just silently rolled up the window and drove home in tears.
The truth is, no—I couldn’t wait to gorge myself; I felt addicted to food. I was inhaling those cookies in the car that day with the same fever as a meth addict tweaking for a fix. And of course, I felt deeply ashamed and trapped in a cycle I didn’t know how to break free from.
Every morning I woke up with a renewed optimism and conviction that TODAY was THE day! I was going to eat totally clean and finally lose the weight so I could start my life. I would spend an hour cutting up all sorts of vegetables and fruit and push them through my juicer, stocking gallons of fresh juice in my fridge—which I planned on being the only thing I consumed for at least a week to jumpstart my weight loss. I called this a “cleanse” to feel better about starving myself.
But every day in the late afternoon, as my work was winding down, my determination waned and my cravings took over. I would feel an overwhelming compulsion to curl up on my couch, watch a movie and fill myself with the comfort of delicious food as a reward for a hard and productive day.
I would reassure myself that I would “start again tomorrow,” as I dialed the number to my favorite Chinese restaurant. I was so ashamed about how much food I ordered, I often pretended there was someone else there to share it with me.
“Hold on one second…” I would say to the woman on the phone.
“Do you want a brownie?” I pretended to say to my invisible boyfriend.
“Really!?” I fake-laughed in response to his ridiculous request.
“OK…” I would tell the woman on the other end of the line, “He wants a brownie AND a cookie!” making fun of his gluttony.
When the delivery man arrived, I would turn on the shower before I opened the door so that he wouldn’t think I was alone, and all this food was just for me.
This cycle continued every day for months; Months turned into years. Hidden in a cocoon of shame, I made sure that nobody knew what was going on behind the closed doors of my fabulous loft. The world just assumed I was fabulous; Thriving; Loving life. And that’s how I wanted it.
I needed people to be impressed with me. I wanted people to feel envious of my “sexy, single lifestyle.” I never opened up to people to tell them I was struggling. After all, I’m the life coach; I’m the rock and the fixer; I’m the one to whom people turn for support and inspiration. Why would they listen to me if I too, was a mess? I didn’t want to burden my loved ones with the uncertainty that the knowledge that their source of certainty was broken would instill. So, I put on makeup to cover the cracks and a happy smile to mask the pain, and all the world saw was a care-free veneer of perfection.
I was trapped in a paradox of my own making: I couldn’t put myself “out there” socially, professionally or romantically until I lost weight. But I couldn’t lose weight because food was the only source of pleasure in my life.
And this was the holding pattern I wasted years stuck in, all the while planning and preparing to start living the life I had dreamed of; the life I pinned pretty pictures of on Pinterest and made vision boards galore. The life I visualized, planned, set endless goals to achieve and tried my damndest to manifest, but never could seem to take meaningful, consistent action to create. Starting, but always falling back even further, it felt like there was an invisible forcefield I just couldn’t seem to break though.
The depression of loneliness turned to anxiety as the fear that my life was being wasted blasted its warning siren. I couldn’t sleep. The voice inside of me was screaming at me—at how ridiculous it all was. “Just do something you idiot!”
But I couldn’t. I was impotent, paralyzed in place. I hated myself for my failure to change my life. I was so utterly stuck. . . isolated. And it felt like I was slowly dying.
As I write about this now, it seems like a different life, and a completely different person than who I am today.
Now I feel strong and healthy and genuinely happy and free. I have finally become the person I always wanted to be, and I have a life even greater than the one I used to pin from my couch. I travel all over the world and work from anywhere I want. My clients are some of the most impressive and inspiring people to walk the earth— from celebrities and professional athletes to CEO’s of huge brands. I wake up watching the sunrise over the ocean from my bed, next to a gorgeous husband and two adorable dogs. Oh, and I finally got on a scale after forgetting about such silly notions as caring what you weigh—and it turns out I’m at my previous goal weight, without juice cleansing, starving or even dieting at all!
But the way that I finally broke free and got here was not at all what I thought it would take.
I thought that I would discipline myself and work hard enough to one day achieve the perfect body, and then I would feel confident putting myself out there to achieve fame and fortune, and THEN I would be irresistible to a man and worthy of the love I craved. . .and then I would feel I was enough.
But I had it completely backwards. All of those things finally and effortlessly came to me when I learned how to love myself— which ironically meant I stopped needing these things to happen.
Deepak Chopra says: “Fulfillment is the state of needing nothing because you are enough in yourself.”
And that’s what happened. . . Through a series of synchronistic life events, I learned how to feel I was enough and fulfilled within myself, without requiring success, a man to love me or achieving my goal body weight.
And in the greatest irony of life, when I stopped needing these things, they effortlessly happened. I finally manifested everything I wanted and much, much more.
Much Love,
