Kelsey Toney

The following is the post which I wrote as a part of Heather’s More Than series.  It has been a ton of EXCELLENT discussion… I encourage you to check it out.

Read up on these amazing posts!

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When Heather asked me to expound upon “healthy living” I didn’t have to think about it long. Our blogs are saturated with oats and spinach, tempo runs andzumba. Those things are fine, they help our bodies change shape, and our muscles become stronger.

But they don’t fill every gap… Not even close.

When I started on my weight loss journey, I knew that I wanted to focus on becoming healthy, and not losing a certain number of pounds. A year later, on my fitaversary, I had a healthy BMI, a much healthier weight, and my overall risk of health problems was deemed “very low”. Yet somehow, around the same time last fall, I didn’t feel completely happy.

A few days of feeling glum, soon became weeks of a sad mood. I began to distance myself from my friends, and was snarky and cold at home. My husband, the light and love of my life, was being treated like an afterthought, and I felt alone and empty.

How could this be?

I’d LOST 30 lbs. I could RUN for miles. I never took the stairs extra slowly so I’d appear poised and not WINDED at the top. I ate OATS for breakfast. I made a KILLERgreen monster. I was closer to BIKINI confidence than I’d ever been.

I should have felt like a rock star.

Instead, I felt hollow.

The holidays came in full force, and I found a handful of people that I could talk to and confide in. Even that was hard though. As someone who is viewed as “positive” and “happy” it was tough to go to people and find the words to say, “I am unhappy. I’ve felt unhappy for several weeks, something might be wrong.”

It was particularly horrifying because I care so much, too much, what other people think of me. I had a hard time going to even those that I love, and that love me the most, because I was afraid of the way they would think of me.

Weak. Lazy. In denial. Selfish. Short sighted. Dramatic. Attention seeking.

In reality, they might never have thought any of those things, but I feared it.  I feared it terribly.

My husband, perhaps the wisest person I’ve ever encountered, kept saying (in so many words) that the decision to look deeper, and FIND the source of my feelings was the only way that I could hope to get out of that hole.

This uncovered a very philosophical idea that you either agree with, or you don’t… (and it may not be true in your experience, but it was true for me) being sad, angry, and depressed was, in many ways, a CHOICE.

(cue dramatic gopher:   )

For me, and many others, it is a choice to do the hard work, the journaling, reflecting, and uncovering and find the source of sadness. My husband encouraged me for months to try and figure out the reason I was unhappy, instead of just wallowing in my sadness, and accepting it as a constant.

For me, reflecting was pretty much the hardest thing ever. I avoided it like the plague, anything to stay in my cocoon of sadness and self pity (even though, I didn’t know that’s what it was at the time) a moment longer. Eventually, through the help of my husband, friends, and yes, my blogger friends, I decided that I couldn’t shirk off the responsibility any longer.

I journaled. The kind of journaling where you just write statements. Sentences stating what you feel like, what is angering you, what is making you want to rip all of you hair out. Sentences that make you want to burn the pages when you’re done. Sentences you’d NEVER put on your blog or share with another human being under any circumstance.

I went to yoga. I acknowledged that yoga is a restorative, healing, and sacred practice to me, one that calms my heart and mends deep wounds. I stretched, moved my body, chanted with my class, found new stillness in mountain pose. Learned how to embrace Shavasana.

I decided to GET on with finding an outlet for my need to perform. I immediately began to plan and prepare for my next musical theatre audition, and was also welcomed to contribute to a vocalist showcase in the near future.

I ACCEPTED that I could not race, (or even participate) in the half marathon I’d planned on, and would have to heed my doctor’s orders and rest for weeks. Essentially being willing to turn off the urge to jump around and run for 2 months.

I stopped trying to swim upstream.

For me, the health and fitness journey is MORE THAN what I eat, and more than how I move my body. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve learned how to do that properly. We know. It is MORE THAN comments and commenting, @ replies and namedrops in our peer’s pages. It is MORE THAN the attention we get, and more thanthe affirmation we crave.

It is about having a happy heart. Taking the time to heal the wounds that lead to whatever set of circumstances bread apathy in our lives.

It isn’t easy, but it definitely does the mind, heart, and body good.