After a while I will stop and go back and review, edit, add, and/or delete. I have been known to delete a whole post and start from scratch. If it is something that "digs deep" there are times I just have to get up and walk away from it for a few. I don't take too long - a few minutes at the most. A small break to breathe, gather my thoughts, and dig back in. When all is said and done, I average about two hours or so to write, edit, publish, read, and edit again. It's a bit before 9 pm right now. It will easily be after 10 before this is posted. I'm ok with that. You know, it can easily be looked at as a mindfulness exercise. I have to keep some focus on the topic and just making my mind slow down even a little bit is a plus. If the speed of your mind burned calories, I would be thin as a rail.
I am getting better as far as having conversations that kind of include asking for help. I was chatting with Coach Adam today and asked him if I could ask him a question. I asked him what would he do if one of the athletes came to him struggling with eating issues. He replied that would highly encourage them to seek a professional to talk with as he didn't have any background in it. He added that he had not had an athlete come to him yet with that kind of issue. I just smiled and said, well, I can be your first. I sat and chatted with him for a half hour or so about it. A lot similar to last night's post, some from an athletes view, some from a coaches view. I shared how one of my big tasks was going to be how I viewed this. Yes, I actually said -out loud- that I was going to have to learn to manage this and not keep looking at it as something I was going to beat. He agreed with me.
We talked about the race at the end of the month. I expressed my fear of how, at this point, there is no way I could finish it. With that, I still have time to start turning things around to where I can. I just looked at him and said that I had to do that race. He just smiled back and said that yes, I did. We talked a little bit about the way to view food. Before his accident, coach was a wrestler and talked about many of the unhealthy things they did to make weight. When he started track racing, he had to learn to look at food in a completely different way. Instead of something he worked to avoid he learned to see it as fuel. He learned how his nutritional habits and his energy and ability to perform athletically became connected. He said that as I work through things, maybe looking some sport nutrition books may help me as I try to find a way to view food. I thanked him for the chat and then was a good kid and went and ate my lunch.
If I were to put on roller skates and stand up, I would be stuck right there. The first time I attempted to move, I would land on my tail. Now, I have skated before in my life. Was not the best although I could get around the floor. The last time I had skates on, my sister was 16. I had fallen quite well and had said a little prayer bargaining with God that if my leg wasn't broke I would never put skates on again. So, you see, I have the knowledge of how to skate, I know how to do it, yet if I were to put skates on today, I would need somebody to give me a hand (literally) until I could get back to feeling comfortable to do it on my own.
What's the difference with this? Yes, there is a time in the past when I did great with health and nutrition. I knew what to do and I did it and I was hugely successful. Somewhere I got off track and away from it. So, I need a hand. I need someone to walk me through things again until I can get comfortable with it myself again. Is that wrong? Is it wrong to need to be taught things again that I should still remember? If I sat and identified my needs, is it a bad thing if there seems to be several? Then, if all these are ok, the big question becomes, is it ok to not feel bad about it? Can I please move forward without having to remind myself that I have to do this because I messed up somewhere along the way? Because, maybe I didn't really mess up. Maybe I just didn't really understand it in the first place. Maybe I was just lucky.
There just seems like there are a lot of thoughts, emotions, and questions all jumbled together and the more I try to sort it out, the more tangled it gets. It's like those magnetic things in the office last week. All the pieces are jumbled together - no order, rhyme, or reason. We got them organized again, so I am guessing the same can happen with me.
