What if I am amazing?

I'm down 7 pounds since 10/17. That's pretty good. It is amazing how even a little momentum can make a difference. And Josh.

I had my first full session with LCJ (Life Coach Josh). He does a great job - he listens, redirects, asks probing questions, and helps me create action. Today we did a "Discovery" session where we got to know each other. His first question out the gate was: "Is there anything that happened with this week that will keep you from being present to our session today?" I loved that. Simple but centering. I gave a few little things and then I was really ready for the conversation.

I've had a good week in terms of self-discovery. I will blog about my Monday night group in a hot minute, but not tonight.

I love that Josh is concrete and action-oriented and tender and kind. It is contagious. One of the things I am going to do for myself is to stop describing myself as "not a good person" or "Dick Cheney" or whatever undersell of my ability to be nurturing and kind I am slogging on a particular day.

To be sure, I can be a total prick. But I think I am ultimately a kind man. I care about people. I get furious when I feel people are being compromised or ridiculed or negated or marginalized. I get tired and cranky and melodramatic. But I'm a better guy than I often five myself credit for....

When I hung up from my call with LCJ, I spontaneously said - "what if I am amazing????" There was not thought in it, it was not conscious or premeditated - just an interjection.

But, what if I am amazing.

Fat and Lazy

Today was a fairly lazy day. I woke up with a headache and slept it off until about 11 (that is a super rarity). I weighed in and was up a pound. Not exactly sure how that happened. It has been distressing me all day. I have been eating very well...not exactly ascetic but healthfully and restrained. It sucks that there is not a result on the scale. I need to stay focused because what I want to do is respond with a pizza and a bag of mini powdered donuts.

WTF?

What's great is that now I have a friend, a life coach AND a therapist to co-disappoint. Yay me.

On Josh and Stacy - Heavy Shit

I hit a super-size-me combo yesterday: Josh and Stacy.

I've talked about them before, these two shaman, but just a review - Stacy is my therapist and Josh is my brand-spanking-new life coach. I am working on the same issue "heavy shit" issue with each of them: my weight. God how I hate being fat.

I have put on 35 of the 60 pounds I lost. Again. I can feel totally accomplished and competent but my weight can still make me blush - hot faced and humiliated - when someone says something about it. I usually try and give it a preemptive strike with some self-deprecating remark about my gut or being the size of a Buick or some other such self-perpetrated violence.

Stop. Stop it. Stop.

So this is a quest for the next 90 days and here is how I am going to do it:

First, I am enlisting all of the supports I can - the two balcony people Josh and Stacy, the support of a group, the structure of Weight Watchers, and a toe-dip into mindfulness.

Second, I am putting myself in charge of my eating. I love food. I am fortunate to love food that is good for me. I like it all - lentils and kale and sprouts and tofu and every other mindful thing. So make that shit.

Third, by November 1, 2013 I will add some form of exercise. 10 minutes a day - that's it. Just 10.

Finally, I will write about it. Every. Single. Day. I will write about it here. Some days I may only have a sentence or two, some days I may blog vomit until I can't even stand it myself.

Two important things came from Batman (Stacy) and Robin (Josh):

After complaining to Stacy that everything is "demanding" she said, "No, it's not." Basically the reframe is that things are demanding because I believe them to be. Again, stop it. She also said that nothing is on my plate - both literally and figuratively - that I cannot handle. Okay okay.

Josh was right on top of it. He was so affirming and gentle. He helped me talk through the action and the goal of leanness. He helped me visualize the product - a specific suit on a specific day. Clearly, I cannot manifest this vision if I am drawing negative fatness energy to me. So, stop it.

I believe I have the skills, knowledge and will to do this. I will allow myself time to accomplish this goal and know that on December 16, 2013 I will be presenting a major project to the state in a stunning chocolate suit that is already hanging in my closet.

Thanks, dynamic duo (who by the way are not even ambiguously gay!).

Well Hello Joshua

I came across this web site/blog + forum tonight. I love it. It has made me feel slightly less jaded and a tad more hopeful. It is by a young man named Josh Hersh who is tender and beautiful and a little awkward and intoxicatingly sweet.

I imagine that he smells of sandalwood and of blondness and of artlessness. I read every single entry in his blog roll. They are simple and poignant - self-challenging and unaffected. They are what I want to be thinking, their freshness and belief what I want to remember thinking. I don't know that I was ever as honeyed. Shit, who am I kidding...I was never anything close.

While he is these things, he does not seem unsophisticated. The opposite in fact - his transparency and desire are highly evolved and his spirituality quite mature. In one of his posts he describes wanting to be numinous - filled with the presence of divinity.

I think he is that. Now, I think we all know my general abdication of things God. I can't take the bullshit and the spinning constructions and soul murdering oppressions. But I can definitely believe in the Joshes of the world. I believe in their rare belief. When I encounter such a mythical beast, I want to acquiesce into their searching, their fragile truth.

It is this collapse into tenderness that I need desperately right now. I am so exhausted and grief-stricken and deeply, deeply angry. It is an interior landscape that I can barely even sublimate - it is oozing out in me physically. My head aches - every day for more than two weeks now - my jaw is throbbing from grinding and grinding at night. The food I am eating is absolute shit, it's killing me. I need a Josh to transfuse me, ravishing him like a vampire for succor.

I will return to The Thoughtful Gay Man and to Josh's tender and elegant sophistication and admonition. Thank you sweet boy, strong man for a few moments rest.