It's More Than A Feeling

Go with your gut. Trust your gut. Follow your gut. You'll know what to do.

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I am in a time of transition, a time of openness and willingness. This is something I know and feel honestly, for the first time ever. And because I have ignored the suggestions for so long--from family, from friends, from readers of this here blog--I am consciously listening to what people say. And you all say a lot: 

Cut gluten. Cut carbs. Cut meat. Become a nudist! Meditate daily, go to yoga, try Pilates, walk, sing in the shower, eat flowers, don't eat flowers, jump on your bed, go meet the Pope...

MAN, the things I am now willing to try! If you'd told me a year ago that I'd have thrown out all my sugary crap food and abandoned bagels for...not bagels...I'd have laughed in your face. I'd have told you that it's not fair: I've given up so much, why do I have to give up more. I'd whine: Why can't I be like everyone else, just a little? Why can't I be irresponsible for a little bit longer?

But let's get real: I was irresponsible for long enough. I was frustrating for long enough. I had my shitty food and I had misery. I had my alcohol and I was a terrible version of myself.

So now I am open. Wide open to healers and acupuncture. To burning moxa on my skin. To cupping. To whatever Gwyneth Paltrow is selling. Pass me the fucking pipe, man, because I'm smoking it.

There are so many conflicting options, though. I reckon it'd be difficult to be a vegan and consume a paleo diet at the same time.

I brought this up with my therapist, after I broke down listening to another opinion.

Go with your gut, she told me. But I never really had a gut. It was fed with medication because I was sick at 10 months old. It got amped up on drugs and steroids and so my gut, or whatever knew what felt good and didn't, is, in some ways, lost to me. It has no diary to tell me what drugs worked or what didn't. It's exhausted and overdone.

I do know that the last time I felt good for an extended period of time, I lived in Los Angeles, right next to a mountain, with a trail I hiked every day for 32 days straight before I flew back East. I know the last time I felt clean, I was in a forest in Hawaii, hiking toward a cold waterfall. I was swimming in the ocean.

As much as I want to flee again to places where this is a daily possibility, I cannot. I've had three hospitalizations in three months. I have to build health here, because I have to accept that this is home. It doesn't have to be forever, but this apartment in the carriage house on my parents' property will always be home base. I need my family to help me and I need my niece to ground me.

Because there is still so much acceptance to work toward. There is still a gut to unclutter.

I know that I can continue to do nothing. I can lie here. I can say I’m recovering, but it’s not recovery if I’m just anticipating the next disaster to strike.

And so that is why I have started. That is why I'm in search of my gut, and cautiously toying with the idea of better. 

And I'm actually doing some of this crazy shit. 

Because It’s mid-January of this newest year and I’m sure now that if I don’t act, I will waste my life in this bed.

And that would be terrible, you know. Terrible to waste this life, any longer.

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I'm already working with a team I am beginning to trust, but throw me your suggestions. Nothing can hurt. Tell me where you feel good. Tell me about apple cider vinegar. Show me your gut. Let's share our insides. Let's get better, together.

Thank you.

xo

kb