Dropping in but just for a moment

Marcel Proust said The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

Proust's statement fits my feelings for this week. I've had to take a break from blogging again because too much seemed to be going on within me. I have been feeling so cluttered that exterior clutter-fixing had come to a standstill. So for a bit, I needed to step back and look at the world around me with new eyes. I need to catch up on my poetry class; work at it with more depth; get back on my Jenny Craig program. Not gaining and not losing simply keeps me in neutral, not a comfortable place to be.

I am disturbed by a project at work that is coming due at a time when major planning for 08-09 is starting up. I'm sitting here at House of Java reading the binder content for this project feeling overwhelmed by the task at hand, however, I'm not alone, there is a lot of inter-departmental support and I think we actually have a starting point with our Five Year Review document. So I feel like I have actually accomplished two tasks this morning. I have Lessons 7 and 8 posts ready to go and I have a starting point on Monday when I get back to work.

Being stalled with my weight . . .

for three weeks has been disheartening. Neither gaining nor losing, creating my own meals is not the answer right now. I have to ask myself what was the reason I started Jenny Craig I the first place? Writing this, I realize my early entries in my private weight-loss blog were exhilarating and hopeful but joining Contours and then not going more than 1 - 2 times a week has contributed to feelings of failure. The rapid writing of this portion of my journal tells me that I have hit the heart of the matter.

Failure and feelings of unworthiness have haunted and hunted me my entire life. I wrote the poem today, THE NOTE, and posted it to my poetry workshop site. I will probably post it here eventually. Once it was written I realized that the feelings though deeply buried, never really go away. Can we really ever purge ourselves of our most private, darkest feelings about ourselves? Perhaps not but with recognition can't we turn them into foundations of strength?

Today I visited Jenny Craig and later came home filled with new resolve. I purchased a weeks worth of Jenny food and then dove into my journal. Other things had been bothering me, minor things. But many small things together can feel like one big thing and that is what had happened to me

I don't want feelings of failure and unworthiness to haunt me, so what do I do about it? Everyone says discovering and acknowledging your weaknesses is the biggest step. I'm inclined to disagree with that sentiment. The healing and overcoming often takes the rest of one's life (if I'm any example). My twin fears are always there waiting to step forward in my moments of weaknesses, unguardedness, or weariness. Then I'm busy back-filling and working all over again to focus on all of my hard-won strengths to defeat these demons. Once I started doing this I found that I could focus again on why I am here and I could write again with focus and discipline.

So, on this six hour anniversary of resurrecting my strength and resolve, I forge forward in the hopes of seeing a substantial loss next week and writing with greater purpose. Being stalled is not a good thing.