That’s the name of a book that I am reading…You’re Not Broken: 5 Steps to Become Superconscious and Activate Your Magic By Christopher Michael Duncan

And I did…locked myself in and everyone else out…I would peek through the cracks of broken places and see the world happy and full of pretty lives…but I knew that that the world was dangerous…full of lions and tigers and all kinds of monsters that ate your soul… only in my solitude could I even have the remotest possibility of being able to guard myself from further devastating damage and pain…

“There are many things I don’t know, but quite a few I do. I know you can’t be lost if you know where you are. I know that life is full of precious and fragile things, and not all of them are pretty. I know that the sun follows the moon and makes days, one after another. Time passes. The world turns, and we turn with it, and though we can never go back to the beginning, sometimes, we can start again.”

Megan Hart

I bled for many years…that slow drip that allows you to stay alive but ever so slowly drains the life from your very soul…no band aids or special glue to hold the shattered parts together… so pulverized that even the faintest breeze blew part of my heart somewhere where I could not retrieve it…

The pieces can be put back together…over time…I found a piece here and then another piece there…someone would come along and hand me a piece that they had found…with the help of other broken people… I have been slowly putting myself together…like beautiful broken pieces that make up a mosaic ……there are still missing pieces but there is a reemerging design…to give other people a vision to know that there is beauty that can be created out of the trash and destruction of past hopes, dreams, and lives…

I still sometimes feel sorry for myself that I must keep crawling around on hands and knees in the grey dinginess of past destruction…looking for the pieces that are still not there…

When I started thinking about this week’s writing…I thought I knew what I wanted to share…my photography blog is less profound but here I wanted to be a bit more reflective…in the hopes that there might be even one person that might feel they are not alone in their struggles…I have no answers…everyone’s path is different…I am not a doctor or psychologist…but I can walk beside you…maybe shine a light so you can see the step ahead with hope…it is one step at a time…sometimes it is the proverbial two steps forward and one step back…I’ve even rolled completely down the hill to start all over again😂..

When you feel that you can’t breathe another breath…just hold on…one more second…one more inhale…one more exhale…

There is one door that stays locked no matter what I do that I feel contains a key to more freedom and happiness…anything from my past that can still control me limits my freedom…while we are on this earthly journey…I believe that we will always have lessons to learn and ways to grow…that’s what we are here for…

Because of where I have come from and the beautiful life that is being unfolded…with every ounce of my being…I know that there is an opening to this conundrum…but it’s getting old …this not finding an answer…

Some of us that deal with abuse and trauma in our lives…we all have painand we all look for ways to alleviate the pain…do not know how to deal with the pain that we feel…and we devise coping mechanisms that changes our brain chemistry and function over time…ways that we can administer a healing salve…and we become addicted to the relief…even if momentarily…that addiction hijacks the brain…”the brain goes through a series of changes, beginning with recognition of pleasure and ending with a drive toward compulsive behavior.”https://www.helpguide.org/harvard/how-addiction-hijacks-the-brain.htm#:~:text=addiction%20hijacks%20the%20brain.%20This%20happens%20as%20the%20brain%20goes%20through%20a%20series%20of%20changes%2C%20beginning%20with%20recognition%20of%20pleasure%20and%20ending%20with%20a%20drive%20toward%20compulsive%20behavior.

Addiction involves craving for something intensely, loss of control over its use, and continuing involvement with it despite adverse consequences. Addiction changes the brain, first by subverting the way it registers pleasure and then by corrupting other normal drives such as learning and motivation. Although breaking an addiction is tough, it can be done

.https://www.helpguide.org/harvard/how-addiction-hijacks-the-brain.htm

So, the truth is that I have an addiction that has controlled my life for over 30 years…it was a gradual dark demon that grew as circumstances continued to become overwhelming to the point that I would have taken my life…I had no control over anything…and two children that depended on me and the life that I lived …

“I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life, reputation, and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.”

Edgar Allan Poe

My addiction is not alcohol…nor narcotics…gambling…compulsive shopping…smoking…stimulates or sedatives…approval is another one…although it would be such an easy switch…and a few beckoned most beguilingly and ensnared me for a brief time… never released its tendrils…only like a python…wrapping itself around me and crushing my hopes and dreams of being free…slowly squeezing tighter as I exhaled… my addiction is respectable...FOOD…do I sense some disappointment that it is not something that is considered more detrimental to a human’s well-being…

“Sugar, for example, shares the same neurochemistry and neural pathways as cocaine. Sweetened chocolate mimics the effects of alcohol and opiates. Flour modulates moods and anaesthetizes pain just as many drugs do.” ― Vera Tarman

It is as life threatening as any other substance that is addictive…our brain works the same…the same thought process that make us screw up day-after-day…time-after-time…yet, unlike alcohol addicts…we cannot totally alleviate the drug that keeps us locked in that suffocating cage…we cannot stop taking the tiger out of the cage or walk out with the door open…the tiger just comes with us… Three times a day we must face the fact that it will never be an all-or-nothing type of recovery…perfection will never be attainable…

“The brain chemistry that drives the addict to seek pleasure beyond the point of satiety is similar, whether the user favours Jack Daniels or Jack-in-the-Box.”
― Vera Tarman, Food Junkies: The Truth About Food Addiction

I have tried picking many of the locks on this cage door…studying for years the causes and tried every solution…spent enough money on hopeful solutions repeatedly that someone in the billion-dollar diet industry was able to have bought a Mercedes or a house or two…

So why am I sharing this gut-wrenching story…so much as changed in my life…I have support and love…cleared debris from emotional wounds that need to be healed first before I could even see beneath the weeds to get at the locks…

Am I scared…beyond any comprehension…to put out into the public arena to be judged…for something that I have failed at so many times at…it is no longer to maintain beauty and the beckoning siren’s call of the feminine body that lures…although not an undesired art of the outcome…

Aging has its own definition of beauty…not the same one that we whip ourselves with when we are younger…healthy…energy and vitality are the important outcomes that I am looking to attain…

And releasing that python grip on my body, heart and mind…

I was blessed to be able to release fifty pounds 2 years ago through low carb, intermittent fasting and a great deal of exercising…but it was very strenuous…and too difficult as an HSP…I was not able to maintain the momentum…but now I must unlock the rest of the cage to be able to walk free of the bonds…maybe a struggle the balance of my life…but hopefully more manageable to stay out of the cage…There is so much left to see, do, and share…why would I not keep trying to conquer this addiction in order to experience the gifts that I have been handed…

This is for me a spiritual journey…most things are deeper than just the manifestation of physical symptom’s…the feelings of unworthiness… The feelings and emotions…finding ways to find joy and pleasure outside of food…letting go of my crutch…my friend…and embracing the love I now have in my life… Delayed gratification…so many threads…

This is part of these writings…definitely not all…there is so much beauty and my heart is filled with gratitude and joy for my life…I am blessed beyond measure…now I am opening and repairing that locked room in my soul that I may experience more and share that joy and abundance with others…

Sending love, joy, laughter, and plenty of sparkling magic for your day…you are loved more than you know❣