My life has transformed, I can't go back to imitation life.

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind for me. Life has changed completely from what I thought it was to something more than I can imagine. When you cliff dive there are always risks.  I would rather be exactly where I am right now learning and feeling than in a box that has been shelved thinking I am living just because I do a lot of stuff. I’ve written a lot of words here over the last few years. As a matter of fact I have written and said far too many words most of my life. Those were said to get or protect imitation love.

Enjoy this song dear ones…. God knew what he was getting into when he decided to love me. All of us are broken and we break our children.

Real love flows freely. We don’t have to get or protect it. When we trade for love we are prostituting ourselves to not feel empty and afraid.  Even as this was unfolding for me last week I slipped back to try to protect love. I felt empty and afraid like a drowning woman. The real love in me stopped because fear always blocks love.  I came to my senses but with consequences. That’s the thing if we try to earn love in any way we always do it at a price for someone else they may not be able to pay. Don’t put people thru that you aren’t loving them when you do.

I know in the next few months my life is going continue to be more different than I imagined. I am excited about that prospect. I have entered something that there is no return from.  I was made for this and hope to share as I journey.  Go into this story with me sweet readers.  I love you! 

Imagine this process.  Most of my life I was like  a caterpillar. I just spent my time roaming branches to survive and trying to avoid the other animals that would eat me. Each day was a mission to make it one more day.  I call that gutting it out. The kind of living we do to form a life that is empty. We forge our way on the floor of the stock market of imitation love that leaves us empty and afraid. We buy and trade for approval and value.  I did this in my marriage.  I had no clue what real love was and neither did my ex. So when it stopped working we both were left wounded. We had imitation love that we learned from parents who were imitators as well.  I was the worst offender because I hid behind the Bible to try to make things work.  I mean I did have GOD on my side. That’s a lie! God wanted me to love my spouse like he was. I didn’t. OUCH! No wonder at some point he wished I was dead. I would have wished that too if I were him.  When we ran out of things to trade our marriage died and we were over.

A few weeks ago I learned as a caterpillar that I can’t survive like that any more. I learned what real love is. It is unconditional. Loving is more natural than trying to love. There’s no try in it. It is more than an action even. It’s spiritual flowing from the Father through you. You can’t muster it up. It is changing my life faster than I can breathe.  So this little caterpillar is now living in a cocoon for a bit of transformation. The caterpillar parts of me are dead and I love that their death even feels natural!!! This is easier not harder. I feel like the 2nd chrysalis right beside the green cocoon in the picture. My life is forming but I am not ready to break free yet. I need the cocoon right now to process in. It takes strength for the butterfly to get ready to break the cocoon and soar.  I don’t have all of that strength yet. As a matter of fact if the butterfly doesn’t do the exercise of breaking free it will not have strong enough wings to soar. It will fall to the ground and never live again.  That is not an option here.  This next step of my life is by faith.

Greg Baer  wrote —“”Until you spread your wings, you can’t know how high you’ll soar.” (Ray Bradbury) Without faith, you’ll never really know yourself.”

Dear friends find out what real love is! Your life will change forever. When you read the verses below they will be living to you as they are to me now that I am awakened. I love the last phrase about knowledge. My head knowledge isn’t worth spit! If you could see my heart now you would feel my love for you!

I John 4:18. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.

I Corinthians 13:4-8

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

What does an 8 year old know? The harm of imitation love.

After reading the book Real Love Post Childhood Stress Disorder by Dr. Greg Baer and learning the Real Love principles I decided to share a very private part of my life. Sometimes my PCSD comes out in the form of trying to figure out what people think of me. That behavior is disappearing as I am learning to be loved,  but I thought I might share what I remember before it’s gone. It seems love is reshaping my perspective of the past and healing the pain of it all. My parents were intelligent successful people and they engrained in me that being overweight was disease. They were well intentioned but they were killing my spirit.  I was overweight from the age of 8. -I will never forget the day I walked into the doctor’s office, he was my Mom’s cousin. I had on a little dress that was plaid with a white color. I remember always going to the doctor at a different place. I will never forget how humiliating it was to have the doctor gather up my dress and have me hold it in my arms. I was in the very center of the room.I was taught all my life to keep your legs together and your dress over your knees. I was horrified. I looked for the windows but they were high up about 5 feet off the wall. I felt helpless to get out. Mom was standing there as the doctor divulged how I already had cellulite at 8 and how being overweight would ruin my life. He talked about diseases and death at 55. I couldn’t compute all of that and I just remember thinking. My parents to not like how I look. Something is wrong with me and my parents are trying to change it. I was scared to cry or act out because Dad spanked us if we cried or whined. Little did I know that this would be the beginning of years of humiliation about my weight. Mom was given a diet that she put me on that lasted all of about 2 weeks before she gave up. I knew I was supposed to eat a certain way to lose weight and I couldn’t figure out if my parents liked me again or if they didn’t care about my dying at age 55. I felt helpless. I heard so many conversations about my weight from family members that I felt like I’d never belong in this group of people.

Age 10- I was taken to a “specialist” about 70 miles away. It was a rickety old house with peeling paint. The waiting room was full of all sizes of people. I remember thinking this it weird. Some of these folks are so skinny their bones are sticking out. There were no test. I was weighed 130 pounds and measured and given some injections and a prescription. I asked what the injection was and was told that it was just vitamins. The medicine I was put on made me race like the wind. It kept me jittery and awake for long into the night. I went to a “drug” seminar at school and there were the pills I had been taking for 2 years. They were on the board and labeled speed amphetamines. The diet that the doctor prescribed lasted about 3 weeks and mom gave up cooking special for me and for the family. But continued to keep me on the drug. That doctor was a member of my family and was later arrested for dispensing drugs and his license was revoked.

Age 13. After surviving elementary school with all the jokes about being overweight and humiliation of family hiding food and talking openly about how much I eat and how big I was. My parents took me to yet another doctor. This one was a bariatric specialist who did tons of test on me. He discovered after I had a 9 hour glucose test that I had “hypoglycemia” I exhibited no symptoms and he put me on a diet much like Atkins. This lasted about 3 weeks and once again Mom didn’t help with the meals. I had sat in a room of a dozen adults discussing my weight. I was the only child there and the doctor diagnosed me with all of the adults and my mom followed his orders a whole 3 weeks.

Age 18. I learned how devastating being anorexic and bulimic were. It was the natural solution to me. I had tried everything else. From Jan to May I lost 100 pounds, my hair and my period. I learned to eat anything I wanted and throw it up. It was heaven to finally be acceptable to my parents and family and friends. Years I had spent overachieving and getting good grades and succeeding now were crowned with a body that matched my ability or so I thought. For the first time boys were asking me out in college. In my heart I knew they only did because my body had changed. They hadn’t asked me out before then. They didn’t know my heart or dreams about life. They didn’t care because I had the measurements that made them look twice when they never looked once before.

Nature had a way of playing the dirtiest trick on me possible. As soon as my body started shutting down from starvation I had to began eating to survive. I was 21 years old and had the waist of a 5 year old. I gained all the weight back and more. I married as a skinny girl, but I was huge by the end of the 2nd year. Of all things I married to a man who was addicted to porn and felt like a failure. I would never have the body those women had. On my own I tried Weight Watchers and first place and Tops. Nothing worked or worked for long. I did phentramine and exercise and only lost a minimal amount of weight. Then I found out I could have a gastric bypass. It was a miracle answer. My surgery went every well, I felt ripped apart  and wondered what I had done to my body. Yet recovery was great. I followed orders to T even during an unplanned pregnancy. I lost 100 pounds and was on cloud nine. The weight stayed off a few years until the ulcer left at my surgical site became too painful to ignore. The doctor said a reversal was the only way to fix the ulcer and I gained every pound back.

I have tried every conceivable weight loss program over the years and except for starvation I have never been able to lose more than a few pounds. There were times I was sure I kept the weight on to prove I was lovable at any size. Other times I just emotionally ate to feel something better than rejection.

Then……. Real Love kicked in… I learned someone could love me and hold me at my heaviest. I learned my Daddy, could adopt me and hold me much the same way he would hold his own daughter. I learned other people could love me in spite of my whining and kicking and thrashing around as I learned to love others and myself. Boy I was a messy victim and brat coming into Real Love. I found out I could love men, women and adopt little lambs to love. I learned that I am not a mistake and that God has plans for my life bigger than my imagination Eph 3:20. I knew I didn’t have to work for God’s love and also knew if that same love flowed through others, I wouldn’t have to work for their love either. I learned that I can love someone who can’t love or see me. Unconditional love is the glue of the universe and flows from us to others.

What’s cool is now I am taking care of my body. I am losing weight almost effortlessly as I love the body God allowed me to be born in. My life is a miracle. My growth is a process and not complete yet. There’s much to learn and failure is a powerful teacher…. but I can say …… distance your fears from your faith and let faith rule…trust the love you have NOW and live in the moments where you feel that love… . you will be invincible. I Corinthians 13:13 For there are these three things that endure: Faith, Hope and Love, but the greatest of these is Love.

Love has changed me forever. I am a miracle in process. If you want to learn more about the love that is transforming my life send me an email. I will answer.