When It Don't Come Easy

I will freely admit that I took a rather long blogging vacation and here' why. I had a mini mental crisis. I turned thirty, I became an Uncle, I got fat (er) , I lost my best friend, a friend got breast cancer, I got pneumonia and I couldn't write anymore.  As in I couldn't write anything that wasn't morose or super dramatic and oh so WOE is me! My life is so hard crap that no one really wants to read. I had pages and drafts full of rather dark and twisty Blake.

So I said to heck with it. I call it the breakdown cause I essentially went from participating in life to merely surviving it. Which at first is nice cause you get numb to all the feelings if its good or if it's bad all I felt like saying was meh shrug my shoulders and eat. Oh yes. I ate a lot. Apparently I had a lot of feelings to shove down. I ate ice cream, big hunks, sour patch watermelons, I drank mocha chillers, I drank coke like it was water. I limited myself because I allowed that nasty voice inside my head tell me that I wasn't enough. As in I wasn't perfect enough, fit enough, that I by my existence wasn't enough to be part of life. It wasn't pretty folks. 

Till I read Brene Brown's book the The Gift Of Imperfection . This book changed my outlook completely. I won't ruin the lessons that the book teaches only that it deals with key themes of being vulnerable, shame, and trying to be perfect in an imperfect world so basically everything that I have been dealing with. There was one line about how shame creates these feelings of not enoughness. She recommends when we feel shame creeping in to acknowledge it with three simple words "I Am ENOUGH". At first I read that sentence and went hah! That's cute. Later on that night it was as if all these negative emotions came through and said GET HIM!  As I laid there throwing the world's best pity party a strong voice (my voice) told the negative duo of depression and sadness that I was enough! I had a right to live my best life. 

For the first time in forever I slept well. It was rather odd. I mean really.Who knew being nice to yourself would change things? As I was instagram stalking I noticed my good friend April was doing this thing called Whole 30. Whole 30 I asked? So I went whole30.com and saw this challenge to go gluten, dairy, legume, sugar, and alcohol free for 30 days.  So I thought well why not? So I created the 30 for 30. I started June30th and as of tonight it's day 17. 

Its been hell and life changing all at the same time. Since I'm passed the half way point I thought I could try writing about this experience. So forgive me. I'm a little rusty as I enter back into this world being more vulnerable and open to change. Wanna join me? Blake-o-lution the Oprah edition is what I'm calling it.