Getting back on track after stressful setbacks

Guest author Kathy Barry has always been triggered by sugar. After a good start at living sugar free last year, she’s returned to begin a new class and strengthen her practice…

I first came across this website in Spring 2009. I was struck by Karly’s story of struggle with sugar and body image. I took her sugar teleclass in May 2009 and found it to be very helpful. It was healing after ending a difficult relationship that sank my self esteem to an all time low.

My weight was at its heaviest then. I needed support to get me back to feeling good about myself again. I learned to love and appreciate myself no matter what size I am. I learned to honour my needs and create boundaries with sugar out of love instead of being ruled by my relentless inner critic.

Coming through that class, I was able to release most of the weight I had gained during a stressful time in my life and I learned to be happy with who I am and was really enjoying life again!

Fast forward to Fall 2010.

Big changes in my job and responsibilities and a new relationship led to me slowly gravitating to my old ways of handling stress. My schedule was in upheaval and suddenly I had no time to cook for myself (a major grounding ritual for me). I let excercise become something I did only on weekends.

I had abandoned most grounding rituals that I had established in the Summer of 2009 and forgotten the ebb and flow of life as Karly always speaks about. I was in pure reactive mode and could not see past my anxiety and stress of work and my increased responsibilities and being in a new relationship.

Now it’s October 2010:

This sugar class couldn’t have come at a better time. I was and still am struggling to get sugar and overeating out of my life. I want CALM back in my life again.

I asked myself, what is it that was working for me last year that isn’t working for me now? And I realized that it was First Ourselves and all of the work I had done with Karly. I needed to revisit it.

I really need to dig deep to understand what each of the lessons of grounding, nurturing, flowing, acceptance, centering and compassion are to me. I’m going to put them into action once more.

I realized, too, that this is not a one-time quick fix. It doesn’t end when the class ends. That it is really only the beginning….

I look at the classes as a way to get me back on track and jumpstart my hope for living a life without running to the cupboards for comfort. I have done it before. With the help of the women in the class and in the forums, it makes it that much more bearable to go through the transitions (which I really, really find uncomfortable) of getting past the food and back into the light of living free from the obsession.

My wish is that once this class finishes, I will be more centered and able to think clearly about what really nourishes me before I make run to the grocery store. My hope is that I will be able to experience the feeling of pain and loss — of not using food and sugar to cope — without crumbling. Instead I’ll reach out to the forum for support and use other ways to nurture my needs and emotions.

Right now, the thought still makes me nervous and I don’t feel ready but I think that is just a sign that I need to keep working on grounding.

I salute everyone who has the courage to show up and see past the fear and to just keep going one foot in front of the other. I hope to follow in your footsteps very soon.

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