The Song of My Spirit 5

The Song of My Spirit

The Journey to Become a Better Me: Week 5

By Kristen Debler

My journey the past few months has opened up my eyes to the world around me. Things are going to change! Sometimes things are going to change, no matter if we want them to or not. The past couple of weeks, I have come face to face with my present self and been forced to see things for what they really are. There have been other times that things have happened that were beyond my control and my life changed because of those instances. This just goes to show that change in life is inevitable.

But then there are times that you have to make the change for yourself. The past two weeks I have made some major decisions to my life. I believe... No, I know, that these decisions are for the best. This past weekend, I made a huge move. I decided that all of the toxins in my marriage were holding me back as a person. That the stress of my marriage was causing me to gain weight; which caused me to become lazy and depressed, and in the long run, I lost sight of who I was. Who I am. So, this past weekend, I moved out of  my house and moved in with a friend. I moved out to take care of myself and to find myself again.

My marriage was toxic. It wasn't that way in the beginning. When I met my husband, I was actually in love. We were great together. We had so much in common. Actually, we had a lot of things in common until we go married. Our wedding and honeymoon were great. They were small and inexpensive and everything that I could hope for. Except for one thing. My mother-in-law was very sick. She was dying of cancer and she could not make it to our wedding. But she had made it clear that she would hold on until she heard that we had gotten married. So, we continued our plans. 5 days after we got married, my mother-in-law passed away and the man who I had married no longer existed. I am not kidding. 

For 5 ½ years my husband became someone who lost his way in life. He lost his drive for working or doing anything. He quit his job and stayed home every day. I would find him in the living room drinking beer, watching YouTube or playing video games. That was the highlight of his life. When he quit his job, which was supposed to be temporary, he was supposed to clean the house and cook; like I would if I had stayed home as a Housewife. Instead, I continued to work and go to school to better myself. I thought that all of this was going to be a phase and that he would gradually get better. After all, he saw a counselor and I thought this would help his grief. But, he was an alcoholic before this happened and it just went south from there. He gave up on everything and the thing that made it worse was that he never gave our marriage a try. When things started going bad in our marriage, it was actually over two different issues. First, he put me in the role of his mom. He needed more nurturing. He started acting like a child and because he wasn't working he would ask for things and if I said we couldn't afford them he would throw a fit.

And, the other thing we fought about was spending time together. Relationships are about compromise and I compromised. He didn't  It was either do things his way or not at all. He never wanted to do things that I liked that he didn't  For instance, if I was watching a TV show that he did not like, he wouldn't lie down with me, he would go in the other room until I was done or until I wanted to watch something else with him. So, with these things and everything else going on with the dirty house, him complaining about cooking, about listening to my conversations or problems. I felt like I was in a one-way marriage and I started to stress out and gain weight, become depressed and our life together just became toxic. I didn't understand him anymore and he didn't understand me.

A lot of my friends stopped hanging out at my house or did not come around often because of my husband and his attitude. If kids or people he didn't want to be around came over he would hide in the back bedroom and drink. If someone didn't bring over alcohol for him he would pout and go into the back room. I had to learn the hard way that he represented me and I represented him. People judged me through his actions and I didn't want to be labeled as that person anymore. In the long run, I had lost who I was. I became my husband’s enabler, his ATM, and his wife only when he wanted me to be. Otherwise I was his mother and he treated me as such. I had to do something.

This January, I made a change to become a better person. I wanted to lose weight, and get rid of all of the negativity in my life. I realized that I could not do this and still live at home. My husband and I had too many personal problems to work on in our marriage. I was too dependent on him and I needed to break that bond of dependency he had on me for everything. I left my house on Saturday and I have already started making progress in my new life. I am living with people who are working on becoming more positive in life and trying to become better people. I know that this is right for me on my journey. I know that I would not get to where I want to be in life without this new journey. Now, I can set some positive goals that will help me become more successful in losing weight, becoming healthy and working towards my career. 
Here is to the journey of my spirit. 
Here is to the success of my soul. 

The Song Of My Spirit

The Song of My Spirit

Week Five

By Kristen Debler

I read a blog the other day that was written by a plus size model. I happened to look at her pictures and she was gorgeous. Do you want to know why? Because she was confident and happy with her own body and who she was. She was comfortable in her own skin. Her words made me think and they made me cry. They made me cry because I started thinking about my own self-image and what the media (and society) has done to my self-image. I started to think about how much control other people have over how I think about myself. I mean, think about this. Thousands of people that I don’t even know, control how I feel about my SELF IMAGE. 

Why is that? 

I think it’s because there are a lot of things about me that I don’t like or that I’m not comfortable with. The biggest thing that I am not comfortable with is my weight. One of the things that gets to me is that people cannot get past my weight, like it is the only thing they see or that is important about me; the only thing that matters. People look at me and judge me on it and they treat me differently because of it. They look at it like a contagious disease that if they get too close to me they might somehow get it. I do admit that I have gained a significant amount of weight in the past few years but I have been chubby since I hit puberty. But it was something about myself that I have never liked or accepted because of the comments of other people. 

The ironic thing is, that I do not eat more than any normal person, I do not gorge on sweets, candies or cakes. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like my share of sweets too but I love carrots, broccoli, snap peas, berries, yogurt and cottage cheese. The only issue is that I am short and all of my fat goes to my stomach and nowhere else. If I was taller, I would probably be more proportionate. Maybe someone could invent a stretcher and add some inches on me. I wouldn't mind.

The reason that I started working on my weight this year was because I had gotten to a point, in my life, where I was physically unhappy. My back was killing me and it hurt to walk and even to stand for long periods of time. I had never experienced that before. I used to walk places all of the time. It even hurt to do normal day things at times. At this rate I would be wheel chair ridden if I continued my path. The most basic part of life I was having troubles with; walking. I could not do that for myself. So, I set a goal to lose weight or do things that would make it easier for me to live life with movement and no constraints. I don’t want to miss life because I couldn't get up and see it.

I believed that I gained this excess weight for many reasons. First, I believe that I have a thyroid problem that makes it harder to lose weight because it slows down your metabolism. I seem to have 9 out of 10 symptoms. The second reason is stress. But the most important reason is because I am UNHAPPY with myself. I let myself go because I lost who I was. I remember an independent person and all I see is a needy one. There are steps that I need to take to find that independent, lovable, confident Kristen who is somewhere hiding inside me. The girl who fought to get into Law School. The girl who has fought and done so much in her life to get her here. But there is a lot that I want to learn and do. I do not want to be held back or constrained for any reason. I WANT to be HAPPY!

                                                                                      

The blog that I read the other day was about people associating being overweight with being unhealthy. This isn't necessarily true. You can still be big and be healthy or skinny and unhealthy. Weight isn't necessarily about food but genetics. Society needs to work on teaching girls about a positive image. And to love, not hate, who they are. I know that I need to reflect a positive image on myself. There is no change without self-love. If you do not love yourself enough then you will not work hard enough to change and make a better you. I do realize that I can be big, healthy and happy. I NEED to stop letting others control how I feel about myself. I think that this blog is helping me do that.

Song of My Spirit is my ongoing journey of knowledge, positive self–image and the path I walk to find a better me. Writing this blog piece inspired me to start writing a poem. I have had a huge creative block the past couple of years and the other day it just hit me and I had to write it down. This is just the beginning of the piece that I have stated writing. It is the rising up part of my journey. The part when I realize that I need to dance.

Song of my spirit: Hena Mi (Rise up)

Hena Mi…. Dance….

Hena Mi…Dance…

Stomp!

To the rhythm of my heart beat

The beat that flows through mother earth.

Thump…thump….

Thump…thump…

Like a drum connected around the world.

I close my eyes and I listen to the dance

Carried on the wind

And it cleanses me,

Like the sweet smell of sage

From this blackness that pervades me.

This blackness that follows my footsteps,

Elludes my path

And leaves me lost and bewildered.

Where am I supposed to go?

Unu (grandmother), Apu (Father),

I feel sticky

Almost as if have been caught in spider’s web

Unaware of when he was looking for innocent prey.

Unu, can you find me?

Listen to the beat of the earth.

I will continue to dance

So that you can find me.

The Song of My Spirit 4

The Song of My Spirit
The Journey to become a Better Me: Week Four

By Kristen Debler

Dear My Future Self,

I am looking back at my reflection in the mirror and I am in awe at what is looking back at me. You are so grateful and blessed to see the old you looking back. The old you that was so determined but scared of moving forward in life. The scared old you that is sitting here on the couch, the most comfortable place in the house, frustrated at what her life has become. The old, naïve and younger version of yourself who was frustrated with being stuck, in so many ways. Stuck in her overweight body that has constricted her from doing ordinary things, stuck in her place in life, her work, her marriage and even her dreams. This person who is not only stuck but scared. What were we afraid of?   We were scared of the doctors and what they might say about our health. We were scared that the things that we feared having: diabetes, high blood pressure, etc., actually came true. We were afraid of dealing with that.

You laugh, as you remember the day that you decided that enough was enough! The day that you were too tired of being stuck and scared and of not doing anything about it. You didn’t want to be this lazy, scared, fragment of the person who you used to be. We used to be strong and determined to make a place for ourselves in life. Where did we become so lost? But this type of reminiscing is okay because we wanted to show how important that our struggle is for our future selves. We haven’t made it out of the woods yet but we are getting there, day by day. There is a big smile on your face because you are grateful for all of the lessons that we are going through right now. There have been and will continue to be moments of self-hate, harsh judgment and condescending words that are going to be tossed around in your head. The old you would listen to these things but the new you is going to prove that these words mean nothing. They are motivators to make you a more self-loving person.

We know the steps that we are taking are not easy. But what change in life is? Remember the motto, no pain, no gain? This is so true because we cannot work on making ourselves better versions of ourselves if we do not feel some sort of physical, emotional, mental or spiritual pain. Pain is where the ultimate lessons lie.

My future self, I know that you are proud of me for learning these lessons, for diving in head first and start working on myself. You see that I am trying day by day, and that I am struggling as well as learning. I am moving forward to becoming a better version of myself, knowing that I lived through this and I made it out, not only okay, but better.

As, I look at my future self in the mirror, I hold a promise to myself. A promise that I will continue to move forward every day. That I will embrace my struggles and find ways to overcome them and my fears. I want to be happy and the only way for me to do that is to start being happy. I need to find the right tools to help me get out of being stuck and scared. Once these bonds are off me, I can start becoming the person that I am and that I am meant to be. I look forward to meeting my future self. I hope that she has faith in me.

Sincerely,

The Old Me

P.S. Here is a piece that I wrote that I think talks about my struggle for change within myself.

 

Changing Wind

Little Star Children fighting profusely,

Back and forth, little scenes of twinkle dust dancing, bouncing,                             Painting shining images in the sky for the world below.

Who is to wake up Mother Half Moon?

And tell her the news?

That finally, the wind is changing,

Blowing in her direction

Giving her the chance to fully glow again;

Coyote stops dancing with the Star Woman

Covered in star Dust he leaves her

And jumps towards the kotcha (house) of Mother Half Moon

Dusk is slowly starting to form on the earth below

And Father Sun stops the celebration,

The sunbeams stop the dance,                                                                                          pick up their drums

And walk behind Father Sun towards the cloud loklo (valley) of rest

And prepare for the next days celebration.

Coyote looks back towards the Star Children

Who have stopped their fighting?

And are staring at him dumbfounded,

As he gets closer to Mother Half Moon’s kotcha

Coyote grins happily like the bob-cat

And casually wakes up Mother Half Moon.

As she wakes up, the world becomes aglow with her radiating light

As she walks out and kindles the fire,

A searching wind blows into the night, and stirs the dancing embers of the fire..

The embers stop dancing and look towards the direction of the wind.

Mother Half Moon feels the change that is coming towards her,

She smiles excitedly because she knows the goodness that is coming

For her and for her people,

This goodness has already started to take place,

Her people are changing, and for the better.

There are more or them rising up and doing good things for themselves.

No longer will they let the world hold them down.

They have survived this long, and they will survive until the end of time.

The wind sweetly sings a song of joy as it blows throughout the earth and sky,              the joy that is reflected inside the hearts of the people.

No longer will the sacred cycle of suffering, turmoil and unhappiness

Be a part of their lives.

This is exciting to them,

 And they create a new song,

A new dance and celebration

For this new wind that has created joy into their hearts.

They thank the ancestors                                                                                                   The Spirits of Coyote, Bear, and Eagle for this great reward.

They will remember them in times of struggle in the future,

To remind them of what they have done for them.

As the dancing, and celebrating commences on earth

Mother Half Moon is so filled with emotion

That she grows full again,

And the Star Children dance excitedly for this miraculous event.

This is a great omen,

The wind sings sweetly the song                                                                                       as the dance continues in the hearts of the nations of the people.

The Song of my Spirit 3

The Song of My Spirit

The Journey to become a Better Me: Week Three

By Kristen Debler

This week has been hard for me. I have found myself falling on old habits. I have found myself procrastinating on exercising, and on maintaining my stress level. This is the time when statistics state that people become discouraged about their New Year resolutions. This is the time when people realize that the goals that they have set for themselves are harder and require more time, effort and discipline than was thought about when they were off toasting the New Year. However, this is the critical point in deciding whether it is important in keeping these promises and making the change in our lives or if we are just going to give up. I guess it is a matter of figuring out what is important to us.

I have been adjusting to my new school schedule and I found out that I needed new organizational skills. I needed to find a way to manage my work schedule, study schedule and find time for myself and especially for exercising. I had to improvise and find workout routines that I could do while reading in front of the computer. My friend suggested that after an hour of studying, get up and walk around the house or do jumping jacks; anything to get my blood flowing and clearing my mind. I read somewhere that we cannot accomplish things with negativity. For instance, I can't go from "hating the way to loving my body". It does not work. This means don't beat myself up for eating a piece of cake or forgetting to work out for the day. An example is, I hate my stomach. I need to lose 15 lbs. I'm going to run three times, no sweets and no eating out. 

But then, when you slip from being a disciplinarian and gorge on cake, you beat yourself up. So, forgive yourself and ask why you wanted to lose weight in the first place. Because I want to feel comfortable in my own skin, be in tune with my body and feel beautiful and confident. Then ask yourself why you eat this and that. You figure out the feelings behind it and then you can find ways to working on them them and make better eating or life decisions. 
Learning to love you is one of the best ways to keep your goal or goals.

The Song of My Spirit 2

The Song of My Spirit

The Journey to become a Better Me: Week Two

By Kristen Debler

Statistics state that only 8% of us will keep our New Year’s resolutions within the next three weeks. Does this mean that the 8% that do keep their resolutions more driven than we are? More motivated? The answer to those questions are no. At the end of the year, we are all motivated to work on becoming better people in some way or another but we often find these resolutions hard to keep. There are two reasons behind this; most of the time we set high, hard to reach goals for ourselves and get discouraged when we cannot climb Mount Everest by February. Set reachable, obtainable goals for ourselves. For Instance, if your goal is to lose 50 lbs. Set daily goals for yourself, i.e. add more fruits and vegtables to your diet, drink 1 more glass of water a day, walk for fifteen minutes, etc. We cannot train for a marathon in one day. It takes days of sacrifice and training to get you to become a better runner. Build incentives for yourself on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. So, when you accomplish where you wanted to be at this point do something nice for yourself.

The next way that we fail ourselves in achieving goals is forgetting that life and schedules can get in the way. The goals that we have set for ourselves might not be realistic. For instance, if you tell yourself that you want to run for 90 minutes a day but you work 8 to 12 hour days and you go to school at night, that goal might not be realistic. Finding time in our schedules to achieve our goals is very important. Look through you schedule and make dates with yourself for 30 to 60 minutes a day or look for three days a week where you can make the time to exercise for 90 minutes and clear your mind.

I thought that I had hit the ground running, this first week of 2014. This week I have had a lot of success but I had some difficulty as well. For one thing, when I started the week, I was coming out of a two month break from school; which ended when I started law school on Wednesday. As I looked at my class schedule I became a little overwhelmed with all of the reading that I will have to do. I will be sitting in front of my computer, reading, more than I expected.  In my last piece, I defined my first step as defining what my weaknesses are (in regards to my weight) mentally and physically. What do I need to get rid of in my life and what do I need to work on to become a better me?  Sitting is a huge weakness for me. I already sit a lot at home and at work and can be very lazy if I want to be. If my goal is to lose weight and become more mobile, how can I accomplish this?

So, I have come up with some weaknesses and steps I can take to overcome these weaknesses, when it comes to achieving my goal of weight loss.

1. My first weakness is sitting. In order for me to lose weight I need to balance diet and exercise. In order to do this with my schedule I needed to find exercises that I can accomplish while sitting down.  I went online and googled chair exercises. I found some pretty good exercises that I can do sitting in a chair, or a work out ball at home or work. Some of these exercises really get your heart rate up but nonetheless they keep me moving even if I have to sit while doing them.
2. One of the other steps that I have taken was making dates with myself. I look for three days a week where I can find time to walk or swim for 15-30 minutes in the pool.

This week has been a success for me because I saw the problems that I was having with maintaining my goal and I decided to find time to work around them. I made my goals attainable and realistic and hopefully I will be one step closer to achieving my New Year’s goals.

The Song Of My Spirit 1

The Song of My Spirit

The Journey to become a better me

By Kristen Debler

2014 is upon us, ready and waiting. She is waiting for us to take the time to celebrate our blessings, to celebrate an old year gone and past, and to celebrate a new beginning. Whatever was not accomplished last year can be accomplished this year. We can dream a new dream, make new adventures and celebrate being alive. The New Year is time for reflection and resolutions. It is the time to reflect on ourselves and what we want to change this year. It is about creating new resolutions that will make us better people and better products of ourselves. It is a type of rebirth.

This Christmas, I found myself celebrating, or what I could do to celebrate, with my husband’s side of the family. I say this because I can’t do the same things that I could do five years ago, i.e. physically. Each year, things have been getting harder because I have a weight problem. Normal, every day things have become a struggle. I watch people move around and do things so easily, and I remember what that was like. I don’t know when or how it got this bad. It doesn’t matter really. Even if I understood the reasons that made me this way, it doesn’t change the fact that one day, I woke up and I was someone else. I looked in the mirror and I did not recognize who I saw. Frankly, it’s uncomfortable, painful (mentally, emotionally and physically), and scary.

There is much to celebrate this New Year. For the first time in nineteen years, the New Year will start out with a New Moon; the Capricorn New Moon to be exact. Pluto will also be joining the new moon on January 1^st and that is actually a good thing. Pluto himself is the god of change, more importantly the archetypal energy of death, initiation, rebirth and transformation. Pluto himself energizes evolution. We as people and individuals need to learn how to adapt to the world around us. This includes understanding our strengths and especially our weaknesses. Knowing our weaknesses is important because this is the only way we can overcome them. For instance, knowing one of my reactors to stress is eating; the first step to overcoming this is to buy more fruits, vegetables or healthy snacks for these times can be a way for me to maintain my weight. Also, knowing that exercise is a good way to curb stress can be another tool to fight this disease that is holding me back.

The Capricorn Moon has a huge influence on the outcome of our resolutions. It is very important as adults to learn to discipline our minds, understand and channel our feelings and dedicate ourselves to our spiritual purpose. We as Women need to understand that the feminine spirit is alive and calling us at this time to create a new story about our inner world and our place in it. We as Women need to discover the power of our inner freedom and learn the language of the wisdom within us.

As, I was sitting at the table enjoying Christmas dinner, I started thinking about all of the things that my culture and family have taught me about who I am. This person that I have become doesn’t define who I am inside and who I can be in the future. It is just another obstacle that I can overcome. Our culture calls these struggles or obstacles, the song of our soul. Each note is a step to make us better people.  So, this New Year, I have a set of resolutions that I need to work on to make me a better person. These resolutions, I believe, will help me discover the inner freedom within myself. The path to my inner freedom is going to be sung like a song. Every note will be one step closer to reaching three goals that I am going to set for myself. The first goal is to work on my physical self, whether it is my health or my weight. The first step is to find out what my weaknesses are. Then I can create steps to overcome those weaknesses.  In my next piece, I will address these weaknesses and will discuss the steps that I will take to start my journey.  

This is the first part of my song; the part that takes the first step in admitting that I have a problem and that I need to change. Here is to the New Year of 2014 and making me a better person.

                  “Language has power, like a pair of wings.

Wings that can carry the message of the spirit to another

Well, then why can’t my language have wings?

So, that my pain would fly away,

Fly away to the place where it belongs.

Tradition binds me

Like the corn to the earth

Who only nourishes, many, when she is harvested and picked.

Tradition binds me

From being this corn mother-

For, she speaks of things not yet spoken.

She speaks of things to personal to allow.

I have now found my Spirit,

I have now heard my Song,

And will speak of the things not yet spoken

I will allow them to be heard."