Some of you may not know that I am up in Santa Rosa undergoing a ten day water fast. Although many feel that it is extreme, for me it is the natural thing to do and the only thing to do when experiencing the variables that have come my way in the past six months...a skin rash, weight gain caused by an underlying methylation issue that was exacerbated by an allergen was followed by breaking my right foot last week.
This was the final straw for me and I knew that in order to take care of all of you and the beautiful guests that will be attending my up coming retreats that I needed to first heal myself. Another reason for this was to grow closer in my relationship with God. I honestly feel that for myself when I put my spirituality first then everything comes into place.
For some reason, being here and undergoing this fast has brought me back to my experience and struggle I had for years as a bulimic. For years as a fitness model my days revolved around binging on up to 5000 calories in a single sitting. This was always followed by purging and physically eliminating the food by using laxatives, diuretics and speed in the form of diet pills. I also struggled with "exercise bulimia."
Oddly enough, this began at age 22 for me. This is considered late to develop an eating disorder. When I was struggling with bulimia, life was a constant battle between the desire to lose weight or stay thin and the overwhelming compulsion to binge eat.
I lost my life at that time. I also ruined the relationship with my family and close friends. Flash forward to a decade later and many lessons learned. Everyone knows of my eating disorder as I wrote about it in my book Raw-lic-ous and have done several videos about this. However, they don't know of the repercussions because of the years I put my body through abuse.
All day today, as I was carried up and down the flight of stairs to my room with my foot packed with comfrey, I looked down at my broken foot as the pain constantly poked at my inner being and I was reminded of why my foot is really broke! The truth is that this is the second fracture I have had in 5 years. The abuse I put my body through for years caused my bones to become frail and even the slightest amount of weight gain on my long limbs can cause a break.
Now that I am re building my bones through herbal elixirs and a learning to be gentle and kind to my body I must accept yet another component...REST! Rest is something I have never allowed my body to do. Now, I'm being forced to do just that. It's not easy for me to just lay around however my body and my broken foot is screaming for me to do so.
I just wish someone would have pulled me aside during those years of self loathing and abuse and said the following as I am about to say to all of you!
You are beautiful!
You are loved!
You are a child of God!
Don't allow society, your boyfriend, the media or anyone else to tell you other wise!
YOU ARE THE LIGHT!
Big canning jar full of water kiss to all of you!
