The truth is I don’t know what is true.

My experiences are everything I truly know. That, and I like snacks and sexy sex, hugs and hula hooping, not specifically in that order.

I had one of those a-ha moments while eating a cupcake I felt guilty about eating and it went something like this, “Self, why am I feeling guilty about eating this delicious morsel of sweet goodness? Where did this feeling come from? Why do I feel it? Who am I under the guilt? And what is guilt anyway? Is it really me talking and if not, who is it? Is it my ego? What is ego and how did it get here? I though I have evolved into a mindful person who knows and loves herself without judgement…”

And my a-ha realization is this: My life has been a lie—a fantastical illusion molded by perceptions, ideas, society, family, self, and experiences that don’t even make any sense. I am not being true to myself. Myself loves cupcakes and does not judge me, myself has deep feelings. Who am I deep down below where my cupcake is digesting? What is real, what is true? What is my damn problem right now? Maybe it’s the full moon?

I sit here with frosting on my face, crying, remembering the time when I was utterly happy and in love with myself and truly being me. I was in my early 20s and had just had a baby. I gained 100 lbs. It seemed to bother everyone around me. I will never forget my mother saying “I’m so afraid you’ll never be thin again, that would be the worst.” Oh, would it? It didn’t bother me until I heard those words. I became sad and felt ugly and unhappy. It became a problem. A problem that needing fixing.

I found a radical solution: I decided to stop looking in the mirror and at my reflection all together.

I didn’t want to see myself anymore as my mother and others saw me. I was busy and had better things to focus on. (You know, like loving and parenting a child without filling them with body image issues and mental anguish.)

The first few weeks were tough, avoiding mirrors, cars and windows and my reflection as I walked past them. I often wondered if I looked presentable, if I looked sexy or like a wild savage. I wondered what people think about me. Do I have food in my teeth?

And then it all magically disappeared one day—the worry, the concern, the wanting to see myself. I just stopped thinking about it all together. I did not give a sh*t!

I was happy, I was feeling and just being and acting accordingly. I was comfortable. I moved my body when it needed to move me, I ate when I was hungry, I slept when I was tired, I had great friends and was asked out by men constantly. I was honouring my self, fully living in each moment for the first time in my life, in a body form that didn’t please others. I felt marvelous. I felt at home in my skin. It was blissful blissness.

A year later, I looked in the mirror for the first time and I cried. Cried so much it hurt my face. They were happy tears.

I felt like I just met me and me was the most beautiful and divine creature on earth. And I loved it, but with that first look my ego came back. I judged myself as “beautiful.” My ego brought with it pain and suffering and attachment to my appearance and I got lost in it somewhere forgetting my truth.

And here I sit now, hoping to find the real truth and how to dissolve my ego with or without mirrors or anyone’s opinion. How to feel my feelings and feel at home in my body again.

Who is the true raw essence of me inside this thing I call my body? Was the truth in there when I was born? When I was pure without programming from my experiences, from the outside world, where I did not worry about stretch marks, weight gain, scars and what people thought of my face, my life choices or self expression? Where all I did was exist to eat, sleep, cry and then speak once I was taught too and not think twice about it, where I gave actual literal sh*ts and not any other kind of sh*ts because that’s what babies do.

I may never get to know what my truth is, but I’m sure as hell going to try to get back to that place, where this body of mine feels like home, where I eat, I sleep, I cry and I feel, really feel all the feels and let them swallow me up without judgement. A place where I learn to speak…my honest real truth.

~

Author: Madawna Hamel

Editor: Katarina Tavčar

Photo: Anais Gómez-C/Flickr