Growing Up 101: Erin learns to adult

So fair warning...I started writing down notes for this when I was in a pretty bad place but for cathartic reasons I am going to be brutally honest about what was going through my head, no matter how ugly. If you don't want to know the inner workings of my mind, or go through all my navel gazing turn back now. This is the point of no return.

This is a tough post to write. And not the post I thought I was going to write a week into a 12 week Keto challenge. I failed. Thursday night had me sobbing to my sister and mother, right before I was about to go to a dance party, about what a failure I was. About how shitty I felt, how everything hurt, and how my brain wasn't working properly at all this week. It was then that I decided to get out of this keto challenge, pulled my shoulders back, tidied up what was left of my make up, and toddled down to San Fran with my lil sister, drank a beer and danced to the best crappy music for 2 hours straight, bad back and all. And god did I feel like myself again.

I try and be self aware, aware of when I am making excuses for myself, or when I am truly doing what is right for me. But like most parts of my life I end up over thinking it all, almost too self aware (ugh I am so woke). Do I know my body well enough to know that this isn't working for me, or is this my brain so desperate for carbs that it is willing to tell me anything to get some in my system?

I have always been the lazy girl, the girl who never finishes anything, fails at everything. While working at Moore Wilsons I was known as the Burger King girl, now it is KFC, the girl you drink with, eat crappy things with. The fat girl, the lazy girl who spends all weekend in bed with Netflix. Fat, lazy, and selfish have been three defining words about me, labels that have stuck with me since I was a young teenager. I never tried, never persevered, just did what was easy. Study, health, life.  At parent teacher interviews, at job reviews, it was always about what potential I had. This has informed the story I tell myself and that I tell others.

With my chronic back pain I have started using an app called Curable which is all about education, brain training, meditation, and writing exercises. They see links to trauma and PTSD and people with chronic pain later in life. Don't worry, I haven't all of a sudden remembered some childhood trauma that has been buried for the last 30 years (I remember being a kid scared that this was a common thing thanks to books and soap operas that I watched!). But I have started to recognise the story I have been telling myself, the beliefs about myself that form my internal dialogue, has been rooted in issues around anxiety and depression.

When I started high school I took the change hard. I verged on suicidal and got counselling. While I don't remember much in particular about the counselling, I do believe that it has set me up well and I haven't ever gotten as bad as I was when I was thirteen. Depression for me has never been about pain or devastation, but more of an apathetic, meh feeling. Of what is the point of it all, not seeing the joy in life. And it has dawned on me this last week that when I was being lazy, not trying at school, uni, work, health, was me just trying to deal with my anxiety, my low feelings. Climbing into a cocoon, waiting until I mustered the strength to stop my overthinking, my worry about the future, and be in a place to face the world again.  Call it being a coward and me sticking my head in the sand, or call it just trying to find a way to cope to allow me to keep going to the best of my abilities so as not to have a complete break down. My form of self care. How you judge me is your business, and something that I have no control over, nor desire to really think or worry about.  (Despite having just brought it up).

So back to me failing this keto challenge. Understanding why my tummy is upset is one of the hardest things to do. Is it stress? my medication? something I ate? or eating too much of something? God knows. Last week I was pretty much on an elimination diet and I was still really sick.  What I can tell you is that the lack of carbs, withdrawal from sugar, going dairy free, and even being restricted on what vegetables I was allowed to eat (but sugar free powerade is okay...go figure), affected me mentally on a huge scale. lt was affecting my job, if someone asked me if I wanted something to eat just the mental capacity to answer them had me close to tears. I hate trying to figure out what to eat, and add in a really restrictive diet on top of that, the stress and overthinking was intensely overwhelming. It also meant I was pretty much starving myself, living on almond butter, pork crackling, and biltong for lunch. I was shakey, jittery, sleeping like shit. I was told this would only last 2-3 days, it was getting worse and worse by day 5. I then read it could last two weeks. And that was the cruncher. I wasn't myself, I wasn't thinking straight, I wasn't happy. I ached all over, constant headaches which I hardly ever suffer from. I didn't want to go one more day like this. This wasn't the way that I wanted to get healthy, and this wasn't the way I wanted to start a life long eating habit.

So why did I sign up and pay a decent amount of money for this? Well, cos my whole adult life I have been told to lose weight and get healthy. Fat is the worst kind of weakness, the worst kind of laziness, the worst kind of lack of self control and lack of self care. And having health issues which the media constantly say are directly caused by being fat and still not taking care of yourself just makes that guilt and shame 100 times worse. I use to want to apologise for the space that I took up, for making people have to see me. I covered my upper arms even in the height of summer, not for me but for people having to look at me. If my top got caught up over my belly, again it was feeling bad for the people that had to look at me. I really thought that I would never have  a love life due to this, and that was back when I was 10-15kgs lighter.  While I have come a long way those old beliefs are still deeply embedded in me, and is where my brain goes when I am tired, anxious, and feeling down. Luckily I don't stay there for long.

But enough doom and gloom...that was starved crazy Erin a week ago. Since then I have had the crap music dance party with my little sister, two very good friends birthdays filled with great chats, reconnecting, and beautiful beautiful carbs. I have worked on forgiving myself but also making sure I don't do what I have in the past which is give up and go right back to my old ways of eating, so now I am working on how I can get healthier and do it in a way that will be long lasting, will still allow me to enjoy life, and make it achievable.

Lessons I have learned, or been reminded of (cos everybody loves a good bullet point list):

Challenges and boot camps are really not my thing... small changes leading to life long habits are much more my jam. 

Eating to feel good, not all about what you can't eat. 

Eat based on my cycle ... there is always gonna be that week where you just need heavy comfort food to fill the seemingly bottomless stomach. 

I clearly have a lot of mental and emotional baggage when it comes to food and my size which means I need to take this easy. 

Meditation is the fucking bomb.

Carbs are also the fucking bomb. 

An eating style that restricts even vegetables isn't for me.

An online challenge where there is a group chat is definitely not for me. I am still a misanthrope I can not cope with other people, well not random strangers who keep asking the same question and not read what has actually been said or retain the information.  Way too much like working in customer support. 

Not giving up just because I made a mistake. 

Still a huge believer in eating healthy fats, and full fat organic dairy. 

Still love napping and Netflix.

Aaannnndd I am back. After a failed attempt at starting this blog so many aeons ago, I have decided to leap back into the adulting world and blog about it. Just for shits and giggles. 

Now don’t you worry your little noggins. I haven’t reverted back to a complete state of childlike infancy. True, the immaturity is still there, but I have been doing some good things throughout 2016. 

Stopped going out every weekend, sometimes both Friday and Saturday nights. 

Bought a vegan cookbook, and have cooked multiple times from it. True, I only bought it because there were swear words in it and it used liquid smoke, but hey, I am cooking some damn good meals from it. 

I went a good 3 months completely booze free. 

I did a lot of yoga. 

Have gone back to a physio and am continuing to go. Still need to hammer down the knack of actually doing my exercises but baby steps. 

Am going to the dentist and hygenist regularly. Well have gone to the hygenist once, and got my full check up tonight with the dentist, but good intentions. My teeth already hurt. 

Paid off my credit card debt. (Just quietly may have put it all back on again trying to fill the hole in my soul over the last few months, with Trump and everything, but now I know it is possible).

So what does this mean for this year in the life of Erin. Well I have a few ideas for goals/intentions/areas of focus. And may come up with a few challenges throughout the year. My first challenge is the No Buy challenge. 

Why Erin, what is this No Buy challenge you refer to? Well I am glad you asked. Let me me give you the 411, break it on down. 

To counteract the needless spending I have been doing, trying to buy things to give my life meaning and solve all my issues, and issues of the world, I have decided to do the following:

Don’t buy anything new. 

Simple as that. But here are my clarifications:

Only replace what I use regularly and is required for day to day living. For example - shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste etc Cos you don’t want me smelly. 

If something runs out, or wears out such as jeans, if I don’t have a back up pair then I can replace it. However, perfume - I have many different perfumes so I will not need to replace them. 

Tea - we know that I have an obsession healthy love for tea. At least for buying it. I haven’t been so great at drinking it. So I will use this time to go through all my teas, use them up, and decide on the ones I love enough to continue stocking after the no buy challenge is up. I can’t see me running out of any before the time is up. 

I am going to do home made lunches, allowing one lunch a week to be purchased - most likely from the Central City Markets. Yum Dumplings. 

I am also going to do one paid fun thing  - such as dinner and a movie a week. There are plenty of fun free things to do out there. With the following exceptions:

My birthday weekend (10th to 13th of February)

Bruce Springsteen weekend (23rd to 27th of February). Going to play the tourist in Taupo and Rotorua. 

And the final aspect of this is to do it for one month. This feels like it is too short, but I also know that it will be a challenge for me. So if I am not near breaking point by the end of the month I may extend this challenge for another two months, doing a grand total of 3 months no buying. At the same time don’t want to set myself up to fail. 

Here are some of the other ideas that I have for future challenges so you can watch me suffer and read me moan and complain:

Cooking new dishes from all my saved articles on Facebook, Pinterest, and my cookbooks. 

No booze/limited booze - which on the d-low is going to be an all the time goal for me.

Yoga for 108 days. 

Meditation for 108 days.

But first things first lets get my obsessive spending under control and my finances sorted. Starting this Waitangi day (cos it ain’t right unless it starts on a Monday, and T2 have a new tea that I just have to buy), ending 6th of March (or possibly 6th of May!) Erin takes on the NO BUY CHALLENGE!

But first the dentist. eek. 

So recently I have had two lessons in how to be an adult; haemorrhoids and death. You may consider these to be quite separate and truth be told the only reason they are making it into one post is due to being in the same week. 

I shared with my family that this was my next post. Dad commented about these lessons “One is certain, the other uncertain”. I thought that was rather deep. My brother replied “Haemorrhoids can be really deep.” #mcguinnessreunion2015

Haemorrhoids:

So I shall start with the less emotional but just as serious issue of haemorrhoids. Don’t worry I am not going to get overly personal here, I have never had true life experience of haemorrhoids, but  I did experience them in my dream life. And faaark, not a pleasant experience. It was just too real and not okay. Even if you use Preparation H cream to numb and shrink it I can’t see haemorrhoids being an overall pleasant experience. So I decided to ask my mum and dad to remind me of the lessons we got told as kids to prevent haemorrhoids:

Don’t sit on cold concrete.

Don’t push hard when you defecate. Medical term: “Straining at stool causes haemorrhoids.”

Child birth.

Anal sex - this clearly was not advised to us as kids but is included on the Southern Cross website and mentioned by the parentals when I questioned.

Low fibre diet.

Death:

In the last week my Great Uncle Ray passed away. I never knew Ray in person, he was always the highest mark on the door jam marking the McGuinness Family’s various heights, and the subject of stories that my Nanna would share - one in particular was her shutting the car door on his fingers, she still felt awful 60 years later. Ray is my Nanna’s little brother and as I chatted to her a couple of days before he passed away I could fully relate to her sharing stories about loving him but also him being a little shit at times throughout their lives. 

One thing she did share that stayed with me was her feelings about the time when someone is dying. While Nanna was grateful to have seen him just a week or so earlier she said that she wished she could be there to sit with him as he went through this journey, to be able to share in that moment was a special and touching time. To keep them company as they pass on to whatever they believe is on the other side of death, if anything. 

It was the first time I didn’t see death as a scary event, or one that was full of sadness and grief. Nanna had shed her tears, said goodbye in her way and wished to share in this special journey at the end of her little brother’s life. It opened up a whole new way of looking at life and death for me, and one that I will treasure. 

Mum shared with me a poignant quote from David Eagleman:

There are three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken to the last time.

I will finish with a reading that was said at my Grandad’s funeral back in 1999, which has stayed with me ever since:

Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away to the next room. I am I and you are you. Whatever we were to each other. That, we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name. Speak to me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no faced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without effect. Without the trace of shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same that it ever was. There is absolute unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you. For an interval. Somewhere. Very near. Just around the corner.

All is well. 

Nothing is past; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before only better, infinitely happier and forever we will all be one together with Christ. 

I’m not really the biggest fan of blogs but after junk free June I found that actually blogs work for me. They hold me to task and give me a chance to talk about myself. What’s not to like???

So this blog is about how in the summer of 2015/2016 Erin Elizabeth McGuinness realised that she needed to grow up. Well at least try to grow up a little bit.  And you are invited to join her in this journey. It will be a circuitous journey at the best of times. Also one that consists  of 2 steps forward, 3 steps back, along with flat tyres and broken cam belts (or whatever car part cars need to go).

I will share lessons I have learnt, as well as recipes, achievements, movie reviews and probably some jokes. Dad jokes. You have been warned. 

So here are adult things achieved last week, along with some not so adult things:

Practiced my Spanish for Colombia....by singing along to Caress Me Down by Sublime and squeezed in some of the history of Bogota by watching Narcos. 

Took my yoga gear to work ....came home and had a nap instead of going to yoga.

Watered my cacti.....the first time in 3 months.

Cooked dinner with veggies....sang along to music with my headphones on. Some out of tune serenading of my little sister and next door neighbours. They loved it.

Went on an hour and half bush walk.....was hungover and took my selfie stick, took many selfies.

And here is my cooking playlist last week:

Clumsy - Fergie

Caress Me Down - Sublime

I’m Not the Only One - Sam Smith

Back to Black - Amy Winehouse

Karma Killer - Robbie Williams

Lump - Presidents of the United States of America

Strong - London Grammar (all time fave of the moment)

Scars - James Bay

Eyes Without a Face - Billy Idol

Firework - Katy Perry

Do you Remember - Jarryd James