I Have Arrived

“I had arrived”.  That elusive idea that once I get somewhere or that once I achieve something, I will be complete.  That elusive story that if only I could look like x, or feel like y, then I’d be happy.  The chase to nowhere and the high to nothing.

I lived that way for a very long time, and if I’m not careful, I can go there now.  Especially right now, while in a deficit and a fat loss cycle.  The number on the scale keeps dropping, and as it does, my natural mood spikes.  And so do my expectations and fantasties.  It’s not my fault – I know I’m not the only human that weighs herself and gets happier when the number is lower.  We are hard wired for victory and that is still a victory to me.

But it can’t be defining.  It can’t be who I am.  It can’t be my purpose.  And because it is such a delicate, interwoven part of my past, present and likely future, I have to guard my inner warrior with a vengeance so I don’t plummet down the depths of “I will arrive” … when.

Because I won’t.  I’ve been there before.  I’ve had the perfect body.  I’ve been praised by every person that saw me.  I won a trophy.  I was asked “how”.  I was asked “please show me”.  I was taken photos of and used on business cards and highlighted.

And it wasn’t enough.  Because it didn’t address the underlying condition that robs me of the ability to celebrate who I am.  It didn’t address the suffocating fear that I am not worthy.  It didn’t relieve the chronic idea that I have to be something on the outside in order to be enough on the inside.

I was dying.  I was dying a spiritual, lonely, shameful death.  I was dehydrating my only well – me.  I was starving my only nourishment – God. 

I’m on vacation in OBX and fell prey to the idea, temporarily but very painfully, that I was in need.  I fell victim to the idea that if only Mike would pay me a little more mind, at all times, that I would be happier.  I fell unconscious to the idea that if only I could beat the scale down a little more, a little faster, that I would be fuller.  I fell to the noise that was my brain, that became my reality, that admonished the truth around me that I was on vacation with people that love and care about me.  And that I was safe.

I started thinking that “I’ll arrive when” … until I realized that I was already here.  Until I logged into a meeting and read and heard the truth: this may be as good as it ever gets.

I am so grateful that someone taught me that a few years ago.  “This may be the best version you’ll ever see, feel, experience”.  We cannot keep chasing if we want true contentedness and peace.  We cannot keep driving past the well and dehydrating our source.  The idea that happiness and success and the life we’re supposed to have is somewhere else has to be squashed, or else we may be.

At least that is my experience.  I want to be happy now.  I want to remember that I’m on vacation now.  I want to be grateful for the deals I’ve closed already this year, instead of waiting for the next sales to make me feel enough in my job.  I want to be enough now.  I want to be successful now.  I want to be available for all of it – the good, the difficult, the uncomfortable, the magical –

Now.  And I can choose that, right now.

Can you?

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