How do I begin this post? I find myself wondering if I can truly be as honest in writing as I have had to admit to myself when it comes to how I have been feeling these past weeks/months? For the last year-ish I have been hearing how I am always so positive and am an inspiration, but that is not how I was feeling lately.

The good news, before I unleash my raw honesty, is that I found a (healthy) way to tap out and just allow myself to be. A little over two weeks ago I sent out a cry for help to someone dear to me and he answered with such resounding support! Jack I don’t know that you will ever know how much of a difference you made in one of the lowest points of my life, but I thank you from this heart of mine that is healing once again.

I was swirling down a path of negativity into a deep, dark well that I was not clawing my way out of. Though I spent time each day trying to let my spirit lead the way she felt exhausted and my connection to her broken. I felt broken. This girl, or woman, before you no longer had the umph. I was maybe eating once a day – completely disinterested. The dark questions that kept spinning out of control through my head were:

• What was the point?
• Why am I here?
• Do I really have a purpose for this life anymore?
• Why do I have to be so friggen strong?
• When do I just get to enjoy life, and maybe that’s not meant for me and man I just give up.
• How did I find myself alone at 43?
• Why am I not good enough?
• How guilty I felt when I heard I was always there for Mom and felt like saying “but it doesn’t allow me the opportunity for my own life”
• How lost I am without my mommie
• How my past choices have caused me pain
• Did I mention I felt broken in spirit?
• Just how much more do I have to push myself?

I was in trouble, big time. I knew that what I had done this past year or two to pull myself through and chose to be happy and positive wasn’t working anymore. I knew I was loved by many in my life, that didn’t change but it also somehow didn’t really matter all that much anymore either. My spirit had once led the way for my body, but Spirit was at a distance and I wanted to curl up in a little ball on my bed, pull the covers over my head and just disappear. The thought came through my head that were it a choice to do chemo now maybe I would chose not to bother – my role here is now done with Mom and Dad both gone and no longer needing my help. That seemed to be my role in this world.

And then, one day out walking my boyz (A.K.A.  dogs), with the sunshine on my face and my body responding with it’s joy, Spirit screamed out to me and told me what I needed to do. It was time to let body lead the way and bring the spirit along with “forced” endorphins and nutrition. So I called Jack, a man I am honoured to call my friend (even though he has been called some bad names in the past when I worked out with him as my personal trainer) and now CEO of 360 Fitness. I took money out of my investments for retirement days (at this point it didn’t feel like I would make it there if I didn’t choose to drastically change things in order to get my spunk and hootzpa for life back) and invested in myself. I am now working out three days a week with Mick, eat 5 times a day with a renewed focus on nutrition, and have eliminated alcohol (A.K.A.  depressant at this point) from my world for what will be approximately 7 weeks once done my first round at their metabolic makeover.

And here is the best part…when I walk into that gym my cellphone doesn’t get to join me. It ks my escape, the time when I Tap Out (something I didn’t feel comfortable doing these last years with Mom’s health so precarious). It is that half hour to hour to hour and a half to two hours (depending on stretching and cardio and sauna time if I luxuriate in it all) that is about me, my health, my life as a priority. It has only been two weeks but the difference was noticable almost immediately.

And so, once again, I find myself thanking my most magnificent, beautiful body. No, it may not be magazine and picture perfect, but oh how it’s resilient strength have carried me through (quite brilliantly) some very difficult times and supports me in ways taken so for granted. So often I have been ashamed by the look of this miracle, embarrassed by my lack of hand-eye coordination, the way I see myself naked, the shyness it brings me in my sexuality and most damagingly compare myself to others. So often it has been me letting my own body down, not the other way around.

Today, on this weekend we celebrate giving thanks, I am grateful for the wagons that my family and friends have circled with their love, laughter and prayers that has also brought me connection right when I needed it and also acknowledge that it is my body and it’s ability to manufacture those endorphins that strengthen my spirit. It is my body that has pulled me through these dark days, has given me the light I needed to find the foot and handholds to pull myself from my well of despair, heartache and smothering of the dark side.

Wishing you a Thanksgiving fortified with love and endorphins of your own,

Glenna