Like Weather

Within my daily travels, I've heard several people compare the brain and how it works to the weather. 

The more I ponder this, the more I believe it to be true. 

Lately, my brain has given me lovely mild weather. Some days its sunny, others, cloudy. Not too much rain, and no threatening storms. I can't complain at all. It's the most mild weather my brain has endured for some time now. 

I've come to the realization that I had been suffering from (postpartum?) depression. I had done what I could to cope with overwhelming feelings of anxiety, sadness, loneliness, anger, and other not so nice weather. Sometimes I was able to relieve these feeling through strenuous physical exercise. It made me feel so good to channel all of these negative emotions into effort to release them. It was easy to become addicted to the release of endorphins that happened after an hour long sweat fest. Over time, however, I completely exhausted myself. I seldom would allow for rest days, and when I didn't exercise, this large fat and guilty cloud would sink over my head and cause me to feel some sort of failure. Never allowing for a break to even breathe. I slowly began dreading physical exercise because my body would refuse to co-operate with these expectations I had laid out for myself. Like I said, exhaustion. I began to seek out ways to cure exhaustion so I could keep up with my strenuous work outs. 

Food.

Lots and lots of food. 

Oh I could eat whenever I wanted because I was so great about eating clean. When you eat nothing but healthy food, it should easily be converted to energy and strength. If I get tired, I just need to eat more. Right?

I developed this insatiable hunger. My stomach would bloat and beg me to stop, but I could not. I still felt that hunger. After eating half a family sized box of organic granola and full fat plain yogurt, I decided I needed help. 

Like, serious help.

I felt like I was completely powerless and I could not stop. A legitimate addiction. I had picked up a brochure about hypno weight-loss. I had been putting it off, but then I figured, what the hell. So, I finally called Donna, who was very pleasant, over the phone and arranged a meeting. When I arrived, we both agreed my eating habits were due to anxiety. Most of my weight was kept in my mid line because I was always so on the edge. I'm not going to even lie about how terrified I was to be hypnotized. I can't even tell you why, but my heart was racing when I entered the room. However, the procedure (if you will) was so much more relaxing than I could have imagined. I never lost consciousness, and I felt completely relaxed. Of course my mind was all over the place through the entire session, especially with a few claps of thunderous, angry doubt. However, I noticed an immediate difference when we had finished. 

It has been two weeks, and I've been managing to keep not only my eating habits, but my anxiety has lessened significantly. The rain stopped, the clouds opened up, and the sun peeked through. It has been great to have a break from that lousy weather.