A Balanced State of Mind

I ate eight full ounces of ice cream yesterday.  Ice cream is one of my toxic foods, i.e., food I eat when I am sad and doing my damnedest to repress it.  These foods include, but are not limited to: cake, cookies, donuts, pizza, milk chocolate, alcohol—anything that’s high sugar, high wheat and/or high dairy.  I know better than to consume these things.  My constitution is quite sensitive (e.g., I’m allergic to wheat, and I get drunk after two beers), and I always feel like shit afterward.  I feel constipated and congested and my mood plummets.  I also know that repressing emotions only exacerbates them, but as I’ve said before, sometimes I just like to fuck things up.

I tell myself: I’m fine with rejection.  I’m used to it by now.  Publication doesn’t matter.  There are more important things in life than being a published writer.  But to some degree, I’m just bullshitting myself.  I’m sad and depressed, and I want a level of comfort that no outside force can give me.  Sure, I’m balanced-on-a-razor’s-edge depressed most days of my life, but after a rejection (sometimes weeks after a rejection), I enter the realm of self-acknowledged depressed.  Here’s the distinction.

Balanced-on-a-razor’s-edge depressed means I’ve been meditating four plus times weekly, taking my Ayurvedic supplements consistently to balance out my serotonin and other hormones, kinda-sorta-half-assed eating healthy, writing (even if it’s just journaling), and exercising an average of once a week.  If I meditate and exercise more and eat better, I can elevate myself to a balanced state of mind.

Self-acknowledged depressed means I just don’t give a fuck about one of the vital components mentioned in the previous paragraph.  Perhaps I only meditated twice that week or I skipped my supplements.  Perhaps I haven’t been writing or exercising.  Perhaps I ate ice cream or drank alcohol (even if it’s just eight ounces).  I end up vegging out on the couch, trying to calculate the exact moment when I failed myself and God.  Note to reader: I am the first to admit that I’m dramatic as hell.

So, I gotta pump the brakes; otherwise, I’ll eat cake or some other toxic food then I’ll skip the gym and meditation, and I’ll be in full-throttle motherfucking depression within two days.  I forced myself to make lunch this morning when I really wanted to sleep late and go out for fast food on my lunch break.  On my commute to work and throughout the day, I repeated over and over again:  I will go to the gym after work.  I will work out.  Yeah, I went to the fucking gym.

I want to throw a tantrum and lick my wounds for the next month, but I have to woman-up.  When I’m hurt, I have to try harder, become even more regimented.  I have to plan my meals, go grocery shopping and cook consistently.  Fuck, I hate domesticity!  But I have to do it.  My husband and I both cook about twice a week, but I have to do more.  He can eat and drink whatever he wants and is a balanced as all get out.  This is not the case for me. 

I have to exercise twice a week at a minimum, ideally more.  I have to read more.  This calms me.  I can work the shit out of a treadmill when I have a good audiobook playing.  I have to meditate and not miss my supplements.  I have to write even if I feel like a loser.  I have to fight for a balanced state of mine every day, or I won’t write.  And I have to write.