Hi everyone and welcome to my twelfth blog!!

So, I am now back home and getting used to the new normal. I am missing my youngest dreadfully but know he is happy. Also, my eldest has returned home, so I am not an Empty Nester and am a very happy Mum.

My time in Stellenbosch was really rather interesting and I feel I should share some of my experience with you.

A little background to the essence of this blog.  For the last four years, I have been thin, due to stress, physical injuries and eating less. I am now aware of the importance of health and vitality. My eating patterns have changed, and my general flexibility and muscle strength has improved greatly, and my injuries are less. I have a minor tennis elbow issue at present but I am managing it.

Why is this an issue?

On an almost weekly basis, memories come up on Facebook from the same date in previous years. I started examining these in earnest, due to the fact that I had to much free time, as settling my two boys into their new university homes seemed to be accomplished fairly seamlessly. So, I ended up being bored,  listless and vulnerable.

Boom! My dreaded demons saw the gap and returned with a vengeance.  The thoughts and negative feelings came back fast and furiously. I stood in front of the full-length mirror in my Bed and Breakfast room and started to compare the yesteryear skeletal pics with my present self. My thin arms were now big. My calves were enormous, my thighs a lot bigger, too. The thoughts and negative feelings came back fast and furiously. How on earth could this have happened?  I was back to That Big Girl. I was appalled and disgusted.   What must all my friends on Facebook be thinking?

In the very shortest time, I had reverted to type. In reality, this whole self-loathing only lasted a short while, but the episodes continued during the time I was away. A really great thing was the way in which I managed myself in between. I would go off and meet friends and exercise and help the boys and park the thoughts in the recesses of my mind. I did not speak about it or rush off and have an eating binge and I did not go onto liquids for a day (impossible in Stellenbosch, with some of the best bubbles, wine, and food in the country).

As you all know, if you go somewhere or attend an event and photos are not taken and put on Facebook forthwith, you were never there, and the event never happened. So, again to my detriment at this time, pics were taken and posted.  I was astounded by the size of my calves compared to before. I just had to edit one photo and cut them off, but fortunately not literally.

Back home again, I knew that I needed to try to make sense of all this.  My life coach had introduced me to the work of Shirzad Chamine who developed the concept of the saboteurs. Saboteurs are your invisible agents of self-sabotage. They represent your brain’s mental habits with limiting beliefs and assumptions about how to handle the challenges life throws at you.  The prime saboteur is our judge, and we all have the judge. There are nine other saboteurs who are the accomplices to your judge and who help to hijack your mind.

The opposite of these is your sage. Your sage has access to your wisdom, insights and often untapped mental powers. So, on one side of the battlefield raging in my mind are the saboteurs (the judge at the helm) and on the other side of the field is my sage. My saboteurs and my sage are fuelled by different regions of my physical brain.

So, my challenge was then to decrease the power of my judge and other saboteurs and to increase the power of my sage. I bought Shirzad’s book, Positive Intelligence, and got to work.

My first strategy was to identify the thoughts and emotions that come from my saboteurs.  When the judge is back reminding me that I am fat, I just stop for a moment, think a while and realize that it is irrational and untrue. I then imagine throwing it away, and it has actually been working. My boys will say that my throwing is rather pathetic, but it seems to actually be improving!!

The second strategy that I am employing, slowly, is to really get to know my sage, and to make it stronger, by actioning its powers.    My mind has the ability to explore. So, I delve into the thought of my being fat and deconstruct it. Where is it coming from? What prompted it? After a while, my rational mind kicked into action and I realized that the boredom and vulnerability were probably the cause as they had been many years ago. I processed this. I then returned to the initial thoughts. They had changed. I am not fat. I am normal, strong and healthy.

Another power is to navigate my mind away from my old pics and Facebook posts. Social media serves me on many platforms, but there are aspects to it that are not good for me.

I am feeling better and writing this has helped me. My sage is becoming more present. The saboteurs are not gone, but I am on a mission to weaken them. So, it’s Happy Days again!

See you next week.

My eleventh tip.

Consistency is a real struggle for me. I no longer quantify this, but I just feel so happy when my aims equal my achievements, even if this is for a short period of time. Be it preparing a meal from scratch, achieving my morning routine or being kind to myself.  I really hope that you can all do the same.