This is quite likely the last place I ever imagined I would find myself.  Constructing interesting and intelligible sentences has always been my most insecure form of communication.  After (almost) four decades of life on God’s green earth, I have arrived at the conclusion that no matter how much success I have living focused, intentional, and disciplined, there is always going to be an element of surprise.  At times,  I would even call it a force of defeat lurking around the corner, waiting to derail me.   I’ve spent a lot of my life in a complete FREAK OUT about what I did not or cannot see coming, but slowly and certainly I am learning.  Learning to approach the undulations of this life through the filter of what I was put on this earth to be, my response is evolving to be one of more fluidity and grace – more of a deep breath rather than a total FREAK OUT.  I’ll be the first one to say that understanding the purpose of your life is not something you just stumble upon or even become good at just because you know what it is.  It’s a pilgrimage.  For me, the last stop being the day I meet my Creator face to face.   That’s one way of saying that I don’t claim to have all the answers yet. But I can say that thanks to an incredibly patient family, immeasurable self-help books (admission, I love them all), a wicked number of hours in therapy (no shame in my game), and most importantly a God of inexhaustible grace I have stumbled upon some life changing discoveries.  Discoveries about my identity and my purpose and how to find it.  Discoveries about my mind, my body, my family’s mind and body, and in turn a newfound freedom in every facet of my life.  That is all pointing to this moment, where I “attempt” to share with you interesting and intelligible sentences about the soaring highs, the massive failures (you know the kind that make you change your name and move to a new city – yes, that actually happened) and everything in between.  At this point in my life I am completely determined to make a freaking party out of the gift of each day,  I invite you to share in this story with me as I weave together the truths I’ve learned about living with true identity, with true health in spirit, mind and body – and learning fluidity for how that changes day to day.  This blog is for you no matter who you claim as the author of your life or whether you prefer BBQ ribs over hemp garden burgers.  No matter where you find your truth, this blog is for anyone wanting to be reminded that the human race was designed with purpose, to discover truth, to discover health, to discover rest. Then to share it.

I married my best friend whom I met in kindergarten and I spend my days as a mom, a “wanna-be” philosopher, an athlete, a vegan gangster, and a VERY imperfect but graciously redeemed, daughter of Christ.  I live everyday more aware of the freedom that comes from the identity that Christ has called me to.   I’m passionate about a lot, but I’m straight up crazy about health.  The health of our spirit, mind and body and how to inspire our children to choose health, even when they are young.   I geek out about what kind of crazy potential can be reached in our bodies and our minds by living a clean, conscious, aware life.  What we put in our mind and bodies is either going to build and heal or compromise and deteriorate.

Writing has never been a strong suit for me, but I’ve been so blessed by the cleansing and freeing discoveries that have come from our families quest to live only by the name our creator calls us by, as well as the transition to becoming plant based (as a family) that I want to scream it from the mountain tops for anyone who cares to listen.  Our gains have been huge, but our struggles have also been huge.  It’s been a slow, challenging progression of success here on planet earth, in fact you could even say it’s been a bit of a “Thug Life” getting the whole family to accept, appreciate, and claim the journey, but we are overcoming against all odds. Perfect harmony in spirit, mind and body is a promise we have to look forward to in eternity, but until then I feel like Jesus has revealed some pretty kick ass truths we can claim immediately with the assurance of their perfection in the Kingdom to come!

My Story

Like everyone, I’ve walked through fire in plenty of areas in my life.  I was the oldest of three children, raised by two vastly different parents.  Growing up, I  had a strong sense of right and wrong, a very personal love for Jesus at a young age, but a scary amount of guilt around my own needs. For years I lived with deep self-hatred and ultimately figured out how to control my insecurities with an extreme fixation over body weight and a powerful dismissal of food from my life.  The monster responsible for distorting the beautiful role that food has in our life, is also a master at subtle lies that seem harmless and even fashionable, until you no longer have any control over powering down this imposter.  My experience with an eating disorder manifested itself deeply in my mind for years before it ever started to take on residence in my physical body.  My escape route has been in stages, and I credit my true victory over this painful disease to Jesus Christ, my husband and family, as well as the power of health and freedom I have found in exploring the possibilities of real strength in mind and body through plant-based eating.

I spent most of my youth afraid to play team sports, fear of letting others down and honestly, in general, massive confusion about things like “zone defense” and “offsides calls.”  I was born with a strong body,  the kind that bulks muscle just looking at a dumbbell.  It felt more like a curse than a blessing.  Like many females in my generation I was duped into the notion that beauty is found in waif-like form and that muscles are for boys.  I was a dancer through high school and was athletically gifted, but fought against my strong body until it wasn’t strong anymore.  I didn’t fully come to understand my body or its potential until I was forced into using it for something other than self hate and starvation.

There were many dark years of recovery.  The kind that recovered my body from the dangers of malnutrition, but not the kind that released my brain from the shame I felt from having to eat.   I even had a spiritual understanding that my life’s purpose was beyond this disorder.  Yet, I still could not shake the looming sense that I would always be haunted by food.  Despite the ache of these years, I had an army of soldiers fighting with me for victory in my mind.  I firmly believe that God used this army of people as real-life examples of his love.   I had a phenomenal therapist who I still think might have actually been an angel.   I had a brilliant and beloved college professor who spent years challenging my line of thinking, never putting up with any self-pity, but pulling out of me truth (R.I.P. Professor John Downs, AKA “Downsy”).  I had relentlessly devoted parents and a family who praised my courage to eat, let me process and process AND PROCESS what seemed like an unending emotional loop, and spent hours and hours in deep prayer over my life.  Then there was my superhero husband (fiancée at the time) who had the patience of Job and the wisdom of Gandhi.

In 1996, I bought my first mountain bike with my high school graduation money.  It was a steel frame GT Tequesta hardtail (steel is REAL).  It was something I had identified as a potential means to helping me find acceptance in the natural strength of my body.  I was about nineteen when at a divinely appointed moment, I was exposed to a handful of beautifully muscular-bodied professional female mountain bikers.  I was taken with their power and endurance and grit.  I deeply identified with what  I saw to be fearless life within them.  By no means was it an overnight solution to my deeply rooted attachment to the power I felt in starvation, but it was a start.  In 1999 I had recovered my body weight enough to be cleared to start some sort of physical activity again.  I decided I wanted to try to race my mountain bike.  Those gritty, dirt-shredding women hovered in my mind as a picture of health and for the first time I felt I had an alternate image of beauty to focus on.

I started racing in 1999 and haven’t stopped.  My bike became my safe house for many years.  When I was on my bike I felt untouchable by the monster in constant battle for my mind.  I felt free of my thoughts, free of anxiety, free of what I looked like, free to explore beauty.  My husband was also free to be with the real me.  We rode hours and hours together.  I had discovered a formula with my bike that allowed me just enough “time off” from the full time job it was to obsess over my body that I started to feel like it was worth eating again.  Being strong enough to race was motivation to eat, but it didn’t solve my shame.  I remained a hostage to these voices of shame and guilt around the enjoyment of food for many, many years, though from all external appearances, it seemed as though I had kicked my eating disorder to the curb.

For the next decade I raced my mountain bike, I trained for and competitively raced in a half-dozen to a dozen short and long course triathlons every year,  I put my husband through medical school, I managed a fitness facility in Bellevue, WA, I learned as much about mainstream nutrition and sports nutrition as any lay person could, I set extremely ambitious athletic goals, I went to the Olympic Training Center to obtain my USA Triathlon Coaching Certification, I ran my own coaching business and coached multi-sport athletes all over the country, and I became a Mamma to two beautiful babies (now 7 and 10).  What remained unchanged through all these years however, was the captivity to my body image (and the “what-ifs” around my body image if I were to ever let my guard down with food and sport for one moment).  The condition of my mind fluctuated from fearfully functional to miserably functional.  I had learned how to never let my guard down and it sustained me for a while, but not forever.

During this time my husband and I grew further and further apart.  It wasn’t just my relentless anorexic brain, but also what I think lots of couples fight against in marriage: apathy, personal addictions and fear.  You have to stay on top of what makes your love work.  You have to keep talking.  Otherwise you get in so deep you don’t know where to start.  We had gotten lazy about our love and so deeply enmeshed in our individual pursuits, we were no longer traveling in the same direction.  Admittedly, we started looking for love again, but not with each other.   In 2009 we almost lost our marriage and truly by the grace of God (and A LOT of TRUTH and honest hard work), we came out the other side more compassion-filled and in love than the day we married.  It took time to feel safe again and trust that we were both committed to the same things, but it also taught us that our marriage isn’t the account in which we store up our trust.  Only Jesus can offer that kind of safety and promise.  Understanding that has set our marriage free.  We live a very imperfect example of love, but because we both seek our assurance from a Savior so loving He was willing to suffer a brutal death for our imperfections, we our instantly liberated to be “real” with each other.  Not fearing the places where our relationship still needs work, but excited to see how God will speak victory over those places as we continue to seek Him and only Him, TOGETHER.

It wasn’t until December of 2012 that I reached critical mass, admitting that shame was still defeating me on a daily basis.  Life circumstances had gotten me to a point where I needed to pursue individual therapy again, this time with absolute resolve to get brutally honest about why I continued to be tormented.  I met with an EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapist every week for several years.  You can read more about this kind of therapy at the EMDR Institute website.  I was blown away at how profoundly effective this kind of therapy was for me.  I was able to identify the places in my life that I had always felt powerless and consequently, ashamed.  I was able to desensitize triggers and negative cognitions about myself and my worth. There were months that I felt exhausted from the work, but I felt so sustained by the Holy Spirit to keep slugging through the muck.  There was not one session that I wasn’t able to find deeply useful information about myself and about what I would rather believe about myself, even if I didn’t believe it yet.  It was in no way an easy road to haul, it was scary and exhausting in many of those sessions, but I can honestly tell you that today I am no longer at war with these voices that owned me for the better half of my life.   I actually believe the truths that seemed so hard for me to hold onto during those years of combat.  Psalms 139:13-15 says:  “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.  Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (NIV)

I cannot tell you how many times my husband and family spoke this verse over me.  I wanted to believe it,  but I couldn’t, I felt stuck.  One of the many powerful tools in EMDR therapy is to reprocess “stuck thinking.”  Removing the old obstacles (negative cognitions) that continue to create a block from healing and instead building a completely new brain pathway for belief systems to end in positive cognitions, rather than negative ones.  Not only do I believe that the work done with EMDR helped reprogram my brain to be able to AT LAST believe in the promise that I am fearfully and wonderfully made (along with a host of other positive cognitions about myself), but most importantly, I believe that my Savior, Jesus Christ has delivered me into a renewed mind about my body, my life and even my death.  I no longer am a slave to the lies that seek to keep me quiet, powerless and defeated.  I am a victor, I am a powerful and beautiful daughter of Christ, and I get the “W” every day I point to HIM as my reason to be.

I want to give credit where credit is due.  Let me be very clear that no therapy, no diet, no distraction would have ever allowed me to overcome these monsters of fear, guilt and shame, had I not first been delivered into the clear brain space by the author of my life.  I believe that as I created new pathways for my brain to think I divinely stumbled into a greater understanding that even MY victory (for the sake of MY victory) would never be as freeing or weightless as understanding the purpose and value of my life.  SOLELY to live out the name Christ has given me, bringing my Savior glory with every fiber of my being, including what and how much I eat.  This is a truth I cannot wait to write more about.  We are FREE to bring HIM glory, and that is where all my value and worth and hope and LIFE is sourced from. That is my ticket to a truly fearless existence.  The EMDR Therapy and Therapist was absolutely OUT OF THIS WORLD! The hard work was relentless! The patience and spiritual guidance of my family was unparalleled.  But make no mistake, the King of the universe has called me by name.  “He split the sea so I could walk right through it.  He has drowned my fears in perfect love.  He has rescued me so I could stand and say, I AM a child of God!” (Lyrics to one of my favorite praise songs by Bethel).

Thank you for the time in listening to my story.  It is not easy for me to write about myself, but I am overcome with a freedom in mind, body, and soul, and it would be a crime not share that!?  Even if it is only for one other story that may find a glimmer of hope or healing in identifying with mine.

Onward.