Rock piles, cathedrals and self-worth

Hi, I'm that guy, it's nice to meet you. Today's 'that guy' is the guy who I occasionally want to punch in the face, the one who always lives his/her life through quotes, through others, etc. (I love quotes, but not to the extreme.) Today, I become that guy for a fleeting moment as I offer you one of my recently found and now most favorite quotes. 

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, 

bearing within him the image of a cathedral.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Think about this for a moment, seriously sit back in your chair, pause the treadmill, stop pacing back and forth trying to burn those few extra calories and just think about this. What are we as people?  A lot of us are broken inside, or feel like we must be broken because we haven't got it all figured out, or because we momentarily fail.  We're "rock piles" in the proverbial sense. 

Antoine de Saint-Exupery is the incredible author of 'Le Petit Prince', or 'The Little Prince.'  This was a book that I remember from young childhood, and from senior year of High School, where my teacher had us read it.  I loved it.  

Whoops, I digress.  

The point of this quote to me is this: Along with myself, a lot of people I follow on twitter are partaking in weight loss measures: pant-based food diets, Couch to 5K, Weight Watchers, Biggest Loser Club, you name it. A lot of us have days where we struggle. What I feel like many of us are missing is the ability to see the end result within ourselves already. We already ARE the champions, we just haven't necessarily honed all of our skills to prove this to ourselves and to the world. 

I posted a little while ago about the Iron & Wine song that I love, where I spoke about secretly wishing that I was already 140 pounds, not wanting the scab (to do the work), just wanting the scar (to have already done the work). We all want that. The thing is, we have to try see the end result within ourselves in our current state (maybe, our sense of worthiness) before just we rush after a number.  If we don't, we'll never know what we were looking for, we'll keep running and it'll never be enough. 

But you know what? We all slip up, we have temporary set-backs, we beat ourselves up all day long. Yesterday, I snacked like all day.  Today, I've eaten healthily and am doing great. 

But YOU have to find, within yourself, the image of the proverbial 'cathedral', the person who deserves to be 140 pounds (or whatever your goal is), the person who should be loved today and not in a year from now. Watching the Biggest Loser it looks pretty easy to see others find the 'cathedral' each season, because we see an hour or two of their weeks, they have amazing support. It's easy to pity ourselves or feel self-doubt because we didn't find ourselves in what felt like the instant that these folks did. 

So, I post a challenge to you: Concentrate on small wins every hour, every day. Post your wins, on here, on twitter, in your own blogs. A win is as simple as taking the stairs when you really wanted to take the elevator, turning off the TV to go do fifteen minutes of yard work or walk the dog. Eating a piece of fruit instead of a candy bar. Stop waiting for life to find you. Concentrate on the positive, because you deserve it NOW.

Don't want the scab, only want the scar

FYI, this post has a slightly more adult theme to it (a couple of edited curse words, basically). Just be warned! :) 

So, I'm a bleeding heart (no pun intended, you'll see why in a minute) Iron & Wine fan.  I have been since long-before Garden State. For the movie, Zach Braff came to my house, stole all of my music, put my favorites it in his movie and gave me no credit. It was devastating! I'm totally kidding, of course, but it sure felt like that. ;)  Especially after people always say 'Oh, do you like so-and-so because of Garden State?' and then I wanted to slam my head through a brick wall. 

Anyway, I digress. A common theme.  "Let's circle back" as an old boss used to say (nails on a chalkboard)!  Iron & Wine have a song called Innocent Bones.  I've always loved it.  It's relaxing, the instruments are great, and I love the vocals. Here are the lyrics: 

Cain got a milk-eyed mule from the auction
Abel got a telephone 

And even the last of the blue-eyed babies know
That the burning man is the color of the end of day
And how every tongue that gets bit always has another word to say 

Cain bought a blade from some witch at the window
Abel bought a bag of weed 

And even the last of the brown-eyed babies see 

That the cartoon king has a tattoo of a bleeding heart 
There ain't a penthouse christian that wants the pain of the scab, but they all want the scar 
How every mouth sings of what it's without so we all sing of love 
And how it ain't one dog who's good at f--king and denying who he's thinking of

Cain heard a cat tumble limp off the rooftop 
Abel heard his papa pray 
And even the last of the black-eyed babies say 
That every saint has a chair you can borrow in a church to sell
That the wind blows cold across the backs of a master and the kitchen help 
There's a big pile of innocent bones still holding up the garden wall 
And it was always the broken hand we learned to lean on after all 
How God knows if Christ came back he'd find us in a poker game 
After finding out the drinks were all free but they won't let you out the door again

So the three lines of lyric that I love the most are bolded.  I know that every time I get bit I fight back.  With PTSD, I generally don't realize what I'm saying until it's too late. It's fight or flight - my brain's in flight, but I fight.  I'm getting better though. Win! 

The second lyric, "There ain't a penthouse christian that wants the pain of the scab, but they all want the scar" hits me every time I hear it, and I think of this lyric probably 3 times a week. I want to be 140 pounds. Do I honestly want to work it off ounce by ounce, 1-2 pounds per week until I get there? Goodness no! But, I'm going to, because magic wands do not exist, except for in Harry Potter....Those b*st*rds. ;-)  Win, I'm fighting back!

To those who feel like they need to fight or flight and are weighing heavily on the latter part, think about the second and third bolded lines: What are you running from? Are you looking for the scar, but running from the pain of the scab? Remember, it was always the broken hand we learned to lean on after all.  We can run, we can lash out, we can give up. We learned to lean on the broken hand, we learned to be weak, we learned to give up.  So UN-LEARN it all. 

The voices of Negative Nancy, Pissy Paula, Bitter Betty (sorry if your first names are any of these!) will visit us all sometimes, but have the option to have last word with them. I'm choosing to Win. Win with me.