Listening to your Inner Voice...NOT

I am a pretty confidant person.  I can be outlandish and I like dressing up and being crazy.  I don't mind people staring at me and mostly I welcome it.

But here is a secret, I can't stand staring at myself.

I am overweight.  I have been this way my whole life...I am always 20-50 lbs more than I should be.  I have been working on being fit since July.  I have been walking 3 miles a day 3-4 days a week increasing my speed so I am almost jogging.  No, I am not on any diet plan but I have been watching what I eat and I have cut out alot of stuff and toned down others...and I haven't really lost any weight.

That isn't to say that my body isn't changing from my efforts.  I feel good.  My t-shirts don't seem so snug.  So that is good.

I went to a yoga class on Saturday where everyone was pretty thin or at least athletic.  No one (except me from what I could see) was visibly overweight.  Now, I might be overweight but I am damn flexible and I was able to hold my own in almost all the poses...except plank.

I can't plank.  I can't get my toes to cooperate with my elbows and haul myself up off that floor.  I can't - it hurts too much.  So I try to do what I can (tensing all my muscles to a variation of plank) and I move on.

But then I looked in the mirror and all the hate filled words came tumbling out.  "You are so fat, you can't even plank, this was a stupid idea, you can't do anything right, you will never look like them, you should stop trying, you are a failure."

This is my inner bitch.  She is my inner voice that tells me that I am a failure, a nobody, a horrible mom and a stupid person...and I let her do it...almost every day.  She berates me for not doing something right or for making a wrong choice.  She is very mean and unsupportive.  She has always been the voice that would stop me from doing anything because there was a possibility that I might fail.

In other words she is usually not the best voice to listen to when you can't do a particular pose.

The instructor for the yoga class moved onto other poses and I did too.  Then she had us sit comfortably and take a ribbon from the floor and slowly wrap it up, folding it onto itself.  She told us to feel the ribbon and the workings of our hands and wrists and to present the ribbon when it is done like a flower.  I did what she asked while my inner bitch tried to yell at me some more.  I was able to still that voice as I worked and I was able to be in that moment.

At the end of class, I wanted to cry.  I tried to keep a straight poker face and to pack up my stuff and get out of there as fast I can.  The instructor came over and told me that I did very well, that I had a "good practice".  I told her that I didn't think I did at all.  Then she said that at the end when I was wrapping the ribbon and I was so present in that moment she could tell I was in the moment "and it was beautiful to watch you".

I was stunned and I thanked her and I left.  I cried later and got it all out of my system but that inner bitch voice is always there lingering.  Longing to catch me and berate me and keep me down.

But I don't have to listen to her.