YOU'VE GOTTA HAVE MOJO BABY!

YOU'VE GOTTA HAVE MOJO BABY!!

I never thought I would be saying this, I think I'm having a mid life crisis. 

Now, I am not looking for a toy boy to play with, neither am I rushing out to upgrade my car for a spunky convertible, or walking around like mutton dressed as lamb, but I have been feeling a little lost. My boys have flown the nest and I find myself experiencing " the empty nest syndrome" first hand. My laundry basket is no longer filled with smelling dirty washing, there are no engine parts spread all over my lounge carpet, my grocery cupboards always seem full and if I listen carefully I can still hear the sound of their child like laughter locked in the walls of our house.

 I miss them, and letting them go in search of their own lives, fulfilling their own dreams and finding love from another woman other than me is some days unbearable. Many no doubt, would say, " I wish mine were all grown up, independent and out of the house" Yes, I said that too, and often to them. " I can't wait for the day you leave home!" It arrived before I knew it, all too soon,  and days that were filled with nurturing, nagging, yelling, begging, threatening, laughing, crying, moaning about their huge amount of washing, using all my powers of persuasion to get them to clean their rooms or I would throw it all away, have gone and all I am left with is a very quiet empty house, where everything is tidy, in its place and my laundry basket no longer overflows and the spare beds are empty~

I feel as though I am no longer needed or wanted and one morning this year I woke up and found myself asking the question, " What is the point of my life?' Now don't get me wrong, I don't want to die but I feel as though I have lost myself. Or have I really truly known myself at all?

My life has been so filled with raising children, working, digging around in my past trying to understand the person I am right now, and quite frankly is a little creepy and even voyeuristic and I'm sick of it. I have always kept busy to prevent the lurking unanswered question of " Who am I and what is my purpose in life, other than to be needed, in order to feel loved"

Prior to my husband and I moving to Waiheke Island which is a remote island, a forty minute ferry ride from the main Island of Auckland, I lived a very hectic, stressful life, so much so that I ended up having a breakdown from the stresses to the point that I am no longer allowed to work full time.

For over ten years I have worked in the car industry, this is a very stressful industry filled with targets, challenges, goals, and egotistical sales men who are led around by their dicks and not their brains!

Being a business and finance manager required a lot of responsibility and to put it simply the buck literally stop at my office door. In order to survive in this industry and culture I had to grow balls and learn to speak their language. All three of my boys were living with us before we moved, so you can imagine, a full day of work and long hours plus I would have to work weekends and often not get home until 7 pm to find mounds of washing waiting to be done, dinner to be cooked, lunches to be made for the next day, ironing reaching out to me whenever I walked past the pile......and four cats meowing at me to be fed. There were days, moments that all I wanted to do was scream, " fuck off and leave me alone I am tired, beyond tired, sleep defies my tiredness" and now, what I would give for one of those days! 

But.....I am in the place right now where I am meant to be, learning what I am meant to be learning. 

I am now faced with silence, emptiness, I am faced with ME!

I have always been thin, in fact I have sadly to say been anorexic. As a young girl and as a woman during my years of abuse my weight was the only thing I could control. And control  it I did!

Since moving to Waiheke over the past year I have gained weight, in fact I'm sure it finds me , looks at me like a long lost friend and holds on for dear life. Most woman my age, 48 call it " Middle age spread" doesn't that just sound awful, but its true,.

My butt arrives half an hour after I have, my boobs ( I never used to have any really ) are now full and voluptuous, I have a cleavage! Those suck in my gut panties that come up to ones arm pits and ends at ones knees are hopeless all it does is shift the fat downwards leaving horrible looking dimples around the elastic!!!! I've given up holding my breath and sucking in my stomach, and I am exhausted at standing in front of the mirror continuously berating myself,  "Look at you Melanie, you are so fat, ugly, no one will look twice at you, being fat makes you unlovable!" I have tried every diet, drunk enough shakes to last me a life time and I still don't look like a celebrity despite it being called " The celebrity diet"

I have spent the past year on my own a lot. From being in busy Auckland I found myself isolated, and no longer wanted to go out or make friends. I would sleep the afternoons away, longing for sleeping tablets just to pass the day away. My crafting, sewing, became a chore, a means to an end, I desperately wanted it to work, it had cost us a lot of money investing in importing the Shweshwe fabric from South Africa, designing patterns, making samples, setting up websites, accountants, business plans, costing etc and it failed.

My husband never fails to remind me of how much it has cost us, or rather him and so I have retreated into my shell, afraid to try again in case I fail, afraid to spend money in case I'm accused of being irresponsible and " not getting" the financial situation of living on one income. 

So, my self confidence was at zero, my self image non existent and my passion for life, the vibrancy, the heart beat and fire I used to feel each morning was gone, and I felt as though I had no reason to get up in the mornings, except of course to meet my husbands needs of ironing his shirt, making his coffee, making his lunch for work, taxing him to the ferry, and then when I got home, there was nothing.

A book was referred to me by a face book friend, called "My bum looks brilliant in this" an excellent book that has started to challenge me and my thinking.

The Law of Cumulative, which applies to every area of our lives is : the more you do of what you are doing the more you will have of what you've got", so with my weight on an upward trend and doing nothing about it I have had to accept that if I didn't start doing something about it, I would keep gaining weight or,  I could make a major shift in my thinking and behavior.

The big question I have had to ask myself is " what is the state of my life right now" 

Karen Nimmo the author of this book says, " a woman's weight is inextricably linked to the state of her life" and that is why you can not throw a diet and an exercise regime at a woman and expect it to work. It won't. If it does, it is short term, you lose the weight and before you know it, wallah its back!

A lot of the time it has to do with events or people in her past that she is unconsciously holding on to.

Who are you Melanie? Who do you want to be?, this is where I have had to start, with me the woman and with the vision of myself. If I don't know who I am and what I want from my life, no one can help me get there. If you don't know and understand those things about yourself, you're stuck, in all aspects of your life. I never really addressed these questions in the past, because I thought I knew who I was, it was obvious, a wife, a mother, I had a career, I was the cook, the cleaner, of course I knew who I was and my purpose in life.......to clean the toilets, wipe snotty noses, meet my husbands needs and when I had a free mo, do something for myself.

So, its taken me awhile to get to the point, hasn't it? I really don't like myself at all and my weight gain over the past year is just a physical expression of the problem. It is about the state of my life, my past, my present, and my future. Ah-ah!

Don't get me wrong, diets do work, ( my favorite being, lose weight while you sleep diet! ) and are useful because they provide us with some structure, sensible advice and encouragement. But controlling your food intake is only part of the solution. I realized that  unless I began to deal with my issues, stresses in my life, and make some changes to my thinking and my behavior, I might as well hit the fridge!

I have been challenged to have an accurate baseline of why I am carrying excess weight, why I have gained weight and continuing to do so, and why I am struggling to lose it. 

But, not so much an inventory of what I am eating but more of an inventory of who I am, what has happened in my life and what's going on RIGHT NOW.

Have you any idea after years of having a fabulous body even after three kids, 3 cesareans, a hysterectomy it has been to look in the mirror and ask myself honestly, " Can I live with what I am now?" Can I achieve happiness the way I am now?"

WHO AM I?

WHAT DO I LOVE TO DO?

WHAT AM I GOOD AT? ( besides cleaning the toilet!)

HOW DO I FEEL ABOUT MY LIFE RIGHT NOW?

WHEW!!!!

I sadly realized I had lost my vision, my passion, my purpose, even my energy and will to carry on.

This has shook me to my core.....

I have therefore made the commitment to myself, to change my behavior, answer the above questions truthfully and do something about it. My children will always be there, but they are living their lives now and so must I, PASSIONATELY, WITH VISION, ENTHUSIASM, WILL, DRIVE, LOVE, AND SELF ACCEPTANCE, SELF BELIEF AND SELF CONFIDENCE.

I want to be able to look in the mirror and smile at myself and say " Melanie, you are gorgeous, beautiful, desirable, and I love you just the way you are!

I have begun a new business called NAUGHTY BY NATURE, feel free to pop over to my face book page and read about it. I am designing and making a range of woman's Lingerie made from the authentic, beautiful Bamboo Fabric. I feel more alive, I have a goal, a vision, something to get up for in the morning, other than for my husband, and even if all goes well, a legacy to leave my boys!!

Lots of love, and thanks so much for stopping by and taking the time to read my blog.

A few pic's of my gorgeous body, my first sample of my french knickers and Camisole ( although not made in the Bamboo fabric as yet, still waiting on it to arrive!)

Love

Melanie xx