Money guilt – Emotional Weight Series

Hi everyone!

Welcome to Finding Myself Through Obesity Blog! Ever since last weeks blog post, I have been having a continued feeling of guilt. I have just noticed that i’ve been hungrier. The reason that I’ve been losing weight is because I’ve been happy and satisfied. I haven’t felt that hunger and emptiness that I needed to feel. Just like I wrote in my last blog post, I’ve been feeling a little bit off and this week that guilt is continuing as i am going into this blog entry where I’m talking about money.

Money has been a big issue for me. I’m always afraid of not having enough money. As I am feeling this guilt. I’m remembering what my mentor Angel said to me that “emotions are the alarm clocks to our awareness”. I can feel that there is something that’s been deep inside of me that’s trying to come up. Honestly it’s really been hard to look at. Even though this is really hard for me I just want to say what’s on my mind. I have not been honest about the way that I’ve dealt with money. My husband works all the time and he hands me over everything he makes. He gives me everything even if he sold something he would bring me the cash. He would give it to me. He gives me everything he has. I do not do the same for him. I am realizing what an issue this is. I spend more money on eating out than we can afford. Then when I spend more money…. I try to manipulate and justify why the money that’s being spent was not my fault. I try to put the blame on the bills or something else so that I don’t have to be accountable for the money that I am spending on eating out.

There is something deeper. I think it’s the hiding and the dishonesty that I’m having with myself and with my husband and with all the other people that we have money dealings with. I don’t want to be irresponsible but I am! I am because I want to be able to make sure that I’m fed. I guess the question that I want to know is why? What would happen if I wasn’t fed? I’m trying to really dig deep and figure out what does that represent. If I have money, then I can buy the food that I need to eat and there’s something tying me to making sure that I have that money…. just in case I need to buy me that food.

So the one thing that’s been different in the past three weeks is that I’ve been getting like $500 a month donating biolife but I didn’t pass the speed test this last round so I haven’t been able to donate plasma for the past three weeks. Interestingly enough that’s when I’ve been starting to feel weird and so because I don’t have my own money that I can go and spend on food for me…. now I’m starting to feel that need to take it from our family budget so that I can get my needs met. This is really hard for me to admit this. It’s so embarrassing because this is not who I want to be but it’s the truth right now. I’m trying to figure out why.

I remember going to a counselor one time and he said to me, “You’re really good at making sure you are fed!” and I was embarrassed and said, “yeah? Um… thanks… That’s not what I want to hear!” haha But what he was trying to tell me is that I am good at taking care of my needs when I know what I want. I am capable of taking care of my needs and if I don’t feel like my needs are getting met in other ways…. Why am I not, you know, taking those same measures to get my needs met in other ways. I think maybe it has to do with control. Maybe my food and my food intake is the only thing that I feel like I have control over because of my need to be perfect and my need to please everybody? Maybe it’s the only thing that that I can control because everyone else has control over everything else?

The reason why this all got brought up was yesterday I went and spent some money at target to get some things that I needed and I got in my car and I felt so much guilt. I felt sick to my stomach and I was thinking to myself…. “Why am I feeling so guilty about things that I really need?” when the night before I spent $50 buying cheeseburgers for our family when I could have made dinner? It’s these things that I’m continually doing that make me feel so guilty. What does it mean? Why does it mean so much to me that I’m fed? I want to know…. what does that really mean? What is what more is there? What’s underneath the food? I need to be fed so that I feel like i’m enough? I need to be fed so that i feel like i’m in control? So i feel like i’m taking care of myself? So that i feel like i’m enough or because of my needing to be perfect and my having this standard for myself that’s fully unrealistic ….. maybe that’s where my dishonesty comes into play? Is it that i’m just trying to fill that void of not feeling like i’m enough because i will never measure up to that perfect girl that i always wanted to be? (I’m talking myself through different possibilities here haha)

It’s not realistic to be perfect so i’m feeling a lot of shame and guilt about this way that i’ve been behaving and the way that my husband gives me everything that he has. He gives his family everything he has and I have not done the same for him and he deserves for me to do the same for him. I almost never buy anything else other than food and so going back to scarcity mindset and money if i wasn’t spending money on eating out which is super expensive then i would have the money to pay my bills. i feel like this issue is huge in the reason why i’m eating because i’ve been feeling very hungry and very uncomfortable and very guilty.

The fact that i’m trying to be more aware….. i’m seeing that there’s something else. it’s like layer after layer there is still digging that I have to do. It’s not like it just appears to us. it’s still hard. it’s still painful and i can’t expect me to just, “think oh wow, i’ve got the answer and this is it and there’s going to be no bumps in the road. i have to realize that they’re going to be layers for the rest of my life. i may have to continue to take those layers off and i’m so grateful for angel teaching us that emotions are the alarm clocks to our awareness because that is what’s made me realize that i’m getting hungry again and ask myself why am i so hungry? what am i really hungry for? As i did that process I realize i’m hungry for being enough of feeling like i’m enough if we get down to it to the core of it…. usually we feel like we’re not enough. We feel like we’re not lovable but i am grateful that i am being aware of this today.

I was reading a book called “Loving What Is” and she talks about how we always have everything we really need. I was thinking about how true that is. Even though i have spent money on food and we have not been responsible about our money at all. Whenever we really really needed something we would always find a way to make it happen. i know that i do have scarcity around money and in my meditations i am imagining money being everywhere. I open the drawer and there’s money…. the fridge there’s money…. the freezer there’s money. haha I’m trying to see money everywhere. I know that that money doesn’t have to be hard to earn. All the beliefs that we have around scarcity are just not true and i feel like this uncovering is a huge part of me being able to invite abundance into my life because i’m still to this day struggling with not wanting to go and spend money on food so i’m going to take this week and really think about why i’m doing what i’m doing.

I don’t know if i’m going to just uncover it right here but i’m going to be thinking about it i will report back next week. Maybe I’ll do a second episode around money and the scarcity around money because i felt like i needed to address this issue first. i’ve been racking my brain all week feeling something’s off all week long. i needed to just get this off of my mind. I already talked to my husband and he tells me that he’s done things he’s not proud of either and then i need to forgive myself. He’s so easy to forgive me and i’m so grateful for that. i’m gonna ask God to help me forgive myself and not only help me forgive myself but help me to be accountable for myself because that’s what all these layers of fat represent. They are layers of lies and layers of deep hurt and things that we just aren’t willing to look at. that’s why i know that what i’m doing is going to work. As long as i keep getting up and i keep meditating and i keep dreaming and i keep being willing to learn. I continue to be willing to be honest with myself even if it’s embarrassing and even if it’s hard to see. I will keep asking, ” what else is there?” I’ll keep learning about myself.

So in conclusion to this blog post….. i want you to think about something that you are hiding. i think we all have those dark sides of us that we don’t want anyone to know. Maybe on the other side of that darkness, if we can let light shine on that darkness that we will realize we’re not alone. that all of us have something that we’re hiding. We all have something that we’re ashamed of and that is just the human experience.

I am so grateful for this experience and for the things that i’m learning about myself. i’m hoping that i can inspire you all to do the same with your life and uncover all of these things that we’ve been hiding for so long so that we can be lighter in our spirits and lighter in our bodies and be on the journey of learning just like God intended us to be on. I apologize that i didn’t get to the scarcity mindset quite as much as i wanted to today but i’m going to address that next week. i just felt like this was important to get this off my chest today. i appreciate you following me on this journey. if you guys want to ask me any questions or just tell me how you felt about this podcast or tell me about your experiences….. you can find me on instagram or on facebook at finding myself through obesity. i would love to hear from you so that i can continue sharing the things that are true to me but also things that are helping you on your journey too. HAVE A GREAT WEEK.