Intuitive Eating=Intuitive Living

[Guest guest]

Warning...long and the IE part is at the end! Hahah...

Actually…this is something I’ve known for awhile…something that has

echoed in my head but has gotten stronger and stronger.

I don’t want to be a reporter anymore. At least not in the traditional

sense.

None of you out there in blog land know me. So here’s the short order:

I come from a family of high achievers, professional parents and a

private high schools with a huge pressure to succeed. I got my first

internship at my hometown newspaper when I was 16 and did well at it.

Everyone thought: le is meant to be a journalist. I thought, I

was meant to be a journalist. I mean I was 16. But I couldn’t just be

any journalist. I had to be one of those high powered, works for a big

metro daily journalist.

Of course life happened. Things went swimmingly well after high

school. I eventually transfered to the school of school of journalism

at USC. A Big Deal (I say that both sarcastically, and truthfully

because it is). More pressure, more expectation (though in my wisdom

now, I can see a lot of it was self imposed).

Then life really happened. I sank into a deep depression, complete

with psychotic episodes, hearing voices, periods of not bathing and

then a hospitalization. I was 20. For five years, I was off meds, on

meds, in school, out of school but never fully well and always in some

sort of despair. I also ballooned from about 115 to 180 pounds.

Then life happened again. I was finally diagnosed with bipoloar

disorder went on lithium and my god…it worked like a charm. It was

like nothing ever happened to me and slowly I rebuilt my life. With

the the help of therapy, my parents, family, God, friends and my own

courage I was able to rebuild bridges I had destroyed (academic and

career wise) when I was ill. I re-enrolled in community college and

transfered to a state university to finish my journalism degree. I was 25.

I graduated this summer and never thought I would see the day I would

walk the stage. My parents were so happy they cried. After battling

and surviving a mental illness, I did what I thought I would never do:

re-enter school, and graduate. This brings us today, where I am 28.

Oh so yeah, back to the journalism part. I worked like a dog and had

five internships in the last three years, each of them growing in

subscription size and the last one moving out to the midwest. Everyone

was sure I would get to an even bigger paper. But somewhere along the

way, voices in my head grew louder and louder that I DID NOT WANT TO

BE A REPORTER (haha…these weren’t the crazy ones) and that this is NOT

what I want to do with my life. (for time purposes, we won’t get into

that here).

At the end of December, I will officially be done with my degree

(because of all of my transfers, I had to take a geology and history

class to completely finish). This means that I am at a turning point

now where the result of my last three years of hard work can either

lead me further down the course of journalism, or…I can explore

something completely new, exciting and fresh.

It’s hard to walk away because I feel like I will be letting everyone

down, especially all of my mentors who have helped me build up my

career thus far. I feel like my journalism crazy friends won’t

understand me anymore if I walk away. Most of all, I feel like I will

be letting my parents down because I do not want to be in a career

that I started out in.

I admitted today to my boyfriend at lunch, as I cried into my won-ton

soup (on an IE note, I only felt like soup and got the soup and ate it

all, very slowly especially since it was hot ) that I didn’t want

to be a reporter anymore. I have said it before, but this time when I

cried, I knew I meant it.

It is oh so sad. I feel like I have to mourn a part of me and my

identity that died. A part of my identity that I nursed, nurtured and

cared for for so long. But a 28-year-old is different than a

16-year-old, and I just can’t bring myself to enter a profession that

I know I don’t want to be in (5 internships was the best thing that

happened ever…so I could try it before I fully committed to it!).

It is scary not being defined by a major, the next big internship I

want to land or a career path. But I can’t drag myself somewhere I

don’t want to go.

This to me, relates in a big way to eating. Why do we stuff ourselves,

either with food or expectations we have of ourselves or others, while

we ignore what we really want to do or eat?

Why do we keep eating in a way that is harmful for us, or keep signing

ourselves up for things to please other people or to meet some self

imposed ideal of what we are supposed to be?

Why do we ignore ourselves when our bodies tell us we are full? Why do

we ignore ourselves when it comes to these seemingly big, big

decisions in life?

It is so hard to be brave, and to stand up for myself and what I

really want. Partly because I don’t know yet what I want.

But I do know, that at least for now, it isn’t journalism. Or crappy

non-fat food that I used to eat in large amounts to make up for the

thing I really wanted to eat ;[).

xoxo,

le

[Guest guest]

le!

Good for you! This is the VERY best time in your life...

I have had to change life directions twice. The first time was when I was 29. I was in a PhD program in psychology. Now, I didn't have anyone outside of me telling me I needed to do it. But, my husband at the time was a doctor and I was following in his footsteps. Then, almost suddenly (over a period of just a few months) I realized that I didn't NEED a Phd. I didn't need one to do what I wanted to do for a living, I didn't NEED one to prove that I was my husband's intellectual equal. I was *very* close to the end of the program, but I did a shocking thing. I left them both--my husband and my degree program.

Fast forward 12 years to now. I'm remarried and have been a writer for almost ten years. My youngest child is going into Kindergarten next fall, which means that in a year and a half, he will be in school full time for the rest of his childhood.

I realized that if I was going to make any kind of change, now is the time to do it. I also realized that, this time, I don't need to leave the husband to make a serious personal change.

Now, couple this with the fact that I have been practicing IE since January 2007 and am really growing as a person.

I ended up using my intuition to help me choose my new career path! I've enrolled in a dual master's level certificate program in Whole Health Education/Whole Health Coaching, and should be certified by the time my son starts school in September.

So, I guess what I am saying is, YES! IE can start you on a path of listening to your intuition in every area of your life. That's probably the main reason IE is so scary. It's so much easier to listen to what society, your family, even your intellectual mind is telling you.

But kudos to you for learning this so young!! Use your intuition to guide you along the career path you want to be on.

Traci

PS: Go Trojans!!