Weekly Vlog: When Life Gets Lifey
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 พ.ค. 2024
- Sometimes life gets really lifey. We say that a lot in Bright Line Eating. It’s true, isn’t it? Life just gets lifey.
There are levels of “lifeyness”. There’s intense work stress. There’s long-term caretaking for someone who is ailing. There’s having kids who are struggling. And then there are more extreme examples, that are just next-level stressors. Traumatic things. People I know and love have experienced these things. Coming home to find your life partner dead from suicide. Experiencing your child being killed. Being raped and beaten in your home. Escaping from your burning house with just your life and the clothes on your back.
Many years ago, after years of fertility treatments, I finally got pregnant with my twins. It was my first pregnancy, and I was in my mid-30s. But I went into labor four months early, and was told that there was a 4% chance they would both survive and be healthy.
Life dishes out major things.
This week I’m walking with two friends. One I just met, the other a lifelong friend, and they are dealing with things at this level. Heavy duty stuff. I’ve been amazed and impressed with how they’re dealing.
One of them is brand new to putting her food on the scale and not eating sugar and flour. Earlier this week she didn’t even want to be alive. She was overtaken by a destroyer part-a form of the inner critic that tries to help us by wiping us off the earth. Because it’s concluded that we’d be safer if we were dead.
I’ve been so impressed by watching this new person adopt the orientation that if she just weighs and measures her food and doesn’t eat sugar or flour, she can grow and change and survive and thrive. She is starting to believe that she can recover from trauma and build a new life. She doesn’t fully believe it all the time, but she takes it one meal at a time.
Why is it that for some of us, if we keep our recovery central, it becomes the foundation for a whole new life? It does make sense that giving yourself good nutrition, weighing and measuring the right portions, and not eating after dinner, you’re going to regain good sleeping habits. And nurturing deeply supportive human connection is a lifeblood and keeps you from feeling isolated. And slowly but surely all things are possible. This makes sense.
For some of us, for whom food addiction has been a beast, it’s true that if we weigh and measure our food, abstain from sugar and flour, eat only what we’ve committed, work our tools, stay connected, and do the next right thing-we find ourselves taking bold, brave, sane actions. Meal by meal, day by day, we are transformed. We get to blossom into people we never thought we could be, people we love and respect.
For some of us, earning respect starts with the food. It’s the keystone habit. The root structure. It becomes the foundation of everything. Every branch, every leaf, comes from that root.
So when life gets lifey, we have two options. We can double down on our recovery. Weigh and measure everything. Get extra support. Lean into our Bright Lines. OR we can get dominated by the manager parts of us, the caretaker parts. They say, oh we have other stuff to do, life is lifey, work is stressful, this is too hard, I’m in pain-and we let go of our recovery a bit and numb ourselves with food, or stay busy with other things and lose our Bright Lines. And it all gets slippery. And then of course we’re not getting good nutrition or good sleep, and life just gets lifier.
We have two options when life gets lifey. We can drop our roots deeper into the ground and lean into our Bright Lines. Or we can get carried away with the parts that say, I can’t prioritize my recovery now because there’s too much else in my life, and we can get caught up in that swirl.
And whether it’s a small or an immense swirl, we can use it as a reason to take us right out. I see people equally likely to get carried away from their Bright Lines when it’s a minor experience of lifeyness or a major life catastrophe.
I’ve seen people, including myself in 2008, who weigh and measure and don’t break their Bright Lines during major, major life traumas. For me, when my twins were born weighing one pound each, the food felt like the only thing I could control. It was all I could do. I think that’s why for some folks who are experiencing unimaginable tragedy, they are grateful, often, for the roots and the firm tree trunk of just knowing that no matter what they can weigh and measure and stay true to themselves and nourish themselves with healthy Bright food, and stay connected to their network.
It’s beautiful and inspiring to watch people pick that path.
There are two paths... [ Click here for full summary: ble.life/fgNH3W ]
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Thank you for this. I really needed this. Love from Israel ❤
"Meal by meal, day by day, we are transformed." So true!!!! Love to all my BLEer friends past, present and future. Thank you, Susan! Taking my health back day by day. 🥰
Love to you too!🥰🥰
My life got VERY lifey a couple of weeks ago and hasn’t stopped. This is Day 7 (again) of BLE because I knew I needed safety in one area of life. Comfort. I knew I’d turn to food if I didn’t immediately get on BLE. Thank you Susan for helping with that area of my life.
It just hit me why this is so powerful, at least for me. I may not always practice it, but I have always believed that helping others is the best way to heal yourself. Thank you for sharing.
Terrific and wise advice to live by. Thankyou for your wisdom, scholarship and care.
Wow Susan. I'm new to BLE, 3 weeks into it. I have experienced positive physical results already! Equally so, videos like this and the dozen or more I've watched are always inspiring me to be the best version of myself, both foodwise and mentally. Thank you for the astounding love you have for all of us and the care you take to help us be all around healthy. May our great God bless you and your family!
Thank you for taking the time to comment! 💖 Way to go on 3 weeks and thank you so much for your kind words 🧡🧡
Phew!!! This one was so deep I had to listen to it about 3 times!!!!! 🙏🏾🙏🏼
My son died by suicide several years ago. Most recently, I applied for a Bright Line Scholarship but was rejected. It seems ironic that I didn't get financial support to join your program after listening to your vlog today.
Wishing you much peace.
To John Asams: Of course I do not know the details of your scholarship application & my experience with BLE & finances is different from yours but I will share it anyway. I was on the original email list back on 2014 or 2015, have watched every vlog ever produced 😂, have promoted BLE to hundreds of people, have taken the BLE 1st book out of libraries & offered them to people who wouldn't buy the book, have sponsored people in BLE, have taken the 14- day challenge (which costs $) & last year year had an All Access Membership ( also $).
I have been a longtime BLE supporter, both in terms of active, encouraging promotion & as a living example of sustained weight loss & JOY, as well as financially.
I always found having to access all the wonderful online materials challenging but doable but, at some point last year, BLE changed the procedures & it became too complicated to access the courses. I did not get to take the Maintwnamce courses or Rezoom. I was able to watch only about 10% of the content. I wrote to Customer Support, explained that I was 72 years old & asked for an extension. ( I may have also mentioned that I was living on Social Security.) My request was denied.
I have never been one to say that this BLE Movement was all about making money & I am not saying that now. But I was disappointed. 😢
Susan has said that her chief demographic is white, middle-upper middle class, educated, middle- aged women. But I am now older than middle-aged 😅 &, since retirement, am scraping the bottom of the middle class. And John you're a man! 😮
To be clear, I am neither saying nor implying discrimination of any kind. Just saying that I'm sorry that finances prevented you from getting the help you desired. 😊 ( And sorry beyond words about the loss of your Son. ❤)
We should be careful not to have an attitude of entitlement. We have not sacrificed our energy, time and lifeblood to create this ministry/business but Susan has. Brightline has ministered to thousands with free materials. If everyone was given a free program, the business would not be sustainable and we would have nothing. Let's be grateful for this amazing opportunity and for Susan's generous, transparent and kind heart.
As usual; exactly what I needed to hear. Last week my friend lost her son. I lost my computer. I need to put things in perspective because the way I was feeling you would have thought I lost my son (gd forbid)
I’m grieving that 2 years ago I left the west coast for the East, and I’m having a really hard time adjusting.
Lifely atuff
I have loved these Vlogs for years and years. This vlog however just became my very most favorite of all. It is BRILLIANT on so many levels. Thank you Susan XXXOOO
💖Thanks so much for the high praises!
I couldnt agree more that, regardless of whether life seems easy & blessed or incredibly painful & challenging, my recovery is always the first & primary issue. ❤ I also found it true in my experience that the times that I am 100% committed (100% committed not 100% perfect), I go through the tough times as I do the easy ones. And, when I am
Your response to me was deleted and it wasn't deleted by me!
SPT, have you ever broken your lines? I have been a BLE for 4 years in February 2024. I had a hard fall in the past month. If I needed to hear any vlog, this vlog was golden for me. I'm rezooming but so disappointed in my choices.
Marie
Have I ever broken my lines? Not in quite a while, but oh my goodness I spent several years struggling. Here’s a vlog I shot a long while back about it…
th-cam.com/video/12Zly-93i1o/w-d-xo.htmlsi=Le54jQBklBFz8-BK
Thank you.
"Bold, brave, sane, helpful actions" Yesss, I love this phrase. "We get to blossom." yes ;_;
Exactly 🥰
That's quite an improvement on your videos, good job!
Oh. Made me cry a bit knowing how much I whine about minor things at times. Someone always has it worse. It does not mean my stuff is trivial per se, but someone always has it worse. I need to be thankful and grateful not whiny. Thank you for the reminder.
Sending hugs 🫂
Wow, I just found my issue. If my priority is my sobriety, than how can my priority be BLE? It deters from my primary purpose, not drinking. How can you have 2 prioritie that"your life depends on?" Hum
Just my thoughts, but since alcohol has sugar, doesn't it fall under the no sugar line? I miss it sometimes, but when I slap a glass of wine under that no sugar line, it ceases to feel like 2 different priorities,and seems more like an umbrella of protection for me under the lines. I am not perfect at all, but my life is indisputably better when I can be clean, sober, abstinence, from all of it. Just me, not judging or trying to give advice, just sharing my experience.
If you are a BLE member, you should get coaching from Joanne Rice Campbell. I believe she is a recovering Alcoholic and food addict. As is Susan. They can both give you advice on how to handle both.
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