The Last Fifteen Pounds

"When the body is finally listened to, it becomes eloquent." — Marion Woodman

There is a curious thing that happens when you stop trying to lose weight and begin trying to find yourself.

For years I believed my body was the project. It wasn't. My soul was.

Like so many women, I spent decades believing the next diet, the next meal plan, the next Monday morning would finally deliver the woman I longed to become. Instead, every diet left me hungrier, not simply for food, but for my freedom. Diets taught me deprivation. They taught me anxiety and they taught me to disassociate me from the wisdom of my own body. They convinced me that if I could just lose the weight, everything else would magically fall into place.

Yet not one diet ever asked me the question that would eventually change my life.

Why did I need the weight in the first place?

The turning point came when I listened to Angela Davis, a SoulCycle instructor and motivational speaker, talk about connecting our bodies to our life's purpose. It stopped me in my tracks because, for the very first time, I stopped seeing my body as something to shrink and started seeing it as the vessel that would carry my calling. That one thought changed everything.

Of course I wanted to look good in my clothes. I love beautiful clothes. I wanted to zip up jackets without sucking in my stomach, see my waistline again, and catch my reflection without immediately criticizing what I saw. But somewhere along the way, this journey stopped being about the outside and became the most fascinating adventure of my life.

I realized I wasn't simply uncovering a smaller body. I was uncovering the mystery of me.

Every insecurity that had quietly convinced me to build a fortress of flesh around myself became another clue. Every pound carried a story. Every layer had offered protection. Every excuse hid an old wound patiently waiting to be understood. What once felt frightening suddenly became exciting because I realized I wasn't fixing my body, I was discovering my soul.

After decades of dieting that produced little more than guilt, obsession, deprivation and inevitable rebound weight gain, I finally found my antidote, to live la dolce vita, the sweet life, and in that I found freedom!

People often ask how I lost the weight, and the honest answer surprises them.  I gave the middle finger to diets and quit.  I then focused on Louise Hay’s suggestion that only self-love works so that became my end all to be all.

Today I'm about fifteen pounds from my original goal, and ironically, these have become the hardest fifteen pounds of the entire journey. Not because of my metabolism, I finally sorted that out and not because I don't know what to eat – I eat everything for the record! No, these last fifteen pounds have very little to do with food.

Over the past year I have worked through my life one layer at a time, almost like peeling back an onion. I have looked honestly at old hurts, disappointments, limiting beliefs, people-pleasing, approval-seeking, grief and fear. And now, I have slowly uncovered the very place where all this  weight began. 

And standing here, I have realized something that feels both vulnerable and incredibly freeing.

The last fifteen pounds are asking me one final question.

Do I truly believe I am worth it?

Not worthy of losing weight or worthy of joy or my blessings or of abundance.

But somewhere along the way, believe it or not, my empathy became tangled up with self-denial. As a chronic giver, a recovering people pleaser and approval addict, I slowly began turning down the volume on my own happiness because someone else was struggling. I felt guilty celebrating my life when others were hurting. I almost waited for everyone else to get their lives together before allowing myself to fully enjoy my own.

The irony is that I have suffered too. I have known heartbreak, disappointment, loss, anxiety and seasons that brought me to my knees. But somewhere along the way I made a decision that changed everything. I decided I was going to heal. I was going to grow. I was going to keep showing up, and I was going to take responsibility for the only life I could actually change, my own.

That has been one of the greatest gifts of this entire journey.

Knowing without a shred of doubt that each of us, 100%, are responsible for our own healing.

As much as I love cheering people on, believing in them and wanting the very best for everyone around me, I have finally accepted that I cannot do their healing for them. I cannot carry their dreams, their courage or their willingness to change. That responsibility belongs to them just as mine belongs to me.

Marianne Williamson once wrote that shrinking ourselves does not serve the world, and I couldn't agree more. Every time we make ourselves smaller so someone else can feel more comfortable, we betray the very gifts we were given.

Today I can finally see that the weight was never my greatest burden. The burden was believing that everyone else's needs belonged ahead of my own. The burden was believing I had to earn my worth by over-giving, over-functioning and over-caring.

Not anymore.  Sorry folks, lol.

I love people deeply and I always will, but I no longer need to rescue everyone, convince everyone, fix everyone or earn everyone's approval.

One morning while walking around the track, a thought came to me so clearly that I have never forgotten it and it was the turning point of this entire journey.

"It's either going to be them... or you, Tara."

For the first time in my life, I chose me.  And not because I love other people less.

But because I finally understand that when I become the fullest, healthiest, most authentic version of myself, everyone around me benefits. But mostly, I benefit and that is THE most important thing.

Maybe that's what these last fifteen pounds have been trying to teach me all along.  That I was never simply losing weight.

I was finally laying down the fortress of flesh and stepping into the beautiful life that I’ve had all along and without guilt.  It has been said that we are each responsible for our own load in life.  I think I’ve done pretty good with mine. Only now I’m going to stop handing over my joy to people who are unwilling to pick up their own.  Because that isn’t love.  It’s self-abandonment. And I’m done abandoning myself to keep others comfortable.