the romantic idea of how it´s gonna be vs. reality

So I am here.
It´s a peaceful place. I am in contact with myself.
But is that always nice? No. Does that alone make me happy? No. Do I still have to fight for having a good day? Yes. A lot. Too much.

I go surfing. I meet interesting people. Nice people. But does it help me be a different person? No. I am still me. I still have to fight to change my patterns.

Being here is pretty much all I ever hoped for. And I DO feel good. In a way. This is where I need to be. But it´s not pleasant. I took myself on this journey. I WANTED this. I NEED this. But it´s still a struggle.
I struggle with food a lot right now. That´s the front row of the enemy, my mind. I don´t particularly overeat, but I think I do. Constantly. I feel I am bloated and wobbly and huge. I know I am not. But I have to fight the urge to become really desperate when I look into the mirror. I don´t want to live in this body when it looks like this. I don´t want to hate my body either. It´s 16 years of eating disorder and there is the frequent occasional days of not knowing how to work this out. My body feels best when I eat little with big breaks in between. But that happens to be the exact opposite to what my addiction wants me to do.
So where do I go? Extreme control and self-discipline? Can only work for so long and then I´ll catch up. On the calories. Letting go and just eat? I will die of panic, I get so insecure I tend to overeat to cause me then to be more rigid with myself again. Just not think about it? Great idea. Don´t think about lemons. Now.

Behind these first lines of my inner war there is the thoughts. About being not enough, wrong, ugly, fat, a burden, only good when I bend myself so much I almost break. I can think that in ANY occasion. I can spend days only thinking these thoughts. I have done so. It makes me extremely frustrated to know that I have.

Then there comes the guilt. That I haven´t saved my parents´marriage. Our family, That I wasn´t strong enough to fix it all, to hold it all together. That I haven´t done everything right, meaning perfect and flawless. With the true belief that THAT would have made the difference.

When I made it through all of these lines, there is the big monster. My self-hatred. Which is the seal on that immense big tub of self-love. It has become so strong over the years, the seal has almost grown in.

But it hasn´t, I know that, I have already broken it. Very shortly. But nevertheless impressive. It was the last day of last year´s Yoga Festival in France. During a meditation, I literally opened my heart. I could see it. From the inside. The immense love that is there. For myself, for the world, for everything. So strong it took me days to recover, it was such a shock to see and feel it. It shook me to the core to see in this little instant that I DO love myself. That I CAN be happy. That I CAN enjoy this life. That I can LIVE after all that zombie-like vegetating as an anorexic, then as a depressed overeater. That I love myself. This miniature moment of complete insight into my core (at least that it what it felt like) changed my life forever. Ever since then I have been searching for a way to cultivate it. My self-love and my being connected to my soul. Because as my spiritual name tells me, that´s my potential. So I want to live up to that.

I pray that someday I will. For today I will have to accept defeat once again.