#SnapTheThread

Day 17... I realize it's not just about the shakes.

There is an African parable about the captive elephant. One day a man found a baby elephant and stole it, took it home and placed a chain around it's back leg and attached it to a spike. The elephant could only go as far as the chain allowed. As the elephant grew, it learned the length of the chain and the length of it's freedom. At some point along the way, the captor took the chain off, while the elephant slept, and replaced it with a thread. When the elephant awoke it was none the wiser. When it moved and felt the tug of the thread, and went no farther. The elephant remained trapped by this thin thread, the habit of the tug.

[Stop it... I'm not crying, YOU'RE crying]

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I am a little over half done this de-toxing process and I have come to see a huge change in myself. Felling better physically has really made me face-up to some other "junk" that has been hanging around in my life, the threads that I am bound by:

Material Possessions: Yes, I am a pack-rat. Never know when you are going to need that sweatshirt from 12 years ago- keep it. Those shoes you bought for a hideous costume ball- can't live without them! Just to be clear, I am not ready to be featured on Hoarders, but I had things to could let go.... and so I did. Bags and bags of clothing that I had been holding on to for years, gone or passed on. Beauty products that I never used, gone. Shoes, books, even pens  (gasp, I know!) all gone and donated. I feel better, I feel lighter.

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Relationships: We all have those people in our lives that are as pleasant as a colonoscopy and equally impossible to avoid. While scrubbing my floor (very Zen, BTW) I thought to myself, I don't need this hurt any more, I don't need this junk in my heart any more, it is taking up space for something good. And with the next "wax on, wax off" it was gone. 

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Hang-ups: As a woman, I have many hang-ups (confession time here) I don't like my feet to look big, I have acne scars, my hips are wide, no thigh gap, I have baby bangs that drive me crazy. I hate the way I can look cross-eyed in pictures sometimes. I could go on, but I won't, mostly because I have let many of these things go, not all - but I am on my way.

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Bad Habits: Some of my worst habits are my thought patterns, "I am not worthy," anger, lack of self-confidence or that snarky monologue that can play in my head when I am feeling vulnerable. GOODBYE... well goodbye at least 75% of the time so far. These things were holding me down, these were threads.

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So this whole process is not just about the shakes. It's about me changing me. It's about me snapping those threads and walking away. One by one I feel a little more free and wanting people that I care about to feel the same. #snapthethread