Another week and its time for another blog. This week’s instalment is about my journey, and I will be focusing on the part of my past that lead to my weight gain.
I recently learnt by working with my life coach that I would sometimes struggle to dream and think of those long-term goals. I could do short-term very well, preparing and enacting them with a passion. So I started to explore this and find out why this was. I discovered that I could not remember anything below the age of Ten.
Any memories before Ten had been chained up and thrown into the far reaches of my mind. This meant I found it harder to dream, as we learn to dream at a young age and I had lost that.
“This moment in my life was so powerful it has left a profound mark on my past and memory”
I always thought that I was overweight from a very young age, but I found out talking to my sister that it only started when I was ten years old. This started me wondering what event changed my behaviour. My sister was able to clarify for me with some shocking experience:
Our Neighbours at the time tortured my family for years, causing us all a lot of heartache and pain. It broke my family’s future and affected us till this day. I discovered that in a single evening while I was asleep, my whole family was assaulted, and I woke up to a broken world. Ten-year-old David did not understand what was happening. He was scared and terrified. My family was beaten, physically and mentally.
At the same time, I was starting to get heavily bullied at school, even to the point one day where walking home the local group of bullies, one of them being our neighbour’s Son, decided it was a fun idea to jump me and beat me up. I was left unconscious and bloodied on the path.
“It had created a block for my future and something which has taken nearly twenty years of my life to resolve”
It caused a massive issue with my sense of wellbeing. I started to escape the real world and hide away at home. I would find comfort in food, and the weight began to pile on. I became anti-social and withdrew from those around me. Where once I was a happy child I lost that part of me.
This moment in my life was so powerful it has left a profound mark on my past and memory.
It was so powerful that I could give an excellent example of its effect on me. For years I hated the smell of peanut butter. Whenever I smelt it, I would feel physically sick, struggling to stop myself from needing to throw up. Any smell or taste of nuts would make me ill for days, forcing me to shun anything with nuts. If I walked past someone eating it I would have to leave quickly for my own safety.
It was only talking through my past with a counsellor was I able to realise why I did this. That neighbour boy who bullied me, his favourite sandwich, which he had every day, was Peanut Butter and Jelly! Even now I can remember the stink of it on him. I came to realise that my reaction was not to the food but in fact the fear of that bully.
I am pleased to say now it doesn’t affect me and I do sometimes enjoy a sweet homemade oat, peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie.
Now I can look back on my past and see how I went down that path and why. I did it at the time to protect myself and escape the pain. It had created a block for my future and something which has taken nearly twenty years of my life to resolve.
I am very passionate now about taking responsibility for your life and making that choice for your future and wellbeing. That is why I do the work I do. I want others to have the same chance to make changes and work through their blocks. We all sometimes need that extra support that I got.
I use my experience to help clients move forward and make changes to improve their wellbeing.
For me, it’s about empowering YOU to make your Breakthrough!
