Make "how are you" a question instead of a greeting.

What do you do when the thing that relieves you is the thing that causes you pain?

I am recovering from neck surgery, which was on July 31st. My mom came down to visit, THANK GOD, and took amazing care of me.

What they took out, and what they
put in. This is the best operation room
photo they would take for me.

She left on Saturday and since then, I have been in a dark place, honestly. When you have someone here that loves you so much, and they are caring for you, and are around you all the time, and then they leave...it leaves a noticeable hole that you try to fill with other things.

Does anyone want to guess how I tried to fill that hole? Well, in the same ways I have been trying to fill voids my entire life...food.

Food is the thing that relieves me. Food is the thing that causes me pain.

So in the midst of loneliness and depression, historically, I have turned to food. And with the move to a new town, those emotions have been knocking on my door, and I have let them in by turning to food. Food is the acceptable drug of choice in our country. No kidding, there are over 20 fast food spots within 5 miles of my house. For a food addict like me, that's like having a bar on every corner, or a dealer that lives in the house across the street.

Everywhere. Temptation to withdrawal further.

I wish I could say that I have found the answer to all this after two years of openly working through it. But I haven't. The closest answer I have found is this: to let people know me, and to make myself available to know others. The more I practice this specifically, the more I see the dark clouds of depression lifting.

For example, this afternoon I rode the spin bike for the first time since surgery and my friend Allison came to work out too. She went out of her way to pull a bike over to me and I was honest about how lonely I've been feeling in this new town. And she received me. And we made plans to work out together more consistently. And she invited me to dinner. And I invited myself to her son's t-ball games. And she checked in with me about church. But most important...we took time to be real with each other.

When my mom was here, she mentioned the concept of "How are you?" and how it has become a greeting, not a question. If I ask you how you are, do I really want to know the answer? "How are you? No, really. How are you? I want to know. And I have time to sit and listen, because I have a feeling you need that. Because I'm not doing so great either."

Surgery selfie. And hopefully the only
selfie I'll ever take.

I'm willing to blow up this blog with some real stuff if you're willing to get on this ship with me. I don't know about you, but I'm getting exhausted by small talk. Can we make "how are you" a question instead of a greeting?

Let pain be your guide.

On Thursday, I am going back to visit crazy Nurse Martha. And while I love a good reunion, this isn't one I was planning on.

I have to have disc fusion surgery in my neck. While it sounds grosser than it is, they basically open up my throat, put a bone spacer between two of my vertebrae, and then screw in a titanium plate to keep everything in place. Ok, it is pretty gross. 

Having two disc surgeries in one year is a bummer. And as I am mentally preparing for Thursday while recounting last December, it's amazing how different life is for me now. God has found a way to help me work through a lot of emotional pain and helped me to forgive myself and quit being so hard on myself.

They are going to put this on my
insides. Titanium. X-Men here I come.

I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but: do you ever find that you beat yourself up WAY more than you should? I think of it this way: I would NEVER let someone treat a friend the way I treat myself. 

I think we live in a place where it is expected to beat yourself up. It is frowned upon to be ok with who you are and where you are. Especially in Christian circles. We are the worst about this. We compare, we measure, we criticize, and we convince ourselves that we are not good enough. Never satisfied and never happy.

So what if we were able to accept ourselves no matter what? No matter what grade we got? No matter what someone says about us? No matter what weight we are?

I am dreading recovery because, I don't know how long it will be. "Let pain be your guide" is what my doctor says. I wish I could take this more seriously. If I let pain be my guide, maybe I would stop beating myself up after that open wound I create. If I let pain be my guide, I would be patient with myself when the timeline is not what I had planned. If I let pain be my guide, I would forgive myself as I forgive others.

What would you do differently if you let pain be your guide?

We miss your smile.

The other day I was having... a day. You know the one. Where you just want to stay in bed all day and conversations are an effort and you are an emotional ball of extremes.

And then this happened.

I was walking past our indoor pool at the Y. There is a wall of glass outside of my office where you can look directly into the pool complex. At this particular time of day, our camp high hopes kids were swimming and that's always chaos. Laughing, splashing, yelling, general pool fun.

No one was paying attention to me as I surveyed the scene. Except for her. While everyone around her was going nuts and having a big time, she took the time to pause and smile. And it wasn't just one of those fleeting, courtesy smiles...it was genuinely long enough for me to quickly snap a photo on my phone.

I have been thinking about the smiling girl ever since.

You know when you are walking down the hallway and say "Hey how you doing?" to someone, but you rarely mean it? What would I really do if someone told me how they are REALLY doing. Would I be ready to stop my day to listen to what they are struggling with? I wish I could say yes emphatically. But typically I am doing that courtesy ask. That courtesy smile. That courtesy "how are you?"

So I am trying something new. I am trying to be the girl in the photo. In the midst of my daily chaos. And you know what? It's working. People need my smile. People need your smile. They miss it. There was a time in your life that everyone got to see it, and they need it back as much as you do.

Let's make a pact to value people over experiences. I don't know about you, but I hope that at the end of my life, I am remembered for the people I impacted and not the things I've done or the places I've been. And plus, I don't know if you've seen my dimples when I smile, but they are INCREDIBLE.

-Liz

Meet me in the middle?

It has been a month since I wrote. But in my defense, it has been a month of madness! Current status: sitting on an air mattress in my new living room watching Fargo.

My move process was an emotional roller coaster. But what move isn't? In the turmoil, I have found some pretty spectacular moments of generosity in excess. I am grateful for the ways God looks ahead to places we can't yet see.

But my mind has been occupied with the middle. A friend sent me a fb message the other day talking about just what I had been thinking about. When weight loss becomes an idol, what do you do? Well historically, I rebel and sabotage the progress, just to prove to anyone and everyone that I have the power to do whatever I want.

This concept sounds ridiculous, but think about. Somewhere deep in ourselves, we don't believe that we deserve happiness, so even our best laid plans become a chance to sabotage. Progress can regress at the drop of a hat and before you know it, one bad decision turns you down a road of revers like you would not believe.

That happened to me. And daily, I am fighting it. Fighting for my life, really.

The loneliness of moving to a new town with new surroundings can compound these feelings, but I am allowing my eyes to stay open and to be aware of the middle. I want to get back to the middle, where I am not obsessed, and I am not rebelling.

I am aware, and I am still fighting. And hopefully a lot of us can meet in the middle and find our normalcy again. The best way I can explain it is this: we all give up on ourselves too easily. And I wish we would all agree to stop beating ourselves up like we do.

Oh yeah, and did I mention my weekend with Bob Goff? Wow. For another day...
-Liz

I do believe that refrigerator magnets tell the
stories of our lives.

My current living situation. Simplicity has
its perks.

The note left for me by the previous house
owner. This meant so much to me.

Me, Tyler, and Bob Goff. Yeah, so that was...
unbelievably ridiculous.

Our staff rally a few weeks ago. And my best shot

of living a dream of being a rock star.

When the past hijacks your present

Note the traveling band that moved from my closet
into my car into a storage unit. For now.

So, I am in the process of moving. More like, I am in the process of doing all these piddly fixes and repairs to my old house, and organizing everything I own in preparation to move to my new house.

When you clean out your closets, you really...clean out your closets.

I haven't learned that trick yet that I think most people do better than me. You know that trick where people just...move on. The ironic thing is that I was talking to a good friend of mine that has really been a mentor of mine for the past fifteen years, and she was asking me if I was excited about the move and the new community.

"You move on really easily, though" she said.

I do? Well, that was news to me.

What she really meant was that, I have no problem making new friends. And the opposite end of that pendulum? I have no problem saying good bye to friends.

Ouch.

Her comment has brought me into soul searching. Cleaning out my closets here has send me into the abyss. The past. The broken past. The mistakes.

Isn't it funny how we look to the past and never remember the full truth? It can either serve our self-pity or as a device to romanticize how things never really were.

So my new personal mission is to remind people that i don't say good bye easily, even though it appears that I do. I simply internalize it. Hide it away. The alternative is more painful for me, so it became a defense mechanism. Appearing to have the ability to move on easily, to be a social chameleon will never allow me to be fully known.

So that's the trick. Starting over. Not giving up on myself, the ability to change, to forgive myself, to remember that past mistakes don't define my future. It is a choice three hundred times a day to not let the past hijack my present. And hopefully, lifting the veil off of our defense mechanisms helps us all to be a little more open with each other.

At least, that's my hope.

Stop grieving what's been lost.

Start building on what remains.

See, I was innocently riding the spin bike this morning at around 6:30 am, and decided to take a note out of my friend Pam's book and listen to a sermon instead of my standard workout music.

Little did I know that young Steven Furtick would hit me good. He said, and I quote:

"Someone out there needs to know this. Someone out there needs to hear this: 'Stop grieving what's been lost. Start building on what remains.'"

This was meant for me. I am the someone out there that needs to know this. I randomly picked this sermon from 2011 to listen to. Does God work through technology like a time machine? Yes. Emphatically, yes.

See, I have been grieving what's been lost for the better part of a year. In my head, playing and replaying certain things. Certain people. Certain situations that I wish were different. Certain feelings that I wish would change. Times and places and conversations and texts and work outs and numbers and clothes and food and - you name it. I grieve it.

I grieve what's been lost. As if I have no other option.

But I do have another option. Not all is lost. Do you hear me? Because I believe someone out THERE needs to hear THIS: not all is lost.

We all need to start building on what remains. Yes, we are broken. But yes, we are also resilient. I still haven't figured out how to stop grieving when it comes to my emotional pain. The best thing I can say is that I am taking steps. They are baby steps, but they are steps nonetheless.

We have set backs. But they are temporary. As my dad says: "this might be your rainy season, but rain makes things grow."

Not all is lost. I need that reminder as much as you need it today.

Start building on what remains.

-Liz

I think I thought about it, but I think I can't stop thinking about it.

One foot in front of the other. Some
days, that's as far ahead as I can think.

Ever find yourself saying you're over something? But, you're not over it? And maybe you're trying to convince yourself you're over it, but then one day, you get slapped over the head that you're not over that thing you said you were over?

It's probably just me.

See, I am a fixer. I need answers. I want resolutions. I want to solve for x, I want a final number, and I want to move on. But life, unlike Algebra 1, doesn't seem to agree to my wants or desires.

What I want, I cannot get.

There are ways to escape other people's thoughts and opinions. But how do I escape my own head?

I've tried long walks. I've tried losing myself in tv shows, in a book, in work. But my brain works overtime. So much so, that I am surprised it hasn't overheated or imploded.

All of this to say, if you are wondering about me, if I am over it, wondering if I am wondering about you, the answer is yes. I don't get over things fast. In fact, things seem to rule over me for far too long. The past, the present, the future.

I read something great this morning that was meant for me. And maybe you, too:

Most of the situations that entangle your mind are not today's concerns; you have borrowed them from tomorrow. @Jesus_Calling
— Liz Simpers (@gochangemove) May 11, 2014

Anyone else? Yeah, I thought it might just be me....

Thinking of you.
-Liz