I love Myself!

I love myself!

At the request of my life coach I bought a book this week called “Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It” by Kamal Ravikant.  I bought this book like so many other self-help books, seven at last count of iBooks and committed that I would read it.   He told me it was short and I was glad because of the seven I have on my iBooks I have only listened to one start to finish. 

Most of the time non-fiction books bore me terribly.   I can’t help it.  When I listen to a story I want to get lost in some fantasy.  I think my life coach told me I was a passenger in these stories and I was always looking searching for the place I belonged.  I couldn’t disagree.  It was true.  I often find myself wondering into other realities with the characters from TV or from movies.  Hell most people didn’t cry when Eddie Dean died but I did.  Most people are so emotionally invested in Jon Snow that they wake up in the middle of the night worried about him.  I try to lose myself in these places because I perceive them as being better than the place where I am and with whom I am.

It is probably the same reason that I have created worlds and characters in those worlds.  They always lead far more interesting lives than the one I do.  They do great things and accomplish things most people could only imagine.  I think in my worlds I have won Oscars, Grammy’s, World Series, Super Bowls, the Indy 500, the Rose Bowl, the College World Series, I ended gang related violence in the US by writing a healing song for the world, and I am sure I ended nuclear war, aids, and cancer along the way but the list is infinite as are my dreams. 

As I travel in and out of these worlds and places I always try to find the place where I belong.  I am never present in my own body or mind.  I am searching, searching, always searching for something greater than what I am.  It is probably why I constantly find myself asking myself if I was not fat, then what am I?  

So today, two days later than I was supposed to start it, I put on this book written and read by Kamal Ravikant with very little hope for what it would have to tell me.  It is a sort read, or listens in this car, about 56 minutes long and after starting it twice in the car this week, I went and sat in the back yard with the Kona Bear and had me a listen.  I was fucking blown away.  “Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It” what a fantastic read or listen in this case but I am going to buy a hard copy to have on hand.

The message is very simple but so powerful and almost too good to be true.  As a matter of fact I have already listened to it a second time while I was doing my choirs.  I went to his website and listened to a talk her gave, about an 18 minute speech and the message is very clear to me.  Love yourself.  He likens love to magic and working on the subconscious and I dig that a lot.  I am going to look into some of his other books because the message is so simple yet powerful to me. 

Maybe because I have spent the years between 17 and 41 looking for meaning and looking for something to believe.  The whole time I know the one true thing to believe is me.  However, I am afraid to take the plunge.  I am afraid to let my guard down and let love wash through me and over and replace the hate, the fear, the insecurity, the anger, and self-loathing.  This could all be overcome if I could just love myself.  

So, immediately started walking around and everything I did today I repeated in my head one very simple mantra “I love myself!”  I was washing the dishes and on an endless loop in my head was “I love myself!”  I was tossing the ball to Kona Bear and again and again the chorus in my head was “I love myself!”

Each time I said it, I found myself wanting to believe it, needing to believe it!  However, trying to reprogram the subconscious after 41 years of abuse and hate isn’t easy.

I would tell myself “I love myself!” and myself would tell me back but you are a disgusting fat body private Burkle, I answered with “I love myself!”

I would say “I love myself!” and myself would respond but you are still fat, single, and along, and I would repeat “I love myself!”

I would tell myself “I love myself!” and myself would say but you can barely walk ten minutes because you have destroyed your body, and I would repeat “I love myself!”

The bad gunky kept coming up, but I kept repeating it.  I want to make a pledge here and now that no matter what I do, no matter what happens, that as of now, “I love myself!” and not matter that  am sitting her envisioning my readers rolling their eyes saying oh here we go again, Billy b is dreaming and hopeful again, I keep telling myself, “I love myself!”  I am trying to bulldoze through it and I know everything I say from this point forward won’t be all roses and butterflies.  I know tomorrow I could be spewing hate filled obscenities to myself.  I know I might wake up depressed but I am not going to hold back.  I am going to tell myself “I love myself!”  I am going to have ups and downs, strikes, and gutters!  “I love myself!”  However, it matters not because I am forging a path.  A path forward and that is what I need. 

I woke up this a.m. at 10:30 and I wanted to stay in bed.  I had lunch plans with Mana an old friend and I wanted to blow them off. I wanted to sleep.  I didn’t care that puppy had been in the crate going on 9 hours.  I just wanted to stay there.  I felt fat.  I felt so huge.  I keep making bad food choices and I just felt so huge when I woke up. 

However love for puppy got me out of bed, I needed to let her outside and to give her some yummies.  I need to stop being a hermit and go and see one of my loved ones.  I needed to get up and listen to this book and learn that “I love myself!”  I don’t feel fat right now.  I don’t feel tired or depressed.  I feel energized and ready.  I have food and meals to prep tomorrow and I am excited about that.  I am going to eat real organic food this week and that excites me! 

I am really excited right now!  This will ebb and flow.  These things always do.  Life is a roller coaster and that is part of what makes it amazing.  I am learning to fix my mind.  I have no doubt once I fix my mind the body will follow.  The weight will go away.  Once I put love into the world the world will love me back. 

It does almost sound too easy doesn’t?  It sounds like mumbo jumbo or well magic and I guess that is what it is.  If laughter is a magical healing power and it is, then what is love?  It is something on a higher and different plane all together.  I have known for a long time I have so much love to give.  However, I keep hidden away and buried because for some reason I think my love is tainted and not worthy of being in the world.  That is crazy talk and it is non-sense from a person who didn’t want to believe in himself.   

I have often said what would a Billy b who loved himself be like?  What could he accomplish?  The truth is we don’t know because we have never seen it.  However, I believe the sky and the universe is the absolute limit?  I have done so much handicapped by my own my and limitations.  Well take off the blinders and rise above it all.  As I have often said “Let the Black Reaper rise!” don’t know why I call myself the Black Reaper other than he is one cool character and now so am I. 

I love myself!  I think I am giving off the vibe too, Kona Koffee just came over and gave me the good kisses (liked my face) and snuggled up to me.  I wonder if she knows what an angel she is to me.  I tell her all the time.  I love her.  However, more importantly from here on out till the end “I love myself!”

Not much to say... but needed to get to writting anyway...

Every day I go onto Facebook and I see more and more stories of people losing large amount of weight.  It never fails to create equal amounts of joy for their accomplishments and frustration over the lack of accomplishments I have in my own quiver.  It has been a long battle of me and my weight.  I feel like I have been losing more than I have been winning the last week.  I have endured a lot of stress, hate, and hostility but at the same time been filled with hope, and potential. 

I was leaving the office last week, and I did what I do most days when I leave the office, I stopped at the restroom.  I don’t know why every day when I get to the office my first stop is the pisser and why when I leave it is my last stop.  Could be my fear of dehydration and the 120 ounces I suck down during the day.  Could be that when I am heading to the car I always ask myself do I have to pee and once I start thinking about it, then I do have to pee.  Could be I have been gifted with the bladder of an infinite.  I can’t really say.  However, I go to the bathroom on the way out. 

When I was walking out last Wednesday, I turned and did something I don’t normally do I turned and looked into the mirror as I walked out.  For the first time in I don’t know how long I felt hope.  I don’t know why I felt hope.  I just believed in that moment if I kept working on it, that I would eventually have one of those feel good stories you see on Facebook.  It is weird I say the same thing I always see, but it was different because I believe the outcome was going to be different.  I left the office smiling. 

Then the world turned upside down on me and I found myself in a very stressful situation.  The shit was hitting the fan and I turned to Patxi’s and the shit started in a downward slope.  I found myself in the donuts on Friday morning and finishing of the medium Patxi’s for lunch.  However evne with donuts in and pizza in me I made myself go do something good for myself on Friday afternoon and I went and had swim.  It was glorious.  Not the distance or the laps or anything like that.  Just being in the water and feeling good.  I came home, I made dinner, and I ate lots of broccoli.  However later that night I found myself having a McFlurry.

Saturday I kept myself busy.  From what I recall it was a pretty good day.  Sunday started off good. I went and swam.  I got a haircut.  I went to the McDonald’s drive in for lunch.  I came home and started cooking dinner. 

You noted that McDonald’s drive thru thing?  Oh, ya.  I was weak. I don’t know why I did it.  I just found myself in the drive thru. I didn’t binge; I just made a really shitty good choice.  I mean if there is a silver lining that is it.  I spent the rest of the afternoon beating myself up about it.  Even though I spent the afternoon slicing veggies and smoking some lean meat.  However, I couldn’t get over my failure from earlier in the day and that is when I started thinking about all the people on line and seeing what they did and were being successful at it and what I did and getting further from my goals.  I am angry because I know I can do better and even though I am more aware of what I am eating, when I am eating and why.    

I know that every day I work on my mind and strength it.  I write down at least three things I am grateful for each morning when I get up. I spend time in meditation.  I work hard to focus my thoughts and understand my actions.  I have no doubt that the trouble I am having with food is a mind game that I am playing with myself.

I really believe once I can figure my mind out, then losing weight will happen.  I am coming to realize that TV has a huge impact on me.  It used to be the walking dead was such an emotional toll on me that after each episode I would end up at the 7-11 in San Jose and have a pint or two.  Now, I am realizing that my beloved Game of Thrones isn’t treating me much better.  Last night I woke up three times worried about Jon and Arya.  I also ended up back at the drive thru at mcdonalds for another Mcflurry last night.  It was easy with the walking dead.  After Neagan bashed some heads in, I walked away.  The show had become cyclical.  Good guys fight hard, find good place to live, bad people come and ruin it, oh ya and there are zombies, oops, Walkers.  Game of Thrones I can’t walk away at this point, only 8 episodes left and have been waiting for over a decade to see how this story turns out.  So maybe my strategies need to be better?  Either way after GOT is done this season; I am going to have a serious TV restriction coming. 

You know how much TV I watched when I was a Tri-athlete and a Marathoner?  A lot less than what I watch now, I the proper answer to that question.  I had gone off football all together.  I was out of the college game and I would only watch the colts play if nationally televised.  Now, I watch every game on Saturday, some days not even leaving the house, only to follow it up with every game on Sunday via the NFL Redzone.  I am not complaining, I actually love it, but there is so much time wasted. 

I struggle with the TV right now.  I am in a place where I have finished a show (Narcos) and I refuse to start another season of anything new.  If I do, I get stuck.  I can say sure I will only watch one hour but that one hour quickly becomes two.  Hell to finish Narcos I went on a 4 episode Friday night binge.  Loved it, not complaining, just stating that I have to detach myself form that behavior.    

First, I have a baby living with me.  She needs more attention than watching TV all day can give her.  She has so much energy and like her daddy she loves to lounge around in the sun.  I actually got mad at her last night because she wouldn’t come inside.  Can you believe that.  Yes, after an hour the HBO app finally gave me GOT and yes I was annoyed she wasn’t on the couch with me while I watched.  I didn’t get a puppy to watch TV with her.  I got her to help me get up and move more. 

Two, I really need to give my time to my own ideas.  My head is overflowing with them.  Some are horror stories, some are comedies, some are 50 shades of greyish or so I am told. I never read the books or saw the movies so I can’t say.  Whatever it is I have to get it out.  Perhaps if I had spent 20 minutes journaling my thoughts on how stupid an armistice is with the Lannister’s of all fucking people.  Come on, these are the assholes who blew up a church and put the red wedding in motion.  Jamie got no credit for that in the show but in the books he and the Bolton fella certainly did have some interesting dialogue.  Anyway so much shit inside I want to get out that I just don’t spend any time with. 

Then there is new and additional knowledge I am hungry for that I must acquire.  I can’t learn new things if I am planted in front of the TV all the time.  Look TV isn’t the reason I am fat.  However, it doesn’t help the cause either. 

I need to get real about what I am doing.  I need to focus my mind and energy not on vegging out but building a temple that has a strong foundation.  One that is more of a fortress that is not easily penetrated by the non-sense one has to go through in his day to day life or existence.  I mean up or down, I should have a plan.  I should execute on that plan. 

Do I think I am better today than I was yesterday and better than I was three months ago?  Yes, yes I do.  Do I think I have a long way to go to make things better?  Yes, yes, I do.

I have had the perfect day off today.  It started with a morning of playing with the puppy and taking her to day care.  Then I came home and showered and got ready to go swimming.  Don’t ask me why I showered before I went swimming.  Ok so ask and I will tell you.  It was because I had a massage after swimming and I think I thought I would be cleaner if I showered before and got ready like on a normal morning and now when I sit here and type it makes zero sense.   Then I swam and it was a good swim.  I felt powerful in the water.  After the swim, I went and bought a pair of tweezers because I got one of my headphones from my water ipod stuck in my ear.  Then I went and had a nice lunch and really focused on what I was eating and what I liked and didn’t like about it.  Then I went to a 1.5 hour message and had the shit kicked out of me.  I needed it badly.  Then I went to target.  Then headed home and wrote this sorry excuse for a blog.  I lost my way somewhere in here didn’t I?  Tomorrow’s will be better.  I think I have a theme.  In an hour I am going to get the princess and I have a new dragon toy for her when she gets home b/c I spoil her rotten =)

How do you want to be seen by me (life coach)? How do you want to be seen by women?

How do you want to be seen by me (life coach)? How do you want to be seen by women?

I think after writing yesterday's blog and seeing all the support I got from those whom I love and those who love me I sort of realized that what needs to change is how I see me. However I'm going to see the assignment through to the end and answer each part of it. 

I can't own what other people do and don't see. That shouldn’t be something I take responsibility for. All I can do is put the best me out there that I can and if I love and am happy with myself who cares what others think.

However, when asked how do I want to be seen my life coach, now that is a question that I can answer.  I want to be seen as someone who is trying to get this right. I want be someone who is seen as an eager and for lack of a better word here hungry for knowledge to learn about himself and how to put the best Billy b out there that I can possibly can.  I want to be to be seen as someone who continues to try and when he falls he gets back up.  He always gets back up. I want to be a sign of strength because if nothing else I will never, ever, quit.  I want to been see as a good student but also one who challenges his teachers limits and knowledge with his own ideas and thoughts.  I want to be seen as 100% honest.  I want to be seen as intelligent, smart funny, likeable, and cool.   Mostly, I want to be his biggest success story ever!  I want to be the horse he bet on and be the crown jewel of his accomplishments.  I want him to be able to build a bigger, more successful business around me by using the inspiration he gave me, to do something truly wonderful for myself.  I am close, so very close to being where I want to be.  I make choices every day that push me a little closer to my destiny.  My future is big and bright and I am on the path.

How do I want to be seen by women?

I want to be seen as dead sexy! I got a living and loving to do before I do.  I have to make up for the last 10 to 15 years of few dates after all.  So I have to be hot.  I have to be ripped, tone, and look get in a speedo.  I want them to see as having si ………………..

Ok, so I am trying to make a little bit of a joke here.  I want women to see the one thing I have always wanted them to see but I feel like I could never show them and that is as a good man, with a big heart, that would give anything for anyone.  After reading the comments yesterday to my blog, I think people probably already see that. 

Sure, I think if I was skinnier I would probably have a girlfriend, or three :D  However, the truth is that might not be true at all, because if when I think of myself and the first thing I think of is fat, lazy, etc… and I am not giving myself the love and attention that I need.  Then how would or could someone else ever want to be with me. 

I am a very needy man.  For someone as successful as I am, I am so insecure.  I don’t believe in myself the way I should or deserve to.  Do you know I am a CPA who got my CPA license while working 10 hour days and then studying at night after that?  That is pretty damn impressive.  I know that about myself but I give myself no black in the ledger for it.  I am an endurance athlete 18 times over.  You think I give myself any love or props for that?  I don’t.  I should.  The list can go on and on.  The point is often I look to others for approval in myself.  Hell part of the reason this blog was started was to try and show someone I was really willing to change my life for them.  I wonder if she ever knew that, it was all for her.  It doesn’t matter.  That woman taught me a very valuable lesson that I can and do deserve to be loved.  I know I was a needy as mf’er with her, who felt insecure and hopeless when I wasn’t right next to her.  I acted the fool.  Anyway, again not really the point and there are other stories in my life when I have looked to others to accept me when there is no way in the world I can accept myself.  After I dreamed up a story about it, it was called “The Truth About Suzy”.  The thing about Suzy is that it was never about Suzy, it was about me, needing to see the man I am, and stop hiding from it.  To take ownership of it, live the life set before me.  Not always wishing there was more to it or that some big “Aha” moment and I would just change.  I have known the truth about Suzy for over 15 years yet I have never learned.  It goes back to yesterday’s message that I need to see past the fat and the insecurity and see what others see.  That notes I got yesterday were amazing!  I was so happy to be me yesterday!  I know that I was needy, and can be, but I also know I can be amazing and mean so much more, and I just have to reach out there and take the plunge.  That I control how this story goes and there will be no “Aha” Moment, there will just be the building of a believe system that makes me stronger and stronger and with each blog I grow and become stronger.  Each week with my life coach I become better.   I know I don’t have to become better, but I want to be better.

I think the one truth here is that I want women to seem me as smart, strong, confident, and big hearted.  However, I have to see myself that way first before anyone else can.  I need to start taking stock in all the things I have accomplished and want to accomplish.  Then I can continue to be this smart, strong, confident and big hearted man that I want others to see in me.   

A note about my health because several people brought it up yesterday in comments.  I too worry about it greatly because I want to be here for a long time to come.  I work with my cardiologist every two months and we monitor my BP very carefully as well as my AFIB and things right now seem to be going really well.  He even tells me if I can lose weight I will probably come out of AFIB all together and that my friends’ is something to be happy about and excited to work towards.  Now in typical Billy b fashion I took this to mean I can eat whatever I wanted for a few weeks and I might have gone the wrong way on the scale.  However, to let you know that little outburst is behind me and now we are full steam ahead!

Considering that you feel people see you as just a weight problem, how do you want to be seen by friends and family

Considering that you feel people see you as just a weight problem, how do you want to be seen by friends and family?

I think this is a trick question.  After more than a week turning it over in my head, I have to believe it is a trick question.   The reason I say that and feel that is there are these things I want people to see me as.  Funny, handsome, deep, interesting, loveable, nice and well the list just keeps going on.  I want people to see past my huge amounts of fat and see what is really on the inside of me.  That yes I can be a jerk with a tongue like a razor but I am can also be sweet and kind.   I might be packing an entire extra person around and I need to lose them, but I am still pretty handsome for a fat dude and let’s not forget about my great hair.  I want people to take a chance on me.  I want them to believe just because I am fat now it is not my destiny to always be this way.  I think about all this stuff and somehow and some way I want to put it into this great blog that really shows people who and what I am. 

I thought about writing my ideal image here.  I thought about talking about how nice and giving I am.  I thought saying how I want people to be bigger than what most people are and look past the look of what I am and see the man that is underneath.  I thought about all this stuff then I thought how can I ask people to see me in a way, that I don’t even see myself?

Let’s forget about how I want other to see me.  Take that and put it aside. I know that is the question and I know that is what I am supposed to be answering, but I can’t answer it, until I want to see myself.  More importantly how do I see myself?

The brutal honest of it all is on any given day at any point in time I feel like a failure.  I feel like I have wasted some truly wonderful gods given talent.  I feel like the gift of words that so many people have told me I am good with; I have turned my back on it.  That it is something I use to try and get myself little compliments.  I try to use my words to make me look and feel cool.  At times I see myself as a half rotting corpse that has been covered with a black plague that is eating my very life away.  I see that I am full of so much hate, rage, and anger that I have turned to food to slowly and surely destroy and kill myself. I see myself as some who has trouble getting up and walking around. That can barely stand for 10 minutes let alone walk for that long.  I see myself as uncomfortable and awkward.   I also see myself as mean and to some extent even evil.  I see all these things in my mind.  I don’t spend a lot of time looking in mirrors because everything I see in a mirror or reflection I hate.  The only features of my own I like to look at is my eyes and my hair, because no matter how I see myself, I always see my hair as kicking ass, bad hair days are few and far between for this guy.  I see myself turning into a hermit by being someone who shies away from the world.  I am so someone so desperate for attention and need that all though I try to hide myself and go unnoticed I make myself so large that no one can possibly miss me. On any given day, at any given time, this is what I might see.  It is the dead truth of the dilemma.  I don’t see myself in a very good light, so why should my family, girls, or anyone else see me any differently?  How can I ask others to be better than I am?

This line of thinking all started because people kept asking me about my weight.   Either did I go to WW that day?  How much have I lost?  I should try this plan, or go to rehab with this dude, because he is just like you, do it together.  It started because when asked those questions I asked is that all they care about is if I am fat or skinny.  Is that all they see that I am a fatty.  Now the horrible truth has come out, it may or may not be what they see; it might only be what I see.  

If I never lost another pound for the rest of the time I am in this vessel in this time and this place how do I want to be seen?  Not by others but in my own mind. 

I want to see the man who cares so much he would sacrifice anything for those people he held dear to him.  I want to see the heart of gold that has so much empathy for others and is a man of compassion.  I want to see the success I have had personally, professionally, and financially.  I want to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  That this world is a good world and I am good force in this world.    I want to see that there is so much more to me than my weight.  Even though it might consume my frame it does not own my heart, and soul.  It doesn’t define who I am and what I can or cannot be.  I want to see myself rise above all the hate, rage, and sadness and see myself in the beautiful light so many others see me in.   I want to see smart, funny, and witty.  I want to see focus, strong, and just.  I want to see the heart of gold.  I want to see the dreamer living his dreams.  I want to see myself as an open book for the whole wide world to read. 

So maybe the question isn’t a trick question?  Maybe it is a question to get me to think how I see myself and why I think that is what people should notice about me.  Maybe I need to get over the hang up of being obese.  Maybe I need to focus on making long term life style changes and stop worry so damn much what others say, think, or do.  I can’t control them.  I can only control me.  So if I want people to see a better Billy b, then maybe I need to start projecting a better one.  I need to start projecting one and seeing the good stuff more and more often.  Each day I write down what I am grateful and each day it gets a little easier to find things to be grateful for. 

We all have good things and bad things we see about ourselves.  We all see them at the same time.  I just tend to believe the bad over the good.  I need to stop doing that.  I need to focus on the good and the beautiful.  I have to see myself in a strong and positive way, so that is what I project into the world!