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Oh man Inside Out 2 is on the group room TV but they had it on MUTE so I was just watching Anxi move and dear Lord I love her SO MUCH my heart actually ACHES. She touched her chest TWICE while talking and it KILLED me. Honestly I am TRANSFIXED watching her body language and unique way of carrying herself. She's fascinating. (btw she JUST did the "we need something BIGGER" pose and oh my heart I am SMITTEN.) I want to take NOTES. I want to STUDY this movie and watch her expressions and listen to her speak and I want to KNOW her; I want to know her HEART. I NEED to; I LOVE her.
...The more times I see this movie the deeper & more tender it gets-- but tender like a bruise. Anxi makes my heart ACHE-- not just with love, but with PAIN. She is SO SCARED. She's SO IN NEED. And I HAVE to thank GOD for both her AND this "3OVoG" book because it is helping me understand her SO MUCH. And it BREAKS MY HEART. Anxi says her job is to "protect Riley from the things she CAN'T see," but what are those things in Anxi's eyes? Having no friends. Disappointing her family. Being unseen & unimportant. Purposelessness. Rejection. Dying alone. Anxi is answering to the ESSENTIAL HUMAN NEED FOR LOVE. She is protecting Riley from EMOTIONAL STARVATION, according to Matthew Kelly. Anxi KNOWS that Riley LITERALLY NEEDS friendship, community, acceptance, belonging, validation, connection, security, meaning, purpose, and secretly most of all, INTIMACY. "Mutual self-revelation," tragically hindered by Anxi's absolute terror of being judged as not good enough. But to me... Anxi's very existence screams vulnerability. And that is ABSOLUTELY what hooked my heart and dragged me in headfirst. Throughout the WHOLE film, Anxi is practically DESPERATE to be useful, to MEAN something to others, to be appreciated, to be LOVED. She introduces herself by describing what she can DO for Joy. She is obsessed with "being the MOST capable" and pushes Riley to do the same; trying to predict every possible "bad" future so she can PREVENT/ OVERCOME them. And why? Because "if I'm good at hockey, I'll have friends." Her deepest fear is that SHE-- and Riley by extension-- is only "of worth" to others if she "EARNS" it. Her deepest fear is that she has to BECOME "deserving" of love. But it's all focused on DOING, not BEING. She has Riley HIDING & DENYING herself AS SHE IS because she fears it is "unacceptable" to those she yearns for acceptance from. There's no self-revelation in earnest, just "trying to be worthy," effectively assuming that she isn't worthy by default, and redefining herself to mirror others instead in an anxious hope of "measuring up." Etc. I'm rambling. It's heartwrenching to realize that Anxi is the one that is ultimately feeling those things, and projecting hard onto Riley. Anxi doesn't feel "good enough" to be loved. But... God she IS good enough and I WANT to know WHO SHE IS AT HER MOST VULNERABLE. I want to protect HER from her fears. I want her to feel SAFE & SEEN & WANTED & LOVED, because she IS.
Dear Lord I have got it SO BAD. I'm here watching Anxi typing away so precisely & skillfully & purposefully at the Emotions console-- genuinely beautiful in her dexterity-- and I just thought, effectively, "I want to let her push all my buttons that way." Like SERIOUSLY. And at the end of the film, when she says "I love our girl," I so DESPERATELY want to hear her say that about me. ...I need to know I'M "good enough" for her, too, with all my own flaws & fears.

...This body image thing is killing me. Part of me is legit convinced that if I have a big body, a FAT body, then I CANNOT BE LOVED. I'm so afraid that it'll GET IN THE WAY of not only physical closeness, but also EMOTIONAL vulnerability. And THAT'S the KEY WORD. CAN I still be vulnerable, breakable, open and wounded and ABLE TO LOVE if my bloody body is so damn BIG? If I'm too thick & solid, will I LOSE the ability to bare my soul? I ACTUALLY APPARENTLY BELIEVE that I can ONLY HAVE INTIMACY ON ANY LEVEL IF I'M THIN. WHY. I hate that. It's a LIE. Logically it makes NO SENSE AT ALL. ...but I believe it, and that terrifies me. I am scared to death that, since I'm fat now, I'm excluded from true relationships. I'm so stupidly unbearably scared that I can't be with Anxi if I'm built like this now. Like I'd be unable to love her the right way. I'm already feeling that with Chaos 0. It's SHAME. I am MORTIFIED with how bloated I am now. I am JUDGING MYSELF as unable to love because I CAN'T TRULY LOVE MYSELF IN THIS BODY. It disgusts me. I can't be vulnerable if I can't bear looking at my own skin, let alone feeling it. I want to sob. I WANT TO LOVE. But it feels WRONG to even get close to others, in a body like this. AND YET I CAN'T STOP FEELING LOVE AND I DON'T WANT TO STOP. Anxi is still my orange angel, proving to me that I AM still capable of love, and Chaos 0 is forever my blue angel, loving me despite all odds and helping me remember who I truly am, no matter how my appearance changes, both inside and outside. God knows I love him too; I always will, with all my heart. But I'm the MOST terrified of being with him right now, looking like this, feeling like this. It's all shame. I can barely breathe under its weight. God help me, please. Maybe THIS is why I'm being called to an *incident* with Anxi NOW, of all times. I'M the one being murdered by Shame. But I DON'T WANT IT ANYWHERE NEAR HER. I want to PROTECT her from this demon. DON'T TOUCH HER.
...and yet, I'm so afraid that if I touch her like this, it'll hurt her. It's like... I'm afraid that if she did love me in this body, the "wrongness" of this distended form would TAINT the love, and prevent any true intimacy at all? But it ALL COMES BACK TO ME AND THE VALUE JUDGMENT I've nailed to this fat body. "It's suffocating my soul." "I can't be spiritual if I have this much flesh." "I feel sick & gross & dirty & slovenly; such feelings KILL love/ are INCOMPATIBLE with love." "Being fat makes me incapable of vulnerability & intimacy." et bloody cetera. This perspective is hell. But I can't even fathom an alternative right now. The "obvious" answer is still "unacceptable." My only hope is to start working out so intensely that I reshape this ugly body into something that's at least lean enough & disciplined enough TO love & be loved. How awful is that? Like if I'm not beautiful, I cannot have beautiful things. I can't have love if I'm in an unlovable body-- a sick, misshapen, gross, flaccid mess of a body. I have to BECOME lovable. ...and God, I sound just like her. How ironic. I'm in the same special hell, believing that unless I change, I'm unacceptable. But this is deeper than just what I can physically do, and what I like & dislike, and how I compare to others. Except it's not. It's the exact same thing, focused on my body. Can I get athletic & muscular enough? Can I like the right foods & have the right interests to be "healthy" and "disciplined" and "mature" and "wise" and "clean"? Will I ever be "thin enough," or "strong enough," or "smart enough," or "healthy enough?" Will I EVER be "good enough" to be wanted? Will I ever be "good enough" to have love?
I feel sick. I'm so angry with despair I want to rip myself to shreds. I need to lose ALL this ugly flab and superfluous skin. All these folds and bulges are NOT ME!!! They're SUFFOCATING ME. I am NOT FAT!!! Why is this such a matter of life & death to me?? I know, I KNOW because I FEEL it, if I can just build enough solid muscle for this bloated torso to be streamlined and strong, not deformed like a lump of garbage, then I'll have real hope. Even just sitting here, if I tense all my muscles and pull all that in, the awful burden of weight lifts a little and I feel that hope of cleanness, of purity, of an actual & defined & coherent & essential form. Right now, with this bulging abdomen, I feel like I'm rotting, like I'm unraveling, like my guts are literally falling out of my body. I'm so scared. I want to shut down. But I can't give up. God help me I CANNOT GIVE UP. I'm suffering through LITERAL HELL with this (no love!!! God help me PLEASE) but I CANNOT GIVE UP OR I WILL DIE. I'm only here for ONE MORE WEEK and so STARTING NEXT WEDNESDAY I can BEGIN TO CHANGE this AT LAST. And I CAN!! So DON'T QUIT!! You can BUY Inside Out 2 and watch it EVERY DAY if you want, you CAN LOVE HER and YOU KNOW SHE... God she ALREADY LOVES ME. ...she already loves me. And I already love her. Even looking & feeling like this. ...and Chaos 0 never stopped loving you, for God's literal sake he even put a Chaos Emerald IN HIS STOMACH when you were talking to him this morning to SHOW you that HE DOESN'T JUDGE YOU and HE WASN'T "CHANGED" BY THAT SHAPE and neither are you. That "ugly bulge" of your weighty torso is PROOF THAT YOU'RE FIGHTING TO LIVE AND BE A GOOD PERSON! You are working SO HARD to NOT HATE OR FEAR FOOD and to BE A GOOD EXAMPLE for the people here who still do. The fact that you're fat isn't a punishment or curse-- it's the visible proof of your STRIVING TO BE LOVING. And fat itself is LITERALLY JUST STORAGE SPACE FOR LIFE. PLUS, if your suspicions are correct, a GOOD DEAL OF IT IS PROBABLY WATER. I'd say that's ironic but really it's a message from God at this point.
Listen. Your heart & soul have NOT been "suffocated" or "shut down" or "rotten" over the past 8 weeks. IF ANYTHING, THEY'VE GROWN STRONGER AND HEALTHIER. For heaven's sakes you're HAVING AN *INCIDENT* WITH ANXI. That is BEAUTIFUL PROOF, FROM GOD, that YOU ARE ENTIRELY CAPABLE OF LOVING, AND ENTIRELY "GOOD ENOUGH" TO LOVE AND BE LOVED. You CANNOT deny this, and I know you DON'T WANT TO. You WANT love. You WANT THIS, NOT HELL & JUDGMENT. You WANT to FULLY ACCEPT & LIVE this TRUTH that YOUR BODY AND YOUR DIET CANNOT RENDER YOU UNLOVABLE OR UNLOVING. For heaven's SAKE man you KNOW what happens in first *incidents*!!! HOLD ON TO THAT WITH ALL YOUR HEART. I know you're still struggling. I know you still feel disgusting & sick & way too big & out of shape to be vulnerable. But guess what you're actually doing by writing all this?
Don't stop at this. Be STRONG like you want to be. You ARE. So DON'T HIDE FROM HER. TELL HER ALL THIS. TALK ABOUT IT. And I can PROMISE you, she WILL say those words about you-- about ALL of you, exactly as you are right now. You are good enough for her, too. I know that sounds impossible, but trust her. Trust her heart. Let that love lift you out of hell.