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ePaper created 2015-02-25, 10:02:46 | version 1.33.01
76. FitnessX.com • Summer/Fall 2013 Just Say . . .YES!by Nikki Utley P eople see me and think I am a ray of light. I laugh loud, smile a lot, shout to the world I’m hot, wave my poms poms for those who need a good cheer, grace the stage in bikini without any fear, hug a friend when she can’t hold back the tears…but there is an inner battle going on inside of me that people can’t see. I nearly lost the battle 5 years ago. Even though I had a great career, dressed really well, drove a nice car and looked like I was a happy, successful woman…deep down I did not like me. There were voices in my head declaring I wasn’t good enough. "See, you didn’t get the job to work for The Oprah Show", "...you didn’t get that raise", "...you’re always going to be broke", "...you ain’t never going to have kids", "...you can’t keep a man". I believed these voices to be true, especially when it came to men, because all my relationships with men were 'dead ends'. I dated guys who had no real interest in getting to know me beyond the parameters of my bed. Yet, I still wanted them to love me anyway. My failed relationships with men sunk my already low self-esteem. The more my spirit sank, the more I tried to deceive the world with my out- ward appearance. Fake smile, fake make-up, fake hair and nails, fake clothes, fake car. Everything about me was fake. If anyone tried to pry into my life, I would shut them down. I hid from the world so no one would know what was really going on with me. I didn’t want to talk to friends and if I did I was distant. I isolated myself in my apartment after work. I never went out. I stayed home and ate and ate crappy food to medicate. I gained 15 pounds and was on my way to getting fatter. But on the outside, people saw me as this positive, upbeat woman who was just getting a little thick, no biggie. But behind my pretty smile, there was an ugly frown. Even though I wasn't considered overweight, I still had the mindset of an obese female who just gave up on herself. I felt like I was drowning in darkness. I called this darkness “the monster”. It’s the same mon- ster that I thought hid in my bedroom closet back when I was eight. My mom always assured me the monster wasn’t real. But I saw it. While I was frozen under the covers, I saw my monster. It was a midnight blue beast, stood on two legs with dragon wings on it’s back. It had large scaly claws and green eyes that glowed. DOSE OF INSPIRATION