Forgive me readers for I have sinned. Whilst riding my spin bike for the first time in two weeks, I came to realize the source of my recent crankiness.

After a mild migraine swooped in and stole a few hours from me and my family on Monday night, I awoke feeling shitty but somewhat successful in being in another one, without meds and waking with another hour or so to spare before going back to bed for “real bedtime”.

Unfortunately my husband was already tapped out and his ship passed mine in the hallway as he announced his early bedtime. I went to the couch to binge watch some Olympic figure skating and remembered the bag of Christmas goodies I had hidden (on myself) and then recently recovered from the dumping ground that doubles as our office space.

This was particularly challenging for me as I felt a wave of what I thought was self-compassion wash over me and said to myself “self, you poor thing.  You had another migraine and you missed out on your evening with your family, you should eat a chocolate, you’ve earned it.”

What I didn’t anticipate was the self-compassion quickly morphed into an out of body, self-sabotaging event culminating in the eating of all the chocolates in the box. Even the raspberry cream filled (I hate the cream filled chocolates, I mean wtf)?! Do I even dare mention who these chocolates were intended for? Well they had a little cartoon hockey player on the tin, so take a guess, cause I can barely bring myself to admit the very Jimmy Kimmel fact that I ate my son’s goodies while he peacefully slumbered.

After this epic fail, I re-entered my body to assess the damage (well, days later sitting on my spin bike as retribution, I am ready to acknowledge this misstep). Here’s the truth of it, I like to eat my feelings and am far from perfect, so sometimes there are many feelings, a smorgasbord of distress if you will, to be eaten!  But for the number of times I have chosen to walk, write, meditate my way through difficult emotions sometimes there is going to be a box of chocolates that serendipitously materializes, and sometimes you are allowed to throw caution to the wind and eat them – some or all. Lucky for me this time, “all” was only a box of 6. Six rather large pieces, meant to be shared if not with others, at the very least over a longer period of time than 16 minutes.

But the first step is to admit the problem. And so here I am, 22.5 kms into a stationary ride, going literally no where, but actually going further down the road of forgiveness (which feels a lot like an uphill grind at the moment) than I have allowed myself my whole life.

(Sorry I ate your chocolates little boy. I took one (or six) for the team and the health of your few new adult teeth thank me for what you will never know – love Mom)