Steph Campbell

I abandoned myself at a very young age.  Left myself flat.  In my mind, I couldn't get life right.  I didn't know this consciously back then.   And now looking back, it's very clear to me.  I abandoned myself at a very young age.  I had a working mind, body, arms, legs, heart.  I did not have one physical ailment except for my thinking, and I did not know this back then.  Not one disability except cleary, my thinking.  And I abandoned myself.   I thought I was a body.  I Put myself on the curb for garbage day.  I was the dented can on the shelf at the grocery store that everyone put back because it was "damaged goods".  I abandoned myself at a very young age.  I took the way people behaved very personally.  I made sense out of people, places and things by blaming myself.  If it was my fault, then I could fix it.  And when I couldn't fix it or get it right, I left myself high and dry. I s...

Love yourself. Forgive yourself. Do something nice for yourself. If you find yourself binging, pull up a chair.  If you find yourself crying, pull up a box of kleenex. Question one stressful thought today. Buy the book "Loving What is" by Byron Katie. Hug someone and receive the hug while giving it. Smile at someone. Listen to a child. I've spent a lifetime manipulating myself and other people.  Trying to get life to look the way I think it should look.  Believing I can control outcomes and working my arse off to do so.  It's all been a big fat lie.  I can't do this trip alone.  I need God for one and you for another.  I need to see me through you.  How else will I ever meet myself if not for you?  What do you want out of life?  What do you need?  Who do you love?  Love yourself today.  Pull up a chair and meet you. xoxo  Steph

Alright alright.. so I took a two month haitus... In the words of Bruce Hornsby "That's just the way it is, some things will never change".  I may do it again.  I apologize upfront for my shortcomings and just leaving you in the lurch phantom friends.  It's what I do sometimes, I have thoughts, believe them and then crawl into the proverbial "black hole" for a while.  We never really do know when someone is in their own "black hole" do we?  Think about it.  I'm a sure match to Jekyll and Hyde when I'm in mine.  Seriously, I can switch on and off like there is no tomorrow.  There have been thousands upon thousands of stories over the years of infidelity and even murder where you hear people go "They were so kind, I'm SHOCKED they would do something like that",  "He was so nice to me when I'd see him, I'm SHOCKED it was him", or my favorite "It looked like they had the perfect relationship, I'm SHOCK...

I just have not been inspired to write as of late.  I sit at my computer and stare at the screen, listen to the background music, close my eyes, go deep within and ..... nothin'.  Even with my book, I'm so close to finishing and I can barely open it up in the morning when it's time to write.  I guess it's not time to write, right? Never-the-less, I've been contemplating why I go through these very long gaps in my inner process.  Gaps of feeling as though I am not connected to this Universe or God or You in any way.  As I investigate this -for lack of a better phrase- phenomenon, these are the thoughts that come to mind:  "I'm too old to have my dreams", "I'm nobody", "What the use", "I'm too tired", "I'd rather watch a movie", "I don't want to be vulnerable", "This isn't helping my process" ... got it?  Good. Then I question these thoughts and close my eyes and go even ...

Hello Phantom Friends... An FYI for those of you who read my blog.  For now, I will be posting only once a week to my blog.  Every Friday for the next little while there will be a new post.  I will do one this weekend since I just decided this today and missed yesterday.  Once in a while I may add another writing during the week if something hits me or moves me to do so... but the main blog post will be Fridays.  Love, Steph

Isn't that a great line "The world will tell you who you are until you tell the world."  I just watched a made for television movie called To Be Fat Like Me.  What a poignant movie.  The synopsis is: Pretty, popular, and slim high-schooler Aly Schimdt had plans of earning a sports scholarship to college but a knee injury ruins her chances. She decides to team up with a haughty girl and enter a documentary contest in the hopes of winning money for college.  Subject is obesity, like her smarter kid brother Adam and their mother, due to an eating disorder.  She believes that overweight people, like her mom and brother, seem to make excuses about how the world perceives them.  Alyson masquerades in a secret camera-equipped fat suit at a rival summer school, thus befriending two nice, on 'aesthetic' ground rather unpopular nerds.. Aly intends and hopes to prove that personality will outshine physical appearance. But when she's met with ridicule, harassment, ...

Why is that in this world people feel justified in commenting candidly to someone about their body?  For the most part, it's the first thing we notice and then depending on if the body has changed (weight gain or loss) we get fixated, barely hearing another word from the person's mouth, as if we're looking at an object and studying it without accounting for the whole being.  We look, assess, and then out of the mouth comes the nonsense and into the mouth goes the foot.  If the body has not changed at all eg: aged, gone up in down in proportion, hair color etc.. then we look, assess, have nothing to comment on and have what seems to be a normal conversation.  But it always starts (for most of us) with assesment and ends in judgement, that is until we get conscious and it doesn't end in judgement anymore.  For example:  I remember when I lived in Mansfield a few years back and I went to the surprize 40th birthday of an old friend from high sc...

My friend Vicki took me to lunch yesterday at Wheatleigh in Lenox, MA.  This is a very upscale beautiful Inn in the Berkshires, MA where they have an exquisite menu, view and atmosphere.  She gave me a belated birthday gift and we sat on the great lawn and talked.  It was truly an experince.  Thank you Vicki!  These are the moments of joy to cherish. I will write more this weekend. Love, Steph

Hello imaginary friends.. I'm back!  I ran into some glitches with my blog page, sorry I was gone for so long.  It seems to be working again. Left to my own devices I will take myself down.  If this ego of mine is left unattended without my higher source - who I call God -  look out world, and when I go down, guess who I love to take with me?  That's right.. whoever's in front of me.  I must be diligent.  I have come to realize I do not have much control over my thoughts.. thoughts happen to me on this trip.  I do have control over questioning the thoughts that happen to me.  I have control over asking my SELF on a daily basis "Is it true?".  When I am visiting with an enemy in my mind that I have holed up in a ditch with an oozie pointed at them because they have offended me, I can say "Steph, is it true that they think your ugly?" "Steph, is it true that you will never amount to anything?"  "Steph, is it true that...

Have not been inpired to write in the past few days.  Jonah and I are headed to Boston for the weekend for my niece Mya's 11'th birthday.  I will write more on Sunday night when I am back.  I will leave you with a little somethin' somethin'; "As children bring their toys to us with tears for us to mend, I brought my broken dreams to God because he was my friend. And then instead of leaving him in peace to work alone, I hung around and tried to help with ways that were my own. At last I snatched them back and said "How could you be so slow?" "My child" he said "What could I do?  You never did let go.""    - Anonymous Much love.. Steph

"When you come to the place where the branch in the road is quite apparent, you cannot go ahead.  You must go either one way or the other.  For now if you go straight ahead, the way you went before you reached the branch, you will go nowhere.  The whole purpose of coming this far was to decide which branch you will take now.  The way you came no longer matters.   It can no longer serve.  No one who reaches this far can make the wrong decision, although he can delay.  And there is no part of the journey that seems more hopeless and futile than standing where the road branches, and not deciding on which way to go." - A Course in Miracles - Text p. 477 par. I Well I'll be a monkey's uncle if this little spot on quotation from my favorite book doesn't describe where I'm at.  It's so apparent which way to go.  I know my right mind.  I realize connection is the truth and separation and war is the lie.  And yet I stand staring straight ...

As I opened one eye this morning ambivalent about whether I was ready to wake up or not just yet, I became keenly aware that I was indeed still alive.  "I've made it another day!" I thought to myself.  Another day of life, on a beautiful September day.  I had a very busy schedule facing me this morning.  It's not really my favorite thing to be all that busy and today I was packed solid.  Met up with a friend.  School P.A. meeting.  Doctors appointment.  Nutritionist appointment.  Coaching call.  Another coaching call (with Tom!).  Went flat out until 9:00 pm.  I started out this crisp end of the summer but really feels like fall day with my usual practice and prayer.  I said "Yo... how bout' a little help down here!  I seem to be lacking faith today, not really feeeeeeling it if you know what I mean.  Could you please help me and throw me a sign or two???"  Then I flipped open my Course in Miracles...

One of my very best gal pals called me this morning to tell me she read my blog and had some thoughts about it.  This amazing woman and I have known each other since the tender age of nine.  We met one Halloween evening when our father's (separately) took us out trick or treating and bumped into each other.   As our Dad's were saying hello we looked at each other and were dressed exactly alike!  We were dressed as grow up ladies.. tee hee.  And quite stunning ones I might add.  The next day at school she invited me to her house and we became inseparable.  And to this day 34 years later, we are still very good friends.  How lucky am I? Well, the "con" about having great friends who know you is they call and tell you the truth... like it or not.  She called and told me that I sounded angry.  She was reading my blog and I sound angry to her.  I was taken back a bit.  Don't get me wrong I am a fiery red head who knows t...

I'm tired tonight with not alot to say.  I find sometimes less is more.  So I will say this before I head off to sleep. I believe food is comparable to heroin or alcohol or television, or sex or shopping or anythink we use in life that we cannot put down when it's hurting us, is a filler.  This may be a bold statement, but do not underestimate the power of eating for pleasure.  Do not underestimate this deadly addiction that is happening in our world.  It is virtually impossible to heal, change a lifestyle and find freedom from addiction without questioning our beliefs about how we have been living.  In my experience there is a structure in place, the structure consists of many thoughts that support each other and ultimately drives us to use something to distract from our suffering.  God or somekind of Higher Source is missing at the same time.  I am seeing so clearly for myself that what is saving me is my willingness to question...

I eat and eat and addiction kicks in until I allow something or someone in life to move me.  I stifle these feelings and harbor resentment and ponder the "what if's" of my youth until I surrender to being moved to tears.  I got back on track finally.  I told you I was done and I meant it.  I followed my heart and the cues of this body and took stellar care of myself today in the food department.  I drank my green smoothies, ate my veggies and protein and had my shakes with blueberries.  I took my vitamins, moved my body and gave and received love.  I spoke with my son and most importantly gave myself a day of rest and relaxation.  And then I decided to watch television.  What did Yours Truly land on?  "Man vs. Food".. hello?  And I stayed and I watched Adam embark on a HUMUNGOUS Sunday.  For anyone who has never watched this gluttonous T.V. show (which I happen to LOVE), it is about a man, I would say in his late twen...

"When you know that there is enough, you stop competing with others.  You stop competing for love, or money, or sex, or power, or whatever it is you felt there was not enough of.  The competition is over." - Communion With God by Neil Donald Walsh. I have not stopped competing as a rule.  Sometimes I stop, but then I stop stopping and compete.  Walsh goes onto say "This alters everything.  Now instead of competing with others to get what you want, you begin to give what you want away.  The reason for this is clear.  It has nothing to do with the fact that what you have done is "morally right," or "spiritualy enlightened," or the "Will of God".  It has to do with a simple truth: There is noone else in the room.  There is only one of us ." I love this!  Oh don't get me wrong, I am not so generous all the time.  I eat becaus I believe in lack.  I use food to fill this black velvet void that I believe lives somewhere insid...

Forgot to tell you, no green smoothies today!  Damn.  I did get my vita mixer though ... green smoothies tomorrow!! 

Well... getting back on the wagon wasn't as easy as I thought it would be today.  I got up, had my shake with blueberries and the intentions I had paved the road to hell!!  My son was chosen to shoot a music video by two film students.  My son is eleven and I went to watch.  It was a true joy.  I loved watching him in the creation of this life experience.  But between you and me, I found myself a little jealous.   I sat and watched as life just fell into place for him .  Both his father and I were there.  And while I became very still and present with my thoughts that were having me suffer, I thought "my life has fallen into place too, it just doesn't look the way you think it "should" look Stepharino".   That's right, while I was having my internal selfish temper tantrum, I realized that Jonah was born at the very perfect time and his life is unfolding in the very perfect way.. and if this is true, then so is mine.  I suppose ...

I'm starting this blog tonight.  I know I can learn to listen keenly to myself and do what's right for this body.  I know I can reverse every health issue I have... what are they?  Are you ready?  Fugetaboutit!  I'll tell you after I reverse them.  My mind isn't strong enough to take the judgement, so I'll keep that part to myself until I feel ready to hear the crap that comes along with the decline of the body.  We're all so damn attached to this flesh.. at least I am, for now.  I am going to write about my process of healing every day until I don't anymore.  I have been having a hard time losing weight.. I will tell you this, I have insulin resistance and it has been a mofo to lose a lb.  Although I have lost 8 lbs in 7 weeks and 30 since last October.  I have also gained 2 lbs. of muscle.. slow maybe.. but moving in the right direction.  I sometimes want it gone now!  I have about 120 lbs. to lose.  That's right, y...