I went on my first diet when I was ten, and I have been dieting, or feeling guilty for not dieting, ever since. Dieting and losing weight have been major themes of my life for as long as I can remember. I want to be free of this burden. In order to change, I have to do some hard emotional work. I don't want to do it. But I also don't want to stay where I am. I may have finally reached a point where it is more painful not to change than it is to change. I hope so.It would be easy to just write about diets, menus, and exercise everyday. But that is not what I need. If that were the answer, I would have solved this long ago. So I will be focusing even more on the emotional work that I need to do and sharing with you what I'm learning.
I am currently reading When Food is Love by Geneen Roth. The following excerpt really spoke to me .
"As long as my attention was consumed by what I ate, what size clothes I wore, how much cellulite I had on the backs of my legs, and what my life would be like when I finally lost the weight, I could not be deeply hurt by another person. When I felt rejected by someone, I reasoned that he or she was rejecting my body, not me, and that when I got thin, things would be different.I thought I wanted to be thin; I discovered that what I wanted was to be invulnerable.
Diets don't work because food and weight are the symptoms, not the problems. The focus on weight provides a convenient and culturally reinforced distraction from the reasons why so many people use food when they are not hungry. These reasons are more complex than--and will never be solved with--will power, counting calories, and exercise. They have to do with neglect, lack of trust, lack of love, abuse, unexpressed rage, grief, being the object of discrimination, and protection from getting hurt again. People abuse themselves with food because they don't know they deserve better. People abuse themselves because they've been abused. They become self-loathing, unhappy adults not because they've experienced trauma but because they've repressed it."
10 comments:
Sheryl, I read your comment late yesterday about the Big Mac. Congrats. I love your attitude.
Rae, thanks for the info on your cold rememdies. I'm trying that the next time I have a cold. I don't have a netti pot, but I guess now I will have to get one.
Pat I wish you the best on your journey, a journey that I too face just trying to find that balance of not always caring about food, but at the same time being healthy, so tough! Watched the show Intervention last night, it was about a girl with anorexia and even though I have seen that one last night before it always captivates me, one fact was that anorexia was the most psychologically damaging disease there is. It is so amazing how food can rule our lives. I plan on reminding myself of qoutes to help myself not obsess over food, one from the CFED blog the other day by Kate Winslet about how "being skinny is f***ing boring"(love that one)
"to eat to live not live to eat" and also "eat when your hungry stop when your full".I think that is all the thought I will give to food.
hello, dear Pat,
... it is so indeed ... you are exactly in this point where you are choosing yourself instead of suffering for the rest of your life ... you are in this point when you tried all the tricks and all the games to full yourself and it is not satisfying anylonger ... you are convinced you have to do a "hard" emotional work in order to free yourself from this burden that had stollen 35 years of your life ... who says it is "hard"? ... your mind ... there are times, like this crucial moment in your life, when the mind needs to be dismissed and sent to holidays until further orders ... mind is a wonderful "tool" to be used at the market, when you arrange your trips, when you count your money or you choose the color of your house walls ... in matters of the heart and soul, in crucial moments of life, mind is restless and fusses around, making a lot of noice for nothing ... just thank it gently and send it to have some nice rest in the silence of your heart ... is here, in your heart, where you will find your peace ... is here, in your heart, where you will witness all the repressed emotions you tried to protect yourself from for years ... all the rage, the fury, the anger, the sadness, the loneliness, the fear, the shame you ever felt are not "good" and not "bad" either, there are just balls of energy blocked ... your travel inside you will not be necessary "hard" unless you listen to your dizzy mind too much ... there are also painless giving births, you know ... eventually, expressing those repressed feelings and emotions is not at all as difficult as it may seem, when you open your brave heart and just listen to this little girl called Pat who is longing for years to meet this wonderful adult woman called Pat ... there are so many experiences that little Pat would like to share with adult Pat ... little Pat just needs to melt again with adult Pat, this is all that she needs ... little Pat needs to feel loved and accepted and cherished and honored by adult Pat ... time arrived for you to love yourself deeply and unconditionally at last! ... time arrived when you finally chose yourself! ... time arrived when, despite of what other people might do or think, you choose to be true to yourself, you choose to honor this beautiful little girl called Pat ... time arrived when you, adult Pat, are choosing to behave emotionally like an adult and give up blaming yourself or anybody else for supressing their love yor you! ... it is not relevant any longer ... in the silence of your heart, you, adult woman and you, the little girl, will laugh together and cry together, rest together and be active together and you will eventually fall in love totally with this little girl called Pat and from now on every action of yours will be consistent with the love you chose to give to yourself, no matter what others will do or not for you!
Give up asking me "why?" and how can I be so sure? ... It does not matter ... this is your mind asking ... thank it and send it to rest for a while, because you are better things to do: to love yourself and discover the wonderful true and reliable friend you always had in yourself! ...
Just trust yourself, not me ...
For the sake of the truth, I can tell you: I know it because I was there! ...
And I discovered how beautiful and wonderful I am and what precious gift I received at my birth!
Like you now, I said to myself: "If you do not want me, I want myself!"
And that was the most beautiful moment of my life, when grace flowed over me!... and it is keeping flowing since then!
With love and admiration for who you are,
Leela
P.S.
"neglect, lack of trust, lack of love, abuse, unexpressed rage, grief, being the object of discrimination ... and protection from getting hurt again" ...
on one hand side there are all these repressed emotions ... and on the other, it is the protection from getting hurt again ... give up protecting yourself ... no one and no thing is ever hurted you!
Leela, thank you for your post. I can't wait to meet you soon.
All, Leela lives in Germany, and she is my brother's girlfriend. Leela is Romanian and speaks five languages! Like Meeks, she is a physician. Another really smart voice on our blog. Welcome, Leela.
My dear Pat, can I call you sis? ...
Thank you for your warm introduction, you are too kind to me ...
The pleasure and honor are all mines to meet you and all this lovely family of yours! ... I have a feeling that all of you (your sisters, your mother and your grandmother, like your father and the actual husband of your mother) are very beautiful human beings, outside and inside! ...
Tell me, this is an inherited trait that you all have it? ... it has everything to do with this wonderful old south that I used to read in Margaret Mitchell´s novel: "Gone with the wind"? ...
To be honest, I am feeling privileged to have had the chance to meet Jack and now you and hopefully soon the rest of your family and friends ...
Thank you again, I am reading your words in this blog for a while now and today I felt the need to talk with you, so I did it!
Have a lovely 4-th of November Day, I know that this is a historical day and I am looking forward to meet us again! I am feeling already most wellcomed.
The emotional journey is the hardest one, isn't it. I think I'd rather go cliff diving than soul searching any day but I get so much more out of what I like to call "inside work." It's SO much more powerful than all the action steps we take.
Good excerpt. I will have to read some Geneen Roth I suppose.
Leela, we'll have to talk more via email. You can email me at psculpepper@gmail.com.
I just returned from voting. There was no line!
Another terrific post, Pat! Thanks so much for sharing it. I concur with Shana that at times I find soul searching scarier than encountering a witch, a rat, and a roach on a dark night! :-) Auntie Mame is one of my favorite movies, and there is a line there that goes something along the lines of "Life is a Banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!" I have to face the fears to avoid starving at the banquet of life!
Glad to "meet" Leela today and look forward to reading more of her posts. The world grows smaller everyday!
Oh, I LOVE Auntie Mame! It's one of my faves too, Byron!
And welcome, Leela. Cool name.
Post a Comment