Journey Updates
February 8, 2010 @ 08:57 am
I'm an introvert. I have a "mild personality" as one friend put it recently. I'm pretty bad at small talk and I generally keep to myself. I'm more comfortable watching a party than being in one. I like my quiet mornings alone. I prefer small dinner parties, not huge shin-digs.
I'm reasonably sure my personality has evolved into one that stays out of the spotlight and doesn't attract attention precisely because of my childhood experiences. I've always been a fat kid, and as many of us do I paid for that in jeers and jokes at my expense. So I learned to do as little as possible to attract attention of people - lest they notice me, notice my fat, and let loose. Obviously such reactions would be very rare in the adult world; we civilized grown-ups simply give dirty looks, smirk, and deftly turn to someone else to change the subject.
Though many people look to their past for inspiration in "skinny jeans" or "college weight," ... I have no personal benchmark of fitness to strive to. I've always been fat. And my personality has always been this way. I wonder what I will look like 100 pounds lighter. I wonder what I will be / think / act like 100 pounds lighter.
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1 comment | Topics: emotional healing, results, self-confidence
My Reasons For Doing This
January 28, 2010 @ 08:49 am
- Standing on the playground in grade school and wanting to play, but being told "no - only normal people can play, and you're not."
- The disgust - even anger - in my mother's voice when my newly trimmer father could fit in my jean shorts (that I'd become too fat for) ... "you're father shouldn't be able to fit in your clothes!"
- Trying to exist in a gay community that shuns the obese, listening to countless fat jokes and references not feet from me, and generally invisible at almost any social function.
This has been my life. Not for the last couple of years, not while in High School - this has been my life. And I am
ashamed of myself for being obese.
shame. noun. the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something
dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, etc., done by oneself or another.1
According to cultural anthropologist Ruth
Benedict, shame is a violation of cultural or social values while guilt feelings arise from violations of one's internal values. ... Similarly, Fossum and Mason say in their book Facing Shame that
"While guilt is a painful feeling of regret and responsibility for one's
actions, shame is a painful feeling about oneself as a person." 2
Is being obese shameful? Not necessarily. In a non-emotional, purely logical school of thought, the very state of being obese or even just overweight may not be shameful but rather the behaviors surrounding it may be (laziness, gluttony, selfishness). For others it can be a legitimate emotional, psychological or physical issue that needs to be addressed. But none of that matters in the real world. In the real world, we shame our fatties. Because it's fun, because it makes us feel better about ourselves, because it's so damn easy.
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0 comments | Topics: emotional healing, self-confidence, shame
Journey Updates
January 21, 2010 @ 09:56 am
This is the first season I've ever watched The Biggest Loser. I'm not a reality fan and from afar I thought the premise of rapidly losing dozens or a hundred-plus pounds in a couple of months wasn't a good thing. But this season I've picked up on it, and despite the fact they scare the hell out of me, I find the trainers to be really good at what they do; not just with the physics of weight loss, but their ability to get inside the heads of their subjects and help them holistically.
In this week's episode there was a remarkably insightful moment between Jillian the trainer and Migdalia on the green team. The video isn't available yet so here's a quick recap: Migdalia was having a rough time but not talking about it. Jillian was trying to get inside her head. Jillian pressed and pressed and Migdalia played the role of the tough player who doesn't let her emotions show. It got more and more heated, and there was a glimmer of a moment that really resonated hard with me.
It was the moment where after pressuring her charge to embrace her emotions, Jillian asks if she likes herself. Migdalia says no. Jillian asks why. She won't answer. She deflects. She refuses to acknowledge her feelings or figure out what they mean. She wants to do what she's always done - swallow them, hide them, run from them, eat to make them go away. She ultimately says to Jillian that she's here to change her physical appearance and her health, but she doesn't need to change who she is and how she deals with life.
And that was the moment that clicked for me. It was only a couple seconds long and yet it was like a lightbulb of fireworks going off inside my head.
I said to her (and to myself, out loud, like a crazy person) - what's wrong outside is a sign of what's wrong inside. My whole life I've kept to myself in a self-defeating cycle of hiding my emotions and eating to deal with them. Facts are that I have a lot of emotional baggage and despite feeling like I'm well-adjusted and able to deal with life's pressures, some of that baggage does still haunt me because I don't think I've ever really addressed it head on. And I should.
I have a feeling that I'll actually succeed, and stop holding onto this weight, only when I deal with it, address it and internalize the forgiveness and release that's required. So that's what I'm going to have to do. Which is kind of a bigger deal than it seems, actually.
I can barely remember half of the things I should probably deal with. I'm so good at suppressing and hiding from the things that have hurt me I feel like I can't remember half my life, maybe more than half my life. I've forgotten many names of people; I've forgotten whole people's existences and don't know who they are despite ample pictures and having spent 5-6 weeks on the road with them (concert group, long story). So I have to spend some good time dredging up the past in my mind, trying to remember and even relive life's less savory experiences, and then address them head-on.
What does that look like today? Many would think its best to confront those that have hurt you. In my case, I have no way to contact most of them and it probably wouldn't do much good anyhow. But I can deal with it personally, I can release the pain I've held onto, and I can forgive. Through a process of remembering, addressing, writing, and meditating I will work through these things. And though I can't mail them all a letter, I can write it, and post it here, and release it once and for all.
So this is something I'm going to work through. I need to deal with the emotional issues that trigger me to retreat from the world and into the kitchen, or else I'll never succeed in getting thin, fit and healthy.
0 comments | Topics: The Biggest Loser, emotional healing
