Good day, friends.
It's been awhile since we've spoken. Some of you have, no doubt, moved on to bigger and better things. Congratulations! You absolutely deserve it. Me? Well, I've been doing the same things I'd spoken to you about before I last left you. I'm one course and a dissertation away from getting my doctoral degree in Metaphysical Humanistic Science. That means I'm one step closer to what I believe is my true purpose in this lifetime.
I didn't come here to talk about me, though. Well, not just me.
Today, I found myself in a funk. Something happened in my life that upset me so much that I wanted to revert to some old habits. One of my go-to old habits was emotional eating. The pattern was: let someone upset me > completely disregard any progress I've made > eat everything in sight. I would tell myself, in that moment, that I didn't care whether I got fat or not. Who cares that I feel better when I eat better? Who cares that I don't have bouts of IBS when I don't eat meat? (TMI, I know) Who cares? There I was: all prepared to eat healthy snacks and a healthy lunch, but in that moment, all I wanted... was cake. Or pie. Or Doritos. Or, God help me, McDonald's fries.
If I followed the old pattern, I would be upset in the moment, I would eat everything and then afterward, the next moment, I would feel horrible. In the next moment I would care, but by then, it was too late. On top of being upset by whatever had triggered my binge-eating, I would then also be upset with myself for the binge-eating I'd done. My self-esteem would dip really low; and the cycle would continue.
Not today, though. Today, I saw that old, ugly pattern breaking through the surface and I recognized it for what it was. I asked myself, why am I letting someone else control how I feel about myself? If you think about it, that's exactly what was happening. I allowed someone to upset me (that was my first mistake), I then internalized that pain as something that I deserved to feel, then I turned that pain against myself, which would have manifested as an eating binge. Sure, I know that people can take you to horrible, emotional places. I recognize that we are human, and we will sometimes not be in a place to handle emotional warfare. I get it. But I also get that once you let someone anger or upset you, you have handed over your power to them. You're essentially saying, "Here, you control me for a little while."
Now, everyone who's read this blog even once, probably knows that I have control issues. Trust me, I'm working on it, but it's an on-going process as you well know. The fact that I have issues giving others control is the very thing that should stop me from handing control of my emotions to anyone, especially people who have no impact on my existence.
So, I came here today to ask you, to implore you to take your power back. Ask yourself if you're letting others control how you feel about you. It's called self- esteem for a reason. The only person impacting it should be you. When someone upsets you, when you're experiencing emotional difficulty, acknowledge your feelings in this moment, then do what you need to do to get to the next moment. And once you get to the next moment, do something to nurture yourself so that you maintain your progress, your sanity, your self-love. What you do in that next moment could change the course of your life. Or it could keep you stagnant in old habits that you wished you'd given up a long time ago.
What did I do? I reached into the fridge for my carrot sticks and hummus. And I didn't hate myself afterward.
Until next time,
Feed on love, subsist on peace.
Happy New Year.
Showing posts with label weight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weight. Show all posts
Friday, January 8, 2016
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Inherited Insecurities
I was seated at the dining room table, having breakfast alone when my nine-year-old walked in the room. She was still wearing her nightgown, but of course, she had nothing on her feet. It was chilly in the dining room and she wanted to stay and chat with me, so I said to her, "Go upstairs and put something on your feet and your chicken legs." She feigned hurt feelings, drama queen that she is, as she sauntered up the steps to comply with my request.
While I sat there, alone again, I realized that though I didn't actually hurt her feelings, I may have made her self-conscious about having skinny legs. I may have thought of it as a harmless joke, but maybe it wasn't so harmless.
When I was a little girl, I was teased about my thin frame all the time. Chicken Legs, Olive Oyl, Skinny Minnie, I heard it all. And those were just the names my friends called me. If I put my hands on my hips, my mother would say, "Girl, get your hands off your imagination." You see, in my neighborhood, being "thick" was something to which one should aspire. Men and boys alike would drop their jaws at the sight of a woman with thick thighs, big hips, and a rotund backside. I didn't have any of those things, so while my feelings weren't exactly hurt by the skinny jokes, I didn't think I had the right kind of body. I wanted to have all the boys looking at me when I walked down the street. I wanted to be thick. (As an aside, I later received all that attention from boys when my boobs came in. I didn't like it. I still don't like it.)
Can you imagine wanting to gain weight? I spent years of my life eating excessively so I'd gain weight, and now I spend a large chunk of my time trying to stop eating excessively so I'll lose weight. Somewhere in the midst of all those skinny jokes, I received a message that my body wasn't good enough. How does a woman reprogram herself? When all the information you receive tells you that your "ideal" weight is 130 pounds and you are not even close to that, how do you feel good about the body you have?
When you find the answer to that one, let me know, will you?
I put forth a lot of effort trying to prevent my weight issues from becoming my daughter's. I've stopped calling myself fat. I threw away my scale. I try to make it seem as if weight and body size are no big deal. That's the way I want to feel. That's the way I want her to feel. Then I hear myself teasing her about her size and I realize that I'm doing the same thing to her that was done to me. I may not have the quick-fix for me, but I have a good idea of how to fix it for my daughter: stop it before it starts.
When she returned to the dining room, now clad in super skinny
(yes, that's a cut of pants now) jeans and flip flops, I apologized to her. I explained to her how I was once her size and people teased me, which caused me to be obsessed with my weight. Now 30 years later, I'm obsessed with the opposite spectrum of my weight. I told her there is nothing wrong with being thin and that she is perfect just as she is.
Now if we could only get her mother to learn that lesson...
While I sat there, alone again, I realized that though I didn't actually hurt her feelings, I may have made her self-conscious about having skinny legs. I may have thought of it as a harmless joke, but maybe it wasn't so harmless.
When I was a little girl, I was teased about my thin frame all the time. Chicken Legs, Olive Oyl, Skinny Minnie, I heard it all. And those were just the names my friends called me. If I put my hands on my hips, my mother would say, "Girl, get your hands off your imagination." You see, in my neighborhood, being "thick" was something to which one should aspire. Men and boys alike would drop their jaws at the sight of a woman with thick thighs, big hips, and a rotund backside. I didn't have any of those things, so while my feelings weren't exactly hurt by the skinny jokes, I didn't think I had the right kind of body. I wanted to have all the boys looking at me when I walked down the street. I wanted to be thick. (As an aside, I later received all that attention from boys when my boobs came in. I didn't like it. I still don't like it.)
Can you imagine wanting to gain weight? I spent years of my life eating excessively so I'd gain weight, and now I spend a large chunk of my time trying to stop eating excessively so I'll lose weight. Somewhere in the midst of all those skinny jokes, I received a message that my body wasn't good enough. How does a woman reprogram herself? When all the information you receive tells you that your "ideal" weight is 130 pounds and you are not even close to that, how do you feel good about the body you have?
When you find the answer to that one, let me know, will you?
I put forth a lot of effort trying to prevent my weight issues from becoming my daughter's. I've stopped calling myself fat. I threw away my scale. I try to make it seem as if weight and body size are no big deal. That's the way I want to feel. That's the way I want her to feel. Then I hear myself teasing her about her size and I realize that I'm doing the same thing to her that was done to me. I may not have the quick-fix for me, but I have a good idea of how to fix it for my daughter: stop it before it starts.
When she returned to the dining room, now clad in super skinny
(yes, that's a cut of pants now) jeans and flip flops, I apologized to her. I explained to her how I was once her size and people teased me, which caused me to be obsessed with my weight. Now 30 years later, I'm obsessed with the opposite spectrum of my weight. I told her there is nothing wrong with being thin and that she is perfect just as she is.Now if we could only get her mother to learn that lesson...
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