Killing the angel in the house
So yesterday’s Oprah was interesting. The topic was why women let themselves go. This was mostly code for why women let themselves get fat. Yes, there was a bit of discussion about putting hair in ponytails and not putting on makeup. But given how easy those problems are to fix, I don’t think this would have been as big of a show. Instead, most of the stories really focused on how thin the women once were, and how fat they were now. And Oprah (or was it Dr. Robin) suggested that this phenomenon of women letting themselves go was a “crisis.”
Now none of the women on the show had gotten seriously, grossly obese. One of them, Andrea, gained 40lbs after she found out her fiancé was a jerk, yet she was so embarrassed by the situation (including her weight gain) that she broke off her relationship with her best friend.
I can relate to that. I haven’t kept touch with old friends in Boston (where I lived before my mother died). Part of it has been that I was ashamed that I was still on the climb up the scale. But even as I’ve been coming down, I’m still not ready to reach out. I keep telling myself I just want to get a little closer to where I was before.
Anyways, it sounds like this show was the first in a series, and late in the https://www.jasminlive.mobi/ show, Oprah directed folks online to get involved in her “Launch Your Personal Comeback” effort.
But first, the discussion centered on the five women’s stories. The common theme that emerged – according to Oprah and her new bud Dr. Robin – was the importance of finding one’s real sense of value, one’s purpose, as a means to heal the “spiritual wound” that is about not feeling good enough.
don’t disagree with the issues related to the underlying cause, though I do have some issues with the proposed solution.
Our spiritual wounds
On the show, the concept about spiritual wound was a personal one. There was the story of the woman who had been sexually abused, the woman who had the crappy boyfriend, the beauty queen who had been laid off from her job.
This idea of personal wound is certainly important. I have my own wounds, and I’ve struggled with them. Yet I’m starting to believe that it’s also time to revisit the concept of the wound being a social or cultural one. How much of our fat is because we feel we don’t fit in?
The “I wear my fat as a shield” concept is pretty well understood. I’ve said it myself, and spent much time in therapy trying to understand it. But I’ve long believed that the whole “why am I fat” question can only be looked at as an onion: with layers that become more clear the more you peel.
That’s why I am particularly interested now in this idea of the “spiritual wound” that is about rebelling against social ideals. (Whether that rebellion is out of frustration or fear is also an interesting question.)
I find this a very interesting quote in the context of fat as a feminist issue. Yes, I put the food in my mouth. I didn’t exercise. I drank too much. But maybe, just maybe, some of this was giving voice to my resentment at having to live the lies that women from www.chaturbaterooms.com are pressured to live even in this day and age. Be sweet. Think of others first. Don’t be sexually assertive.
So yes, there are personal spiritual wounds, and we all do need to address them. But it’s worth considering: what if your real problem is that your authentic self doesn’t fit the approved stereotype? Maybe we don’t need diets; maybe what we really need is to find courage.
Finding one’s purpose?
According to Oprah, what saved her was the belief that she “was God’s ” and that she had discovered her purpose. She and Dr. Robin suggest that what’s needed to heal these spiritual wounds is a “search and rescue” and that women need to become “more of who they are.”
Well, okay. Here’s my take on this. Depending on where you are, this whole “what’s my purpose?” question can be a lot of work, and it’s something that I think can make you go nuts, especially if you’re inclined to think that you won’t be well until you figure it out.
Here’s a newsflash: I don’t know what my purpose is. And I’m okay with it!
What I figured out over the last year was that finding your purpose, if such a thing exists, may be like the prize in a video game. Getting the prize is much easier once you have conquered the major obstacles in your path. In other words, I think your purpose can wait. For me anyways, figuring out my purpose in life can come after I’ve learned how to nurture myself, set the right limits, and gain confidence in my ability to deal with my problems.
An article in the November Oprah magazine — “Are Your Goals Holding You Back?”– struck me as being very supportive of this. The author writes about Steven Shapiro’s approach to “goal-free living” (his book is coming out in December).
Anyways, I offer this up fully being aware that this may not apply to everyone. Just like OA works for some, but not for me. Same is probably true of some of this touchy-feeling inner stuff: your mileage may vary.
I share it just in case that there are others who are struggling with the “what’s my purpose?” question. I do think it’s worth trying different things that may help one find the North star to navigate by. For me, the North star isn’t my purpose, it’s that, as Wayne Dyer would put it, “your purpose is not as much about what you do as it is about how you feel.” [emphasis mine]
I started my journey wanting to feel a sense of peace: I wanted to stop the struggle. Either I was going to be wicked fat and be okay with it, or I was going to stop shoving food and drink down my throat and beat myself up about it.
These days, I feel pretty darn good. I still don’t know what I’m going to be when I grow up, but I’m feeling like I’m on the right track. But I think that I may just spend more time figuring out how to rebel against the angel in the house.
Obesity and bullets
So I’m having an exchange with some hot sex shows posters over at CalorieLab. They are commenting on a Mythbusters-like news item that notes that you’d need nearly two feet of fat to be “bulletproof.”
Okay, so that’s one of those not particularly useful bits of scientific speculation. But I can see that someone might actually wonder. What I’m having trouble with is the way CalorieLab is reporting this. I didn’t save the original post from yesterday (which led to my first complaint/comment).
I realize it makes more of a statement about me (and why I’m annoyed by this) than CalorieLab perhaps, but I just don’t get the first sentence of the second paragraph. I as wrote in my second complaint/comment, the original article makes no such report that “the obese may have a hidden advantage where gunshot wounds may occur” nor does it say that “some parts of the bodies of the extremely obese may be bulletproof.”
Attachment
Debra has a great post today about eating to soothe. It’s very interesting when put this up against yesterday’s Oprah, which was about a country music star (Mindy McCready) whose boyfriend had nearly killed her a few months back.
Did she leave him? Nope. She loves him, and in fact is pregnant with his , apparently conceived while she had a restraining order out on him.
Oprah (and good bud Dr. Robin) were pretty hard on her in terms of getting her to accept how messed up it was to tolerate such harmful behavior. After a lot of (interesting) prodding, there was an “a ha” moment when Dr. Robin suggested that Mindy was using the boyfriend to revisit past hood wounds (essentially acting as a surrogate for her mother).
What I thought was interesting was the extent to which Mindy wasn’t so much in denial about the harm (though there was clearly some of that), but how clear it was that she wasn’t seeing the pain because she was so attached to the promise of getting from her boyfriend what she wanted from her mother. The guy’s beating her, and she doesn’t want out. She wants him to be sorry (not to say he’s sorry, she wants him to be sorry). And of course, it’s not really her boyfriend she wants to be sorry.
Now, it may be a bit of circular logic to tie in this concept of attachment to the concept of eating to soothe. But for me, I know this was central to my overeating. I’ve made the comparison that my compulsive overeating was my version of a toddler’s temper tantrum. I was using my overeating to soothe, but I was also using the fat as a message: I want someone (else) to take care of me.
I was really attached to this idea. I mentioned before that I really think the “catching monkeys” story (which apparently is an urban legend of sorts) is a compelling metaphor. You are imprisoned, but not by your surroundings. You’re imprisoned by your inability to let go of something that appears desirous, but is ultimately harmful.
I of course cannot find it now, but there was a Dave Barry column many years ago that talked about the joys of parenting. I laughed so hard I almost bust a gut, so I remember that there was a part that talked about the only way to get the revolting piece of crud out of a ’s mouth was to offer him or her something else that was more revolting.
I mention that because I’m tending to agree more these days with Deepak Chopra that lack of attachment (read: lack of desire) is really hard for normal humans to achieve (after all, is the goal of non-desiring a desire?). Given that, it seems like a workable option is to find something less damaging that we can become attached to.
Andrew Weil wrote an interesting article on the relationship between addiction and desire. A highlight for me is this:
This is what I really like so much about the Abe Lincoln philosophy: “when I do good, I feel good.”
Maybe all this pain is about our trying to make ourselves feel better. And even though we have compelling evidence that our solutions are in fact more painful, we’re attached. We don’t have enough confidence to let go. Maybe learning to use feelings as a barometer to how we’re doing can help us gain the courage to let go. Once we discover (perhaps to our surprise) just how much control we have over how we feel, we can give up our addiction of choice.
But either way, I’m with Debra: there’s a lot more to it than “you eat to soothe yourself.”
A first? Or a miracle?
Has this ever happened to you? You go on a diet, and at some point relatively early on, you have the sweets dream. In mine, this usually involves a buffet of treats, something you’d find at the best restaurant brunch. And of course, in my dream, I’m inhaling all types of sugar.
I’ve always attributed these kinds of dreams to either a psychological or physiological withdrawal symptom. Given this, the dream I had over the weekend was a real shock.
I dreamt I turned down chocolate cake.
And it was good cake :). I had this dream just days after watching an episode of America’s Test Kitchen that featured an awesome chocolate sheet cake (registration required). There’s no picture with the recipe, but trust me, the cake in my dream was exactly like it.
Anyways, so I recall having this hunk of cake being put in front of me, and actually having that same old dialogue (”oh, just this once”, “it looks too good”, and so on), but in the end, I dipped a finger in the icing, took a quick taste, and then pushed it away.
Oh. My. Gosh.
Part of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop (or is that, to begin sliding back down the slippery slope). But then part of me notices that things are really different this time.
It’s going to be interesting to see. I said goodbye to my therapist this past week, because I’m feeling like I got what I wanted out of therapy: I’m no longer eating compulsively, and better yet, mentally, the see-saw seems to be gone.
The holidays will be a good test. I’ve gone thru them before fasting, so it’s not like I have to go nuts. But I’m trying to decide whether I’m insane for wanting to have a couple glasses of wine along with stuffing and mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving. Last time I dabbled like this, it led to three weeks way off track.
I like to think that I’m better prepared now, but perhaps it’s too risky. On the other hand, what I really want for myself is to make my own choices and not have them made by either my “inner gremlin” (a la Richard Carlson) or by some internalized 12-step “parent.”
Of course, the fact that I’m even thinking about this nearly three weeks before Thanksgiving helps show that there really is some more work to be done. Stay tuned!
Stages of change
So, as I mentioned, I had my last therapy session last week. While there, I mentioned that I was interested in coming up with a flow chart of sorts to try and account for the different places people are with their weight loss or compulsive overeating.
For example, so far I see the questions being something along the lines of:
Do you need to lose weight?
Do you want to lose weight?
Do you know what to do?
Are you doing that?
… and so on …
At that point, my therapist mentioned that I should look into the stages of change concept developed by Prochaska and DiClemente. According to the model, there are five stages:
pre-contemplation
contemplation
determination
action
maintenance
More signs of change
I mentioned my recent dream, but here’s another sign of change…what I bought at the supermarket yesterday:
veggies from store
I’ve long wanted to want to buy healthy stuff for myself. I actually can remember the first time I went into the store, years ago, and bought healthy stuff for myself. It was such a “a ha” moment. These days, going for health and watching Rachael Ray practically religiously has helped me make the step from take-out to easy healthy (as she says, all these newer ready-to-go produce items are the best).
My new chef’s knife arrived yesterday (it was recommended by the Cooks Illustrated folks), so tonight I’m going to chop up and roast a head of cauliflower. Yum!
BTW, that Paul Newman Sesame Ginger salad dressing (far left) is the best! Lots of flavor, only 35 cals/2T, and it’s made with good oils. Double yum!