As a radical feminist trying to make the world a better place for women, I sometimes feel like a sad cliché sitting in my therapist’s office telling her I hate my body. But as a Buddhist, I KNOW that the only way to change is to first compassionately acknowledge the reality of what is.
I didn’t always hate my body. In fact, I managed to not pay much attention to it for many years, choosing to focus on my brain instead. During all of that cerebral activity there were hints of discontent brewing. In high school I had this belief that I was heavier than all of my friends. When I look back at those photos now, I see a petite girl with a body indistinguishable from her peers.
The body image problem I had as a young adult was focused on my choice to not shave and the hostile reactions I received from strangers for defying society’s idea of what a real woman is (see blog entry To Shave or Not to Shave: That Has Always Been the Question). During this time I purposely chose to never go on a diet for fear of destroying my metabolism and as a feminist stance.
Things became very hazy and then very clear the year I became very ill. A string of traumatic events and contracting adult chicken pox caused my nervous system and my immune system to derail. I became severely depressed and anxious. I developed debilitating insomnia. I lost a lot of weight. At the lowest point of my life, I loved my new body. And I was lucid enough to know how fucked up that was.
It took a lot of medications, in just the right combination, to penetrate my depression and for me to begin to heal. Inevitably, I gained weight as my system normalized, and I gained weight from the medications. Still, I was so grateful to be regaining my health, to be returning to school, to having my life back, I didn’t pay very much attention to my body size. I began hiking again, starting with an extremely difficult backpacking trip through the Canyonlands of Utah that signified my new beginning. I rode my bicycle all around town and swam laps at the community center. Eventually, that time when my body had failed me became a faded memory as I joined the throngs of outdoor enthusiasts to play in the Rocky Mountains.
Four years later my world changed again. I was driving with a friend to go camping in the mountains of Colorado when a May snowstorm arose. As she drove her truck over the infamous Vail pass, my friend skidded on ice. Going 70 miles per hour the truck slammed into the median. It then skidded onto the right shoulder flipping ¾ of a turn and slamming into a boulder that reshaped the front of the truck. I was very surprised that we survived. I seemed to have sustained nothing more than a bruised tailbone, not suspecting that this injury would develop into years of chronic pain.
As any body worker will tell you, when one thing goes wrong in the pelvic arena, everything can start to shift and strain. Within months I had S.I. joint, back, and leg pain so severe I could not sit down for any length of time. I began to stand for two hours in my graduate courses, but eventually had to drop out due to my physical pain and the accompanying depression. Over the years, the scope and degree of the pain receded, but I have not been able to do most forms of exercise since. My inertia, coupled with a new round of increased depression and the accompanying medication regime change made my weight soar. The pounds piled on over the years until, in the last year, I became the heaviest I have ever been. And I hated it.
Having spent nine months in the sleepy mountain town of Glenwood Springs this year, I had a lot of time to pursue personal reinvention. It was a fresh start and I decided to increase my walking for exercise, which led to a reassessment of my eating habits. Based on an earlier highly successful trial, I decided to remove refined sugar from my diet. Because of alternative natural and manufactured sugar replacements, I didn’t feel deprived. Fresh fruit became sweeter. Chocolate rice milk tasted like a dessert. Agave nectar made tea taste wonderful. I discovered that although refined sugar is highly addictive, after many weeks without, the cravings disappear. After six months I felt totally committed to my new way of life. I told myself that I could eat as much as I wanted of this healthier diet, a notion I have come to dispute.
So, I lost twenty pounds and went down one dress size thanks to my no sugar diet. But my fundamental relationship with food had not changed. I was still eating compulsively, using food to drown out anxiety and other undesirable emotions. I was using food to reward myself for undertaking difficult tasks. And I was bloated and miserable. As I started dating in Denver again, I felt excruciatingly uncomfortable about my body and could see no circumstances under which I would be excited to be intimate with another person. And, as we say in Buddhism, I finally woke up.
I decided it was time for phase two of my dietary reinvention and I contemplated what that might be. I realized that the sheer volume of food I was consuming needed to change. I have always refused to weigh food or count calories because I believe that would be a slippery slope to being obsessive and the idea here is for eating to take up less of my psychic energy. I created a few ground rules for myself and began to test them out. I drink water throughout the day because I sometimes mistake thirst for hunger. I tune in to my body and determine if I am hungry or if I want to eat for some other reason. I eat throughout the day to keep my hunger at bay. Each time I eat, I eat half of what I would normally consume which, as it turns out, is usually able to satisfy my physical hunger completely.
Ultimately, the most important piece is that my relationship with food is improving steadily. In a way, I was living to eat—always making food my touchstone for good feelings. Now, I am eating to live. I still enjoy food, but it no longer has such an elevated status in how I make myself happy. Anytime I want to overindulge I remind myself that the temporary pleasure from eating that extra bowl of ice cream is so far outweighed by the pleasure I will feel as I lose weight and feel more comfortable in my body. There’s also a deprivation component stemming from being poor for so long: I often feel compelled to eat as much as possible for fear the food will not be there the next time I am hungry. I am learning to identify this underlying belief and to challenge it as not being true. Finally, I just feel happier. I like myself better and feel more positive about life because I no longer feel I am being controlled by unconscious compulsions. I chose to see the reality of my relationship with food, to accept myself compassionately and to make new more self-loving choices in my behavior. I woke up.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Friday, September 24, 2010
The Real Reason I’m Obsessed with Reality Television—It’s All in the Details
My favorite book is Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt. It’s actually a young adult book I first read in sixth grade. It’s about four siblings ages 7-13 who are abandoned by their mentally ill mother in a broken-down station wagon parked at a mall. The family is dirt poor. Having written their great Aunt’s address on the paper bags holding their clothes, the eldest, Dicey, decides that they need to head toward her home where hopefully their lost mother will be waiting. The bulk of the book is about how the four siblings walk hundreds of miles up the Atlantic Coast, and how they find food, shelter, and hope in dire circumstances. As an adult I became aware that my own mother has a serious mental illness which often interfered with her caring for us properly and thus realized this was one part of the book I could relate to. However, the aspect of the plot that I most identify with is the theme of: how to use limited resources to meet your basic needs.
Growing up, I had to do just that. And it is that creativity and satisfaction of surviving hostile environments that I know intimately and which endlessly fascinates me in other people’s stories. And while Survivor is the quintessential survivor experience, I find all reality television shows to have essentially the same theme, whether taking place locked away in the Big Brother house or on the runway competing for a modeling contract. All of these contestants are trying to stay sane and to achieve a very difficult goal within the constraints of their unhealthy environments.
In my childhood, we rarely had meals cooked and served. There was usually food in the fridge, although it was sometimes out of date and spoiled. I had to forage in the kitchen, sometimes cutting up a green pepper and having it with a hunk of cheese for my dinner. There was a survival mentality in my house. I would hide clean towels in my room because my mother would feel free to take whatever she wanted whenever she wanted, and to avoid being left in a lurch (needing a clean towel to shower before school) I resorted to being sneaky and devious to get my basic needs met. When I watch contestants scouring the beach for food and going to extreme measures to get what they need, I recognize this behavior on a primitive emotional level. I rejoice with that person when he finally gets the coconut open and gets the liquid to his parched lips.
Homecoming is filled with delightful details with intricate descriptions of using limited resources to meet one’s basic needs:
They’d have to conserve money and food. Quickly she calculated a way to eat only half of the food tonight and the rest for their next dinner. No more Cokes, either; they’d cost sixty cents. No more small markets; they were more expensive. They could fish in Long Island Sound or the rivers (string and a hook, they’d have to buy those), and why didn’t she have a knife? Pg 30
Someone else might find these details mundane and boring. I find them thrilling.
This fascination with survival and making do is a theme that permeates my work and my art. My adult life has consisted of many hardships—physical, emotional, and mental. In every case, I was somehow able to transform that struggle into something affirming and sustaining. The main reason I’m a therapist is that I know in my core that it is possible to survive and even thrive in the throes of adversity. The art medium I engage in most has to do with found objects. I automatically look at everything as a potential art material. I take the plastic bits from the box my printer came in. I see the left-over nuts and bolts of my assembled table as salvageable. I guess I believe that almost everything is salvageable. And thus every piece of one’s life contains the possibility of being transformed into something better. It’s this possibility for transformation that stands at the heart of who I am and what I do.
Growing up, I had to do just that. And it is that creativity and satisfaction of surviving hostile environments that I know intimately and which endlessly fascinates me in other people’s stories. And while Survivor is the quintessential survivor experience, I find all reality television shows to have essentially the same theme, whether taking place locked away in the Big Brother house or on the runway competing for a modeling contract. All of these contestants are trying to stay sane and to achieve a very difficult goal within the constraints of their unhealthy environments.
In my childhood, we rarely had meals cooked and served. There was usually food in the fridge, although it was sometimes out of date and spoiled. I had to forage in the kitchen, sometimes cutting up a green pepper and having it with a hunk of cheese for my dinner. There was a survival mentality in my house. I would hide clean towels in my room because my mother would feel free to take whatever she wanted whenever she wanted, and to avoid being left in a lurch (needing a clean towel to shower before school) I resorted to being sneaky and devious to get my basic needs met. When I watch contestants scouring the beach for food and going to extreme measures to get what they need, I recognize this behavior on a primitive emotional level. I rejoice with that person when he finally gets the coconut open and gets the liquid to his parched lips.
Homecoming is filled with delightful details with intricate descriptions of using limited resources to meet one’s basic needs:
They’d have to conserve money and food. Quickly she calculated a way to eat only half of the food tonight and the rest for their next dinner. No more Cokes, either; they’d cost sixty cents. No more small markets; they were more expensive. They could fish in Long Island Sound or the rivers (string and a hook, they’d have to buy those), and why didn’t she have a knife? Pg 30
Someone else might find these details mundane and boring. I find them thrilling.
This fascination with survival and making do is a theme that permeates my work and my art. My adult life has consisted of many hardships—physical, emotional, and mental. In every case, I was somehow able to transform that struggle into something affirming and sustaining. The main reason I’m a therapist is that I know in my core that it is possible to survive and even thrive in the throes of adversity. The art medium I engage in most has to do with found objects. I automatically look at everything as a potential art material. I take the plastic bits from the box my printer came in. I see the left-over nuts and bolts of my assembled table as salvageable. I guess I believe that almost everything is salvageable. And thus every piece of one’s life contains the possibility of being transformed into something better. It’s this possibility for transformation that stands at the heart of who I am and what I do.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Why Money Can Buy Happiness--Or at Least the Financial Security to Pursue It
"Money Can't Buy Happiness" has never been a favorite saying of mine. Probably because I've never had enough money to test this theory out. In fact, I'll admit that when I hear well-to-do folks say this, I kind of want to throw something at them.
The truth is, social class and access to resources is complex and not easily distilled down to a supposedly enlightened saying. To understand this relationship between money and happiness let's start at the top, which is really the bottom. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology, proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation. This theory proposes that there is a hierarchy to human needs such that, we cannot actualize higher functioning if our lower, most basic needs are not met.
The first, most basic needs include:
Physiological: breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, excretion
When these needs are met, we seek
Safety: security of body, employment, resources, morality, the family, health, property
With these needs met, we seek
Love/Belonging:friendship, family, sexual intimacy
when these needs are met, we seek
Esteem: self-esteem, confidence, achievement,respect of others, respect by others.
When these needs are met, we seek
Self-Actualization: morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice acceptance of facts
One does not literally need to fully actualize one level before moving on to the next. for example, during times when I've been financially impoverished I continued to explore my creativity through writing poetry. But, the overall idea is that humans can't fully work on higher order needs--the very higher order needs that create happiness--if our basic needs for survival are not to some extent met. That's what I mean by money can buy happiness.
The most blaring example to me is the homeless men and women that I pass on the street. Lacking security of body, of belonging, and of food, water, and sleep, these people are unable to dream about what will make them happy or to strive to achieve this. This to me is tragic.
I believe it is our birthright to be happy. And our society should provide the circumstances that allow us to claim that birthright.
The truth is, social class and access to resources is complex and not easily distilled down to a supposedly enlightened saying. To understand this relationship between money and happiness let's start at the top, which is really the bottom. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology, proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation. This theory proposes that there is a hierarchy to human needs such that, we cannot actualize higher functioning if our lower, most basic needs are not met.
The first, most basic needs include:
Physiological: breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, excretion
When these needs are met, we seek
Safety: security of body, employment, resources, morality, the family, health, property
With these needs met, we seek
Love/Belonging:friendship, family, sexual intimacy
when these needs are met, we seek
Esteem: self-esteem, confidence, achievement,respect of others, respect by others.
When these needs are met, we seek
Self-Actualization: morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice acceptance of facts
One does not literally need to fully actualize one level before moving on to the next. for example, during times when I've been financially impoverished I continued to explore my creativity through writing poetry. But, the overall idea is that humans can't fully work on higher order needs--the very higher order needs that create happiness--if our basic needs for survival are not to some extent met. That's what I mean by money can buy happiness.
The most blaring example to me is the homeless men and women that I pass on the street. Lacking security of body, of belonging, and of food, water, and sleep, these people are unable to dream about what will make them happy or to strive to achieve this. This to me is tragic.
I believe it is our birthright to be happy. And our society should provide the circumstances that allow us to claim that birthright.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Top Ten Things I Am Grateful For During My First Week in Glenwood Springs
1. I found my new hangout. It’s a coffee shop with fresh food, drinks, desserts and internet. After I befriend the owners I plan to propose starting an open mike night there.
2. I’m becoming a nicer person! I don’t know if it’s my good mood or knowing that the line is slow because there really is just one person working that counter, but I feel generous with my time and attitude in this slower paced life.
3. “Ryan” and “Bleedpro” are unknowingly giving me free internet until I can afford to purchase my own.
4. I feel inspired to explore. I’m hiking. I’m driving all over town and getting lost which is leading me to a lot of discoveries. I found the tiny library and checked out some DVDs and CDs. It’s just really fun that everything is new.
5. My new boss is an amazing woman. She is loaning me her air mattress so I don’t have to sleep on the floor and she took me out for the best Thai curry I’ve ever tasted.
6. The water I’ve been craving throughout my decade plus in Colorado is available in abundance here with two mighty rivers and the pretty much biggest natural hot springs pool in the world.
7. My studio apartment is wonderful. It’s actually as big as a one bedroom, just without the doors. Hard wood floors. A delightful mountain breeze. Four minute walk to the center of town.
8. My cat Chloe is acclimating. She’s still weary of the new digs, but is getting more comfortable each day.
9. My wonderful friends are still keeping me company through Facebook and phone calls.
10. Really, that I have the chutzpa to completely change my life by taking a leap of faith and believing in my instincts that are telling me this is a great place for me to be right now.
2. I’m becoming a nicer person! I don’t know if it’s my good mood or knowing that the line is slow because there really is just one person working that counter, but I feel generous with my time and attitude in this slower paced life.
3. “Ryan” and “Bleedpro” are unknowingly giving me free internet until I can afford to purchase my own.
4. I feel inspired to explore. I’m hiking. I’m driving all over town and getting lost which is leading me to a lot of discoveries. I found the tiny library and checked out some DVDs and CDs. It’s just really fun that everything is new.
5. My new boss is an amazing woman. She is loaning me her air mattress so I don’t have to sleep on the floor and she took me out for the best Thai curry I’ve ever tasted.
6. The water I’ve been craving throughout my decade plus in Colorado is available in abundance here with two mighty rivers and the pretty much biggest natural hot springs pool in the world.
7. My studio apartment is wonderful. It’s actually as big as a one bedroom, just without the doors. Hard wood floors. A delightful mountain breeze. Four minute walk to the center of town.
8. My cat Chloe is acclimating. She’s still weary of the new digs, but is getting more comfortable each day.
9. My wonderful friends are still keeping me company through Facebook and phone calls.
10. Really, that I have the chutzpa to completely change my life by taking a leap of faith and believing in my instincts that are telling me this is a great place for me to be right now.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
I am a U-Haul Lesbian! I fell in love with my new town on our second date!
First, for those who don’t know, there is a very tired, yet continuously used joke about the pace at which lesbians begin their relationships. The joke goes: What does a lesbian bring on the second date? Answer: A U-haul! This stems from the tendency for overwhelming emotional investment to exist when you have two women pursuing a relationship, as women stereotypically tend to quickly develop a strong emotional attachment to those they are physically intimate with.
This is exactly what is happening with me as I explore my new mountain town community of Glenwood Springs. Of course, I drove all my stuff here, including a very miserable cat, after visiting the town just once, at the time of my job interview. I took a leap of faith and it’s paying off.
I don’t believe I’ve ever been in love with a place before. I’ve been to interesting and beautiful locations, including Israel, Berkeley and New York City. But, I feel something very different right now that feels like love. I feel an urgent sense of possibilities. I feel that I want to rush to get to know this place so I don’t miss out on anything, yet, I feel I could live here forever and take my time getting to know each aspect of my new home intimately.
My gut and my heart are singing yes, but my mind is trying to be rational. I’m asking myself the same questions that anyone does when falling in love. Is this real? I have never felt this way before. Am I seeing what is true, both good and bad? Or am I seeing things through rose colored glasses? Will this feeling endure? Or will it fade with time? Can I truly be myself here and build a full life? Can I handle the drawbacks as well as the treasures? Only time will tell.
A few things I’ve discovered: Downtown is a four-minute walk from my apartment. There I find coffee shops, bookstores, restaurants, rivers, mountain views, and people who say hello when you pass them by. Two blocks away is Kaleidescoops where I plan to try every one of their forty-eight flavors of ice cream. I want to zip-line, river-raft, and rock-climb. This place makes me want to be a healthier, happier person. That’s love, right?
This is exactly what is happening with me as I explore my new mountain town community of Glenwood Springs. Of course, I drove all my stuff here, including a very miserable cat, after visiting the town just once, at the time of my job interview. I took a leap of faith and it’s paying off.
I don’t believe I’ve ever been in love with a place before. I’ve been to interesting and beautiful locations, including Israel, Berkeley and New York City. But, I feel something very different right now that feels like love. I feel an urgent sense of possibilities. I feel that I want to rush to get to know this place so I don’t miss out on anything, yet, I feel I could live here forever and take my time getting to know each aspect of my new home intimately.
My gut and my heart are singing yes, but my mind is trying to be rational. I’m asking myself the same questions that anyone does when falling in love. Is this real? I have never felt this way before. Am I seeing what is true, both good and bad? Or am I seeing things through rose colored glasses? Will this feeling endure? Or will it fade with time? Can I truly be myself here and build a full life? Can I handle the drawbacks as well as the treasures? Only time will tell.
A few things I’ve discovered: Downtown is a four-minute walk from my apartment. There I find coffee shops, bookstores, restaurants, rivers, mountain views, and people who say hello when you pass them by. Two blocks away is Kaleidescoops where I plan to try every one of their forty-eight flavors of ice cream. I want to zip-line, river-raft, and rock-climb. This place makes me want to be a healthier, happier person. That’s love, right?
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
A Writer's Dilemma
It never occured to me to keep a diary growing up, but when I went to Israel for a ten-month adventure, I decided to record my experiences. Later, I noticed that I was filling my book with drawings, rather than written entries. I didn't use a journal again until 1998 when I began therapy. My therapist suggested that at the end of each day I make note of ten things I felt grateful for. And thus began my long-winded self-improvement project of journaling.
I discovered that processing my emotions and thoughts through writing provided me with self-understanding, an outlet for intensity, and some solace. Today, I have about 70 filled journals, non of which I have ever gone back to read. This was a conscious decision based on the fact that my decade-plus relationship with journals was mostly filled by fearfulness, depression, anxiousness, and sadness. I lived for about a decade dealing with severe clinical depression and anxiety, poverty, and lonliness. Since I am always in the process of recovering from depression, I have never felt so far beyond it that I could revisit these painful words without being, well, depressed. I decided that my health was more important than my curiousity of reading the journals and risking more pain.
I have always thought that I would write a memoir someday and that I would use these journals to remember endless details and interpretations of events to do so. However, I am making a big move soon and have been streamlining my belongings. I am only taking what I can fit in the car. And those journals would take up a lot of prime real estate in the back seat. This move has already entailed throwing objects and papers away that I feel are no longer necessary for me to carry around. And getting rid of these has lightened my load mentally, as well.
The question is: Will I regret throwing away my journals in another five years when I am ready to read them and use them in my writings? I don't know what the answer is, but I'm taking a leap of faith. I am trusting my mind and heart that the parts of my life that I need to remember later will be right inside of me. I'm letting the journals go. It's time.
I discovered that processing my emotions and thoughts through writing provided me with self-understanding, an outlet for intensity, and some solace. Today, I have about 70 filled journals, non of which I have ever gone back to read. This was a conscious decision based on the fact that my decade-plus relationship with journals was mostly filled by fearfulness, depression, anxiousness, and sadness. I lived for about a decade dealing with severe clinical depression and anxiety, poverty, and lonliness. Since I am always in the process of recovering from depression, I have never felt so far beyond it that I could revisit these painful words without being, well, depressed. I decided that my health was more important than my curiousity of reading the journals and risking more pain.
I have always thought that I would write a memoir someday and that I would use these journals to remember endless details and interpretations of events to do so. However, I am making a big move soon and have been streamlining my belongings. I am only taking what I can fit in the car. And those journals would take up a lot of prime real estate in the back seat. This move has already entailed throwing objects and papers away that I feel are no longer necessary for me to carry around. And getting rid of these has lightened my load mentally, as well.
The question is: Will I regret throwing away my journals in another five years when I am ready to read them and use them in my writings? I don't know what the answer is, but I'm taking a leap of faith. I am trusting my mind and heart that the parts of my life that I need to remember later will be right inside of me. I'm letting the journals go. It's time.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Hatefulness Lacks Skillfulness
Today I sat in my favorite lesbian coffeeshop, sipping Tazo Calm tea, and talking with one of my favorite Baristas when the woman sitting next to me began to rant and rave. She barked about how the foreigners are taking over our country and using all of our resources. She identified everyone in the country who doesn't agree with her as being a jackass, and put forth that she had all the answers to everything (while she complained endlessly and offered no constructive solutions). Needless to say, I spoke up. I try to always confront racism. But, putting aside the content of her beliefs, it was the delivery that I found so toxic.
Her tone, mannerisms, expressions, and words were hateful. I'm not going to pretend I'm so much better than her, because I too have used hatred as a way to communicate my ideas. At 21, I was a walking ball of rage. At 36, my ideas are still similar in that I abhor oppression and speak out about it. However, my delivery is entirely different. And my certainty that I am always right has been replaced by a more humble belief that another person may have valuable information about the topic at hand and I could benefit from listening.
A big part of the shift is from psychological growth. Maturity leads to less black and white and more complex thinking (although this doesn't always coincide with chronilogical age). But a whole lot of it is Buddhist. One of my favorite lessons is: "Hate doesn't lead to love" "Hate leads to hate" and "Love leads to love" Quite literally, if you try to solve problems through hatred, hatred will prevail. If you try to solve problems with love and compassion, those will prevail. Heeding these ideas is not always easy. It takes a lot of skill and practice.
As I write this I am actually thankful that my experience today reminds me of where I came from regarding my relationship of hatred toward others, as well as where I am and where I want to be.
Her tone, mannerisms, expressions, and words were hateful. I'm not going to pretend I'm so much better than her, because I too have used hatred as a way to communicate my ideas. At 21, I was a walking ball of rage. At 36, my ideas are still similar in that I abhor oppression and speak out about it. However, my delivery is entirely different. And my certainty that I am always right has been replaced by a more humble belief that another person may have valuable information about the topic at hand and I could benefit from listening.
A big part of the shift is from psychological growth. Maturity leads to less black and white and more complex thinking (although this doesn't always coincide with chronilogical age). But a whole lot of it is Buddhist. One of my favorite lessons is: "Hate doesn't lead to love" "Hate leads to hate" and "Love leads to love" Quite literally, if you try to solve problems through hatred, hatred will prevail. If you try to solve problems with love and compassion, those will prevail. Heeding these ideas is not always easy. It takes a lot of skill and practice.
As I write this I am actually thankful that my experience today reminds me of where I came from regarding my relationship of hatred toward others, as well as where I am and where I want to be.
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