The Image of Body

I've put on more than 20 pounds in the last two years. The first ten, many will tell you, I needed. The second ten, however, I didn't. But in the grand scheme of things they are just numbers, sizes, extra flesh and fat covering my body that is still sexy, still looks good in the right dress and a fine pair of boots, that is still considered to be in pretty good shape--especially three kids later.

And most days, I am content with it. My body serves me well, and is certainly only one part of the whole quantum structure--including thoughts, feelings, and mechanisms of life--that contain me. But today, I am torn between being a woman who doesn't let societal standards of beauty define me and a woman who stares at the thickening upper arms in the mirror and wonders how I got back there. The linebacker.

My mom used to tell the story about when I was a baby and the doctor examining me for my check-up commented on my wide shoulders and sturdy one-year-old frame. "She could be a linebacker," he chuckled. And we always laughed at the retelling of it.

The reality is that I was never really overweight until after my second child--despite the teenage chatter about my thighs being too thick, or my belly curling over my jeans only when I leaned over (if only that were the case now!). Sure, I put on weight with my first baby, but I was young and active--and while I never went back to those pre-baby jeans, I certainly retained a healthy weight for a young twenty-something.

With my son, it was different. I was closer to 30 and craved hot dogs and big macs. I put on pound after pound in my second trimester after my doctor warned me that I wasn't putting on enough weight. A year after he was born, I was still 40 pounds over my natural weight and miserable. It was the pain from my diseased gallbladder than finally kicked in the weight loss--foods high in fat triggered a pain comparable to labor and as I waited six weeks for surgery, I dined on only the finest vegetables, fruit, and bread. Even lean meats would induce a daggering effect under my ribcage--and the weight fell off, and continued to fall for three months until I became pregnant with my third child.

And the weight climbed, steadily and healthily--just as it should when nurturing a new life. And I didn't worry about the weight. I ate well, and gained well, and after my baby was born I set my sights on fat-free foods and just right portions.

And then I got sick. Real sick, and the lines began to blur between my state of mind, my body's reactions, and the motivations behind not only my physical digestive ailments, but also the psychological beginnings of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in which I had thought germs were contaminating my food. (Read other details of my experience with this here.) There are so many different facets of what began as the flu and what ended as some strange mix of OCD and Anorexia, that I have spent the last two years pulling out each piece and examining it. This piece here, I'm realizing, is the body image part--which until recently, I didn't think was actually involved.

But as I struggle to fit into the jeans I bought six months ago, and I resist putting on the pants that I swam in two years ago, I understand that I truly wish to be thinner. I look at photos of myself (there are not many) when I was at my lowest weight in the winter of 2008, and I long to see the bones of my hips and wrap my hands around my upper thigh until my thumbs touch. But I know--also--that I was not well. My body may have been thin, but it wasn't healthy.

I was having heart problems, pain and odd rhythms, enough so that I had to wear a heart monitor for 30 days which recorded every palpitation that luckily came out to be harmless as far as heart disease and such was concerned, but it was a signal that my electrolyte balance was off. Nutritionally, I was not feeding my body enough calories, and so the amount of energy I was expending daily was akin to running a marathon. In less than six months my body mass index (BMI) went from 24% to 18%--the low end of the "normal" scale, and was the signal to my physician that I needed to see a nutritionist to make sure I was eating enough. Which, of course, I shamefully knew I wasn't.

And so I would look at that thin body in the mirror and tell myself it wasn't good, even though I felt that I looked fabulous in my new jeans and my niece's skin tight tanks and tees. But I was cheating, and I was miserable. Anxiety ridden at every meal and without any appetite to speak of, I forced myself to eat so I wouldn't kill myself slowly. Other things began to change--outside elements that healed my aching heart and cleared my cluttered mind--and I gained new perspective. I began feeling hunger again. I began feeling other things, too, like desire and happiness. And all this helped. I was eating consciously, but healthily, and slowly I'd introduce different forbidden foods back in my diet.

But now I'm finding--as the scale tips in the other direction--that so has my appetite, and also my feeling of once again being out of control of what I am eating. Stuffing myself with sugar in many forms: cookies, candy, sweetened teas and feeling like I can't shut off the valve. The numbers on the scale climb back up and the majority of the clothes in my closet don't fit, but I don't understand it because I always likened overeating with a state of unhappiness, and I'm certainly not unhappy these days. Instead, I am now beginning to understand that my relationship with food goes beyond the markings of the scale, beyond the last few years and my struggle with OCD, and even beyond the linebacker comments of my early childhood. Instead of nutritional need, food has a place in my life as something that controls me, or needs to be controlled. It is manipulation. It is comfort. It is greed. It is love. It is loneliness. It is sex.

And so this isn't really about body image after all. It is about my ability to redefine, once again, the role that food plays in my life. To understand that my discomfort with my growing waistline is more about being out of control than it is about being overweight, and to try and understand that. My body is the vessel within which my soul moves about in the physical world. It is the piece that ties me between the spirit and the earth, and it deserves as much attention, love, and nurturing as the rest of me--no matter what shape or size I may be.

October Choices

I've recently gotten to the point where life gets in the way of passion. Where I long to write, but stare at a blank page while my mind races with things left undone. Where I feel no desire to play, to sing, to dance--until I'm in the midst of doing those things, of course. And I am reminded that in order to be our best Selves, sometimes it takes a little force, a little dragging, and often a lot of patience and acceptance of the times in which we feel the need to retreat, once again, deeper into ourselves.

Last fall I wrote an article for a local magazine, Little Village, that discussed fall as a time of gathering and retreat. It's not only the animals that forage and store up for winter; It's not only the trees that drop their leaves and turn themselves inward. It is people, too. And so I've learned to go with the feelings of retreat and not worry that there is something wrong if I no longer wish to stray from home on a Saturday night--even if it will be my last chance to do so for a while. I've come to greet the turning inward as a time to digest the whirlwind of summer, to reflect on what's come before and make choices about what I wish will be.

Choices. We have them. Always.

The choice to embrace change, or the choice to fight it. Last year I wrote a song called October. At its core, it's a song about transitions. And while the word "October" doesn't actually occur once in the entire song, it embodies some of the bigger changes my personal life has gone through--many of which in the last few years began in the month of October. On the first of October in 2004, my now former husband and I bought our first house. In October of 2005--right around Halloween, we found out I was pregnant with my third child. Two years later, in the month of October--my husband and I separated. The following year, in October of 2008, our divorce was legally finalized, and a year after that, again on the first of October, I bought his share of our home and became sole owner.

But this October will bring a different change. While my boyfriend's car sits in my driveway awaiting his October return, my exhusband is back in my home--temporarily sleeping in the basement. By October 1st he will be gone--taking a job a few states away, and hoping the space will provide him with a much needed new outlook. His leaving will mark a new era for our children, as they negotiate living with a long-distance father, and I know the change will affect each of his children in different ways.

I also know that there is much that I could fear, but that I am making the choice not to. I've had advice from friends and family members who insist that I see a lawyer right away--they worry he will take the kids, or not pay me enough money. They worry that I will be left either with everything, or nothing. They worry, and I understand their worries, but I can not swim in them. In order to keep my Self--and my children--afloat in the next big transition I must continue to rely on the strength that has gotten me through each big change in my life. That strength comes from a faith in knowing that good will prevail, that I don't need to spend my time fretting about what COULD happen, and rest in the knowledge of what IS happening and what my choices are within that space.

And what IS happening is a shift in relation. Despite our differences, I know that he is a good man who is making the choices he believes are going to help him become a better person. I know that our children will survive, not without bumps and bruises, but with a whole lot of wisdom--and a community of friends and family who will continue to help me care for them daily. I know, that at the end of the day, what matters most is how I choose to react to the change.

My children will take cues from me on how to choose to react. The most important choice being that I allow them to feel their feelings, and also that I show them strategies to shift those feelings with a change in thought, in scenery, in music. I could choose to be angry that I'm left doing it "alone" or I can revel in the fact that I get to be with my children, and that I'm loved and supported by others who get to be with them, too. I'm no fool. There will be days when all I will want to do is howl and scream, when the kids will act up and the money won't replace the man, when I've not had a moment to myself for weeks and I'll feel the weight of the world on my shoulders. But those times, too, will become lessons learned. They will be moments to let flow and rise above. Moments to feel and then heal. Moments to rely on the love of others, and the strength of family and friends.

Choices.

I can choose to suffer alone, or I can be strong enough to know when I can't do it mySelf.

Choices.

I can choose to be afraid, or I can choose to Trust that everything will work out just fine.

Choices.

I can choose to believe that my children--and even I--would be lost without him in our daily lives, or I can choose to believe that the distance will provide a space in which understanding and compassion can prevail.

So this fall, as the weather cools and I once again look forward to spending most of my evenings at home, I have much to reflect on. And it is my hope that reflection will give birth to a new kind of strength--the kind of strength that surpasses my fingertips in order to hold together the hearts of my children.

Mind Over Matter

For the last few years I have diligently managed to prevent illness in multiple ways. At first, it was the manic hand-washing and careful observation of what touched my mouth, ears, and eyes. Around the same time, I was also doing some heavy reading on the Law of Attraction, The Secret, and a book called, Feelings Buried Alive Never Die (see my earlier post about books, here), and I began visualizing myself in a protective bubble of sorts--imagining that the energy around me was filled with golden light. I'd place that bubble on my kids, too, each morning as I dropped them off to school, or before they entered the infamous "germ pit" play area at the mall.

But as I dug deeper into my beliefs about mind over matter--essentially putting to test my fear of germs against what I knew to be true about illness in the body--I didn't need those outside forces to keep me healthy. In my new world view, it is trouble in the Soul--the Self, the Spirit--that sends signals to the body. The signals often come through subconscious memory, to the mind, and lastly rest in the body. The headache is a signal that something isn't going quite right--often, that there is resistance to whatever is occurring in the Now, and the task then becomes one of figuring out what is amiss in your heart and mind, rather than how many milligrams of Execedrin to take. The scratchiness in the throat is more about the hurts you've swallowed, or the anger you've not expressed moreso than because Strep throat is going around the neighborhood. And while I certainly don't discount germ theory entirely, or the magic of a pill from time-to-time, what's more important to me is the knowledge that my body can heal itself--quickly and completely--when I've tended to my higher Self and taken the time and space to heal through meditation, imagery, and sometimes even the help of my Doctor. She is a doctor who works to clear interference: the energy that gets in the way of the body's ability to heal.

And this is how I've operated for a long time now. While those around the office hack through winter months, and friends recount stories of stomach bugs being passed around the home, I feel confident that because I am spiritually healthy--and because I pay attention to my own body's signals (they come first in the form of feelings, and if ignored--aches) that I am able to continue a state of health. It's been a wonderful way of being, and I understand not only how to maintain a state of health--but also ways to shorten the duration of an illness I may get--without the use of antibiotics or cold medicine.

I am very thankful to have this strong belief about my body's ability to be healthy and heal itself, and so I was caught a little off guard a few weeks ago when I woke on a Monday morning with a sore throat and developed a low-grade fever by Tuesday. After a day full of rest, I was nearly back to complete health but I still could not pinpoint the moment in which my immune system could not work its magic any longer. I could not consciously figure out what was stirring so deep inside that my body was ailing so much.

In the end, I came up with this: I had been overloaded with the idea that I had to stay in a 9-5 job to keep my family afloat financially, and the thinking was causing me to feel very restricted. I want to change the idea that I can not make money doing what I love (writing, music, making connections with artists of all kinds) and because the desire to change what I am doing is so strong, my resistance to where I am Now career-wise is even stronger. In my fight came misery; in my misery came poor health. It was as if my Soul was saying: "You want out so bad right now? Fine, here you go. You're too sick to go to the office today, and again tomorrow." So I got out of sitting in my cube for a couple days, but I also didn't have the energy to do anything else. I cried hard at one point, understanding that if I want to move from Here to There, that I've got to appreciate what I have Now and step up, instead of continually fighting against what I'm "required" to do. In order to attract the experiences and people in to my life that will allow me to be a stable financial and emotional source for my family, I must feel those possibilities, believe in them, and at the same time be grateful for the road that gets me there: including the cubicle in which I dare to dream.

Inspiration

It came in little waves of inspiration, not one big "A-ha!" moment. And while I sometimes expect that breakthroughs will be like that: that I will come to see new perspectives and new ideas in some profound and dramatic way, I've come to realize that it is in the simple, quiet moments that the Truth appears.

I have a job to do, and that is to continue seeking Joy. And in my acceptance of that job, I will continue to learn and teach others how to do the same. We are here for that. Joy is our purpose. Learning is our purpose. Love is our purpose. And there is no need to fear that. No need to "wait for the other shoe to drop" or hover over the idea that if it's good now that something bad will inevitably come along.

No. What is good is good. It is just so. And being fully in the Good, just means more good will come.

7.3.2010

For most of my life,
I have let Fear define me.

Now: it is my fearlessness,
my freedom,
and my faith
in Love.

For that, I am grateful

Picking Up the Pieces

After a disaster, or some sort of nature-made upheaval, there is a time in which you step back and survey the destruction. After the recent storm here in Iowa, a short-lived thunderstorm that toppled over trees and powerlines, pieces of my roof were ripped off. I took pictures of the scattered tiles around my backyard and made the appropriate calls to the insurance company. The kids and I piled up all the tiles we could find, I thanked my lucky stars that the roof was mostly in tact and there was no water leaking into the house, and then off we went to a movie. The clean-up was pretty much out of my hands: my dad took care of meeting with the roofers later in the week while I was at work, and a few days later it was fixed.

But the aftermath of my divorce has been a little different. There are no insurance companies to call and no clean-up crew. And after three years apart, and only one year living under different roofs, the debris is still scattered across my house--which used to be our house--and I can't get motivated enough to pick through it all at once, so it comes in waves.

Like tonight.
By now, things that were once "ours" are relegated to the basement storage room. It's a mess. There are boxes everywhere, and even just piles of random stuff lying on the floor: photo albums, books, kids' items that they have outgrown or will one day make it into a scrapbook--if I ever get around to making those.

I went in the storage room to look at my old computer, a Gateway my parents had bought me when I was a single parent living with them while in graduate school. I got out of bed to see if my old PC had an ethernet port in it--having some idea about connecting it to my cable modem and rehooking up my wireless router so that I could carry my mac around with me. Finding nothing but a modem port--which I already knew was busted--I stood and stared at the mess around me.

I shuffled a few things around and found a book that I'd taken from my Mom's shelf years ago: Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet. I flipped through the pages and came upon his teachings on marriage, which I had first read before I ever met my exhusband. Gibran talks of allowing for space in togetherness, letting the "winds of the heavens dance between you." He also talks of individual strength, saying that "the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow."

This was the kind of marriage I had always longed for, and yet it was not the marriage I participated in. My longing for space has been with me since I was little--I came into the marriage with this unmet need. Additionally, my individual strength has waxed and waned over the years, and when I gained it back I was no longer the woman who had said "I do."

I put the book down and picked up a thick baby blue photo album. Our son's newborn photos: My exhusband was skinny in the photos, looking very young and excited. I was about 30 pounds over the 30 pounds of baby weight, and looked exhausted. My son's beautiful images, with his bright brown eyes, couldn't shake the trepidation with which I held the photos in my hands. I didn't want to look at them. I didn't want to remember.

And when I put the photo album down, I turned and reached for the red and gold goblets that had been surrounded in bubble wrap since we moved back to Iowa nearly 6 years ago. They were from Pier 1 Imports. Tall, glass champagne flutes with a deep red coloring at the base and gold painted designs weaved around the glass. I bought them--a year before I met my exhusband--because they reminded me of the intricate henna designs young women have painted on their hands and feet before their weddings. I wanted to drink from these beautiful glasses on my wedding day; I wanted them to represent the beginning of an exotically beautiful and rich relationship.

I wasn't the type of girl who spent a lot of time dreaming up her perfect wedding day--collecting ideas for dresses and picking out color schemes. In fact, I was pretty certain I was never going to get married. But these glasses were magnificent, so I bought them. And months later, when I became engaged and began planning a wedding, these glasses became the centerpiece with which I was going to work around.

But I didn't have that wedding. I had a different one. There was no red and gold. I wore blue and white and laughed nervously through my vows as our immediate family looked on. We had lunch at a restaurant that put us down for the wrong date in their calendar, and we had to wait in the lobby as they set up a table for 15 in the middle of a crowded room. I brought the glasses with me--along with some sparkling cider because I was nearing the end of my first trimester--and we toasted, drank, and celebrated the beginning of the next adventure.

But two days later, the adventure turned into a marital screaming match. In a fit of anger, I threw my keys at our apartment wall and shattered the chain of beads that my five-year-old daughter had made for me--my name spelled out in block letters. She and I picked up the beads, each of us in tears, as my new husband locked himself in the back bedroom. Recently, all three of us on different occasions had said that that day marked the time in which we knew--in our hearts--that we had made a mistake.

But I would never take back those mistakes, not with the beautiful children and the amount of wisdom I have gained. And tonight, I unwrapped the glasses, and gingerly ran my fingers along the sides to follow the golden swirls. I cried a little. I was also tempted to throw them and watch them shatter--a dream lost; a symbol of something that never was. But instead, I carried them into my office nook and placed them on the window sill.

I am not sure how long I will keep them there; I am also uncertain if I will ever let them go. In some ways, they give me a bit of hope that the ideas I once had about a relationship allowing for both togetherness and space can exist (if I work to make that happen), and can include a kind of exotic beauty that is etched in these glasses. The flutes are tall, elegant. They look strong, and yet they are fragile--much like my own heart. And now, they stand apart like Gibran's pillars, so that the "winds of heaven dance" between them and the strength of hope is restored.

6.11.2010

When I was 13, I took a trip to Wacky Waters with a group of girls. Stuffed into a big van--complete with shaggy carpet trim--we blasted music, ate twizzlers, and gossiped during the hour-long drive. I was excited, and a little nervous, but knew I'd have a good time with my friends.

When we got to the water park, we split into a couple of groups. I already had a fear of heights deeply embedded in my psyche, and my friend Anna stayed with me as we toured the kiddie pool and its slides. Everyone else, however, went straight for the big one. The Daredevil slide twisted and towered over the park, and I just knew it would be terrifying.

As the afternoon went on, I watched my friends repeatedly climb the Daredevil staircase. Anna, kind enough to stand by my side for the first hour or two, decided she was going to follow the others and brave the skyline views. I stood at the bottom, watching them from a distance--feeling alone and left out--listening to the squeals of laughter that echoed through the tubes.

My thoughts, like a ping-pong match, volleyed between: I could go up there and I'll never make it.

And then Anna came out from the bottom of the slide, her wet face glistening in the sunlight and her smile broad. "Come, on!" she hollers out to me, "you can do this! It's SO MUCH FUN!"

She jogs over to where I'm standing and wraps her left arm in mine. "I'll be with you all the way up there," she says, and she gestures over to our friend, Casey, to follow us. Casey's arm entangles my right arm and the three of us walk to the bottom of the Daredevil staircase. Casey whispers in my ear: "I'll go first and wait for you at the bottom, and Anna will come after. You can even close your eyes as we walk the stairs. We'll hold you. You'll be safe."

My friends are good to me. Even at 13, they understand the need to face fears. They understand that I'm scared, and also that I'm frustrated because I know I'm missing out on something I could enjoy just as much as they do.

So I climb the steps and the first few flights come easily. The line of people waiting for the slide is long, and I find that the further into the air I step and then have to wait, the weaker my legs become. About halfway up--holding tight to Anna and Casey, I begin to look out. I am taken aback by the majestic view, despite the sensation that I'm falling. More than 50 feet in the air, the crowds across the park start to blend into a mosaic in motion. Once at the very top, I let go of Casey and Anna's arms and hold on to the railing and breathe--slowly and fully. I'm standing higher than I've ever been in my whole life. My knees are weak, but I feel the blue sky surrounding me, and as I look out beyond the park at the rolling hills of the Iowa cornfields I feel a sense of comfort. It is midsummer, and the crops are solid this year.

Casey is up next, and a jolt of fear pierces through me. I begin to salivate as the lump in my throat quickly thickens and my breath staggers. Before the lifeguard gives her the signal to go, Casey turns to me, looks me in the eye beaming with excitement and says, "It's so fun. You'll love it." I immediately don't believe her and I watch, in horror, as she disappears down the blue tunnel and squeals.

It takes mere seconds for Casey to reach the bottom, and the lifeguard to my right gives me the signal. Anna is still behind me and I turn to her.

"I can't do this," I tell her. "I need to get down." But the long line of impatient and rowdy teens behind her are not sympathetic.

Anna holds on to my hands encouragingly and tears begin to well up in my eyes. "You made it all the way up here. That's amazing," she encourages. "Going down is the fun part and it will go so fast. Trust me. You'll want to do it again."

I don't believe her, either. I'm afraid of heights, I'm afraid of speed, and I'm afraid of spiraling out of control. But I'm also afraid of the kids behind her who are now unkindly urging me to get going. The lifeguard pushes up the rim of his red hat and tells me I've either got to go down the slide, or get out of the way.

I look to Anna. "Go," she whispers. And I free her hand from mine. I reach out to the top of the tube and hold on to balance myself as I sit. I'm afraid to let go. My heart races, the tears are now flowing effortlessly down my face, and the noise behind me grows--the pressure mounting as the cool water flows under my thighs and behind my back.

The water builds up around me, and in a split second, I release my grip and flow down with it. Faster and faster I slide--alternating between darkness and light as the tube around me opens up in intervals--allowing the sunlight to hit my face. I'm screaming. I am screaming from a place deep inside myself, the blood-curdling sound of fear and I feel completely out of control. I try to stop myself midway down, my arms flailing trying desperately to grab hold of something--anything--but it's no use. The water pushes me on, and I gasp for air between screams.

And in another flash, it's over. I'm forced into the pool with enough momentum to make me stand and jockey me around to gain footing. As promised, Casey is there waiting for me, her arms spread out wide like a proud mama who has just watched her toddler go down the park slide on her own for the first time. I fall into her arms heavily, hold tight and begin to sob.

"You did it!" she cries, "You did it!" and she tries to jump up and down in the shallow waters as I continue to convulse, releasing all the fear from my gut. And then I hear Anna splash behind me, being released from the monster I just tackled, and she wraps her arms around me from behind.

I am sandwiched between pride and comfort, and I am spent. The lifeguard at the bottom of the slide toots her whistle at us and motions to us to get out of the water. Anna and Casey lock their arms around me once more to guide me out of the pool.

I sit on the concrete and wipe away the last of my tears. I am proud of myself, yes, but I am also emptied of energy.

"Wanna do it again?" Casey snickers at me, her sly smile giving away a piece of her adventurous nature that we hadn't fully been introduced to yet.

I look sideways at her, my breathing finally returning to normal. "No," I say. "Never again."

And they laugh, easily and comfortably.

That day entailed one of the scariest and proudest moments of my life and I return to it often to find courage. My current self now understands that the moment of letting go and allowing the current of water to carry me back into the safety of my friends who loved me would have gone a little more smoothly if I didn't fight it. The scrambling to grab hold of something when there was nothing there produced more fear, and in some ways I want to go back now so I can do it again--relaxing and releasing control--allowing the water to guide me.

Water, and its current, is often used as a metaphor for life. Water is powerful: Something to be cautious of and revered at the same time. And in order to survive its current--its twists and pulls--you can't fight it. You have to just let go.

This morning at the office, my friend Shea notices I had been crying. I am struggling with the same feelings of that 13-year-old girl standing on the side of the pool watching life experience pass her by.

"You miss him," Shea surmises.

"Yes," I whisper. "And he offered to buy me a plane ticket to fly me out there next weekend." The weakness in my voice is apparent.

"So, go!" my dear friend urges. "Get a direct flight, no puddle jumpers, and I'll drive you to the airport." I'm walking behind her now, through the doorway of the room where we get our coffee. And she stops and turns to face me.

"You can do this," she tells me.

"I haven't been on a plane since 1995, Shea. How can I DO this."

She smiles, her eyes as sly and confident as Casey's were years ago.

"Because you can."