Inspiration

“I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But, it isn't my fault.
It still takes me a long time to get out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in. It's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault. I get out immediately.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
I walk down another street.” 

― Portia Nelson, There's a Hole in My Sidewalk: The Romance of Self-Discovery

I discovered this little poem some time ago, when I was going through a tough time in life. It epitomises how I keep making the same mistakes over and over again, and how easy it is to repeat learned behaviours that are detrimental to my wellbeing even when common-sense tells me otherwise. 
In compulsion and addiction, common-sense is all too easily traded in for self gratification.

I have fallen in the hole, I have sat in the hole, I have expected others to pull me out of the hole.

I need to understand that there is a hole, but it is just a hole and I can jump out of it, instead of sitting at the bottom feeling sorry for myself.
I have to accept that the hole won't go away just because I keep falling in there.
I have to accept that maybe the hole will never go away, and that the best thing I can do is simply avoid it.

And I have to accept all of that before I can take the next step of changing my route.

Learning from one's mistakes can be a tortuously slow process, sometimes the 'light bulb moment' doesn't come until you have stumbled about in the dark for a long time, bruised yourself on the furniture and fallen in the hole - a lot.

But that is OK.

Another quote I like, attributed to Einstein, although I don't know if this is true or not is:

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."


This tells me that radical change requires a radical change of thinking. 
And that requires unlearning old and bad habits, breaking free and challenging myself.

If I keep going down the path that I have been going down then I can only blame myself for ending back at the same, miserable place that I started.

I am making little changes already, and starting to skirt around that hole.

But I don't want to spend my life shuffling and edging on the sidewalk to avoid that pesky pothole.
I want to be able to take big, confident strides, knowing that there is no risk of tumbling down again.

I really think that it's time that I tried  to walk down another street.

Wish me luck.

The tides are shifting

Yesterday I had “the meeting” with a lady with whom I am going to embark on the path which I hope will change my life. It was good, in fact it was better than I had anticipated. Driving up to the house where this meeting was to take place, I was nervous and excited in equal measure. It’s probably a very good thing that this wasn’t one of those dreaded appointments  to check my blood pressure as I have no doubt that the BP monitor would have gone through the roof. Thankfully, no need for claims of “white coat syndrome” here. Having proverbially spilled my guts in yesterday’s blog about my fears, one thing that I did not express was the concern that I was throwing myself into the lion’s mouth of yet another Corporate organisation intent on extracting large amounts of cash from me with the faint promise of a return of a new body, yet with the ultimate “get-out clause” that any failure was entirely my fault. I am not naïve enough to think that anyone else could do the work for me, however nothing demotivates me faster than a company that appears to care more about their financial gain than my physical and, more importantly, emotional wellbeing. I have attended groups where the “hard sell” was rife and, regrettably, bought in to the belief that the more cash I threw a problem, and the more products I purchased the easier it became. This just pandered to my addictive nature, transferring one ‘substance’ for another.  For me, it is very hard to engage with a consultant who clearly sees my journey as predominantly a business venture. I am very pleased to say that my first impressions of the lady I met yesterday are not of that ilk. Formalities were addressed, but the matter of cost was only mentioned by me at the close of our meeting. Instead we spent a good hour discussing the psychology of weight loss, and the consultant’s passion for addressing weight issues from a mental, emotional and spiritual side shone through strongly. This is what I need. I don’t need to sit in a group and talk about what I cooked for dinner last night, how many “syns” I indulged in. I don’t want to exchange recipes and listen to the woes of others who failed to lose that week because they had one too many slices of cake. I know HOW I got fat. I know HOW to get thinner. It’s very simple. What I really want to explore is WHY I got myself into this mess that I am in now, and to LEARN NEW WAYS OF THINKING so that I don’t constantly make mistakes like this again. The lady I met yesterday mentioned Neuro Linguistic Programming and other psychological techniques which really caught my interest. This is what I want. I don’t want to teach my body to survive on less food, I want to go much deeper and re-wire my subconscious mind so that it convinces my conscious brain that my body can cope on much less, thank you very much. So I was encouraged by the words “the diet is just a tool”. This is not something that I had ever heard before and the simplicity, which had obviously previously eluded me, utterly astounded me. In all my other experiences “the diet” was the be-and-end-all of the process. Everything was focused on what you put in your mouth. Every waking minute was occupied by either eating, wishing I was eating or planning what I was going to eat next. How can that be healthy? It’s not – it’s obsessive. How refreshing to hear that somebody seemed to understand how starved my psyche had been and how much that requires nourishment. The problem is, it is so much easier to focus on food. To address and then redress attitudes to food is a far, far greater challenge. But it is a challenge that I want to attempt. And that is why I have been so scared. Nobody likes hard work, especially not a lazy soul like me. During the meeting the inevitable weigh in occurred and it was more than I expected. To give the consultant credit, she did offer to not disclose the actual figure to me, but I felt that I had to face facts, no matter how unpalatable. My mission now is to not focus on that number any longer, but to concentrate on getting my head straight in the hope that my body will follow suit. Previous weigh-ins have resulted in utter obsession: “Oh God, Oh God, I weigh XX Stones…that’s so much more than anyone else I know…” and so I’m back to comparing myself unfavourably to others as I mentioned in yesterday’s blog entry. Soon I become just a number, the sum of my parts consists only of the number of pounds that combine to form this ungainly body. If I succeed in chipping away the fat, it feels like it adds to my personality. I become a better person the thinner I become. How utterly preposterous, and insulting not only to myself but to anyone else who struggles with their weight. Unwittingly I subscribed to the opinion that I had openly riled and campaigned against for so long – that “Thinner = Better”. I compared myself to an unscrupulous politician yesterday, and this has been an issue for the entire nation recently, culminating in last weeks' General Eelction. We were bombarded with promises, manifestos, 'spin' and unsubstantiated claims. The nation grew weary of the undisguised campaign to win our votes whatever the cost. And underneath it all, we only wanted to hear them speak the truth, to tell it like it is. Even if the truth hurt a bit, that would have been preferable to vagueisms spouted by those who we should be trusting, So, in the spirit of what of practising what I preach, and embracing honesty at any cost,  here are my truths: No matter what size or shape I am, I am a GOOD PERSON.  I have compassion  I am intelligent and witty.  People like me,  I have good friends.  I have an amazing family who love and cherish me.  I have had the resilience to endure difficult times in life and the resource and will to support others through theirs.  I am a survivor.  Regardless of my size, these facts will NEVER change. They never have, they never will. But also: My weight is slowly killing me, it is causing health conditions that could reduce my life and reduce the time spent with people that matter. My weight is reducing the quality of my life – I ache, I get breathless, I sweat. I snore. I cannot participate in sporting events with my children, or my friends because I am too unfit and my body can’t cope. My weight restricts my choices – I can only shop in specialised clothes shops – in fact, I find myself looking for the size before I even consider the style. I dress to hide my swollen legs and ankles and my fat arms. I can’t wear my original, beautiful wedding and engagement rings because my fingers are too fat. The modern world is not designed for people of my size. I have to squeeze into certain chairs, airline seats require careful manoeuvre and often a seatbelt extension. This causes shame and embarrassment. These facts MUST change. Being amongst those that know the true me and love me, I am perfectly comfortable with who and what I am. I know that I am accepted. I know that I am loved. But beyond the comfort of these people lies the rest of the world, inside which live folk who, for their own skewed reasons, choose to judge you by what they see. In the outside world, there are times that I want to hide, to blend in, because I can’t dazzle them with my personality in the few seconds that they see me . And as much as wear my heart on my sleeve, those sleeves are also filled with arms  like over-stuffed sausages. Being fat makes it impossible to blend in when I want to. Every time I enter a fast-food outlet, a clothes shop, or squeeze uncomfortably into a café chair I wonder if someone is looking at me and seeing the cliché of the fat, stupid, lazy individual and not the person who is acutely aware of demons that have refused to go away. I want to shout out that "I am more than what you see!!!"   I want to dispel those demons and make them take the fat away with them, too. I have a big personality, and this I am not ashamed of. I just want my personality to be too large to be contained within my body, and not vice-versa as is frequently the case. It is incredibly cathartic for me to write down and share these thoughts and commit to print what I have been trying to deny to myself for far too long. I just hope that I can take these words to heart and learn from them. This is my Manifesto To Me. I am not actually starting “the diet” officially for another couple of weeks. In just over a week’s time my family and I are going on a much anticipated and long awaited holiday together. We’ve been through some hard times recently following the death of my mother in law last month and this trip away will provide some much needed respite from the grief and allow us some time to regroup as a unit and galvanize the incredible bond we share as a family. I did not want to complicate the matter by being “on a diet” whilst we holidayed. I was concerned that attempting a new regime might result in frustration and irritability which were the very things we deserved to be free of during our stay. So I have had to resign myself to the fact that my weight, and all the issues related to it, will be joining us on holiday too. I will have to face the humiliation of the airline seats, I will still dress myself in a way that does not expose my chubby ankles, and I will still have to seek out the chairs that can accommodate an ample bottom. But I will focus on me, and the good things in my life, and set about nourishing my soul instead of my body. I will leave regrets at home when I board that plane. There is no longer room in my suitcase for ruminations and sadness. I know that when I return, tanned and relaxed, that negativity will no longer be welcome at my door. I will know that I am ready to embark on my new venture. And I will hope that this will be the last ever holiday that my fat issues join me, uninvited. To be honest, a sea change has already started to occur in my head. I am starting to make little decisions to change. I think twice now before buying that extra packet of crisps for my lunch break, I try to avoid the biscuit table in the office; I am considering drinking more water. These little changes are telling me that I am ready to make a bigger change. I no longer want to mindlessly place food in my shopping basket, and then in my mouth, on a whim, I want to stop and ask myself if it is really good for me.  I want to change the vocabulary in my head from “Fuck It “and “I deserve it” to words that nurture my soul, not overfeed my body. I want to stop rewarding myself with food. What madness is that? Why was I giving myself food that ultimately could kill me, as a form of love? This makes as much sense as George Orwell’s ‘Ministry of Love’ from 1984. The concept of that was to subject people to horrendous torture whilst telling them that they were doing this because they loved them, in the expectation that they would eventually submit to the will of the aggressor. This is also the premise of narcissistic abuse which, as I mentioned yesterday, I was exposed to for much of my childhood. As I type, I am starting to realise the insanity and hypocrisy of my motives. I have been treating myself the way that I abhor to be treated by others. This madness must stop. So I shall conclude today with the faint, yet undeniable hope that, this time, I will succeed. I don’t actually mind how quickly or slowly it happens. I deserve this, I deserve to learn to treat my body with the equal respect that I proffer my soul. For what use is a soul on earth if the body is too weak to contain it? Wish me luck……..

Taking the Plunge

So today is the day I take the plunge. Well, actually it isn’t- today is the day that I meet the person who I hope will hold my hand when I dive off that cliff into the unknown. Right now, I’m standing near to the edge, looking at the calm, inviting sea below and wondering if there are rocks underneath which will tear me to shreds when I break the calm, blue surface. Will I sink or swim? Will I get so far out, panic and have to return to the safety of the land? Will there be a boat that can rescue me if my resolve and energy fail and I’m far from shore?

Of course, none of these questions can be answered theoretically, sometimes you just have to take the risk, face the fear.

And that is what I am facing now – pure, abject fear.

Of course, fear can be good – it can stop you from being munched by predators. It can save you from the terrors of being mown down on the motorway. But at other times, it can prevent you from doings things that will stretch you, improve you, and make you a better person.

I have told my children that the definition of Courage is not absence of fear, but the process of doing something in spite of fear.

So now it is time to practise what I preach. And, holy crap am I scared.

So what am I afraid of? Well the big thing is failure – and all the baggage that comes with it – self-loathing, guilt, feeling like you are being judged by your peers. These are all very familiar items in my wardrobe, stretched and worn with over-use.

I am also afraid that I will suffer, that it’s going to hurt, be uncomfortable, insufferable and unbearable. And nobody likes that.

I am reminded of the story of the origins of Buddhism that I heard recently. Prince Siddhartha, a privileged young man who lived in opulence and was sheltered from all that is bad in the world. He only achieved true enlightenment when he ventured outside the palace walls and saw true suffering and depravity. Then he finally understood that a full life can only be achieved by accepting that at times suffering and grief must be experienced and worked through. The avoidance of these aspects of life leave us stuck in a rut unable to be all that we can be.

Now I am not attempting to liken my anticipated lot to the slums of India, that would be insulting on too many levels. I am just trying to talk myself into “manning up” and not allowing a small amount of discomfort and deprivation preventing me from trying to change my life for the better.

Childbirth is probably a better example for me. My experience of giving birth was, certainly the first time round, a painful, protracted and, on occasions, terrifying experience. When I first became pregnant, had I known what I would be going through nine months later, I would probably have been running a very hot bath and downing a bottle of gin without a second thought. But something overrode those fears – the desire to have a child. A desire that was fulfilled tenfold and has given me more joy than I could have possibly imagine.

Now I just have to find the same need to lose weight, and the same focus that drove me through the rigours of labour and even failed to deter me to go through the process a second time.

I am now looking at myself and asking myself what do I want more – to continue on the same comfortable path, or to take a running jump into those blue waters far below me?

I am not sure why I am now considering the jump. Over the past few years I have become the Queen of Excuses. I have utterly convinced myself that I am happy sat on the top of the cliff, that swimming in the sea is overrated, that the water is too full of sharks to risk entering. I have looked down at the waters below and ignored the little voice inside my head telling me how much I want to feel the exhilaration as I plunge, the sheer joy as I hit the waters, the total freedom I will feel being buoyed by the expansive sea. Instead I have stifled those thoughts with negativity disguised as caution.

To be overweight and in denial is to be covered in a blanket that you believe is giving you comfort, but that is actually slowly suffocating you. It is a “death by a thousand cuts”. It doesn’t happen overnight, but is instead fostered by months, even years, of denial, neglect and lies.

If a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. In many ways I am that frog, the only difference being that it was me who was slowly boiling myself alive. A battle raged within me of my suppressed subconscious – the frog, and my skewed conscious – the heat controller. As neither was talking to the other, the inevitable occurred and the frog suffered. That frog did not ever want to die, it was actually quite enjoying swimming about in a heated pool, the warmth was lovely and much more pleasant than splashing about in freezing cold water. I allowed myself to be seduced by the myth that my weight was not making me unhappy, that it wasn’really doing me any harm. I ignored all the other frogs who were shouting at me in my private Jacuzzi, trying to tell me that the thermostat had broken. I told myself that they were jealous, that they had unrealistic preconceptions, that it was none of their business, that they had no right to judge my choice to swim. And slowly and surely I was boiling to death.

So here I am now – a new frog in a new saucepan, and I’m starting to feel the heat. I want to jump out, I’m just not sure if I can do it.

So that’s the psychobabble. Down to the nitty gritty and facts. I have tried so many diets and methods of losing weight, to various degrees of success. And each time I told myself that my motivation was different. But when I look back, the truth is – I was always responding to the expectations of others. Even in my most successful period, when I lost over five stone through Slimming World I realise now that my drive was predominantly to impress others. To me, the goal was to be the best, to “show them” to achieve an accolade. I joined Slimming World utterly determined to win “Slimmer of the Year”. I wanted it so badly, it mattered so much to me, and I went all-out to get it. Every week, at the meetings I sought to attain the magical sticker, the sought after certificate. And, as much as I tried to deny it, I basked in the glory of my success. This drove me beyond all other motives. I became irrationally resentful of other group members who threatened to overtake my results. I was constantly comparing myself to others and hoping that I came out favourably. The result all this determination was success, and I did achieve the sought after prize. But soon it proved to be a hollow victory. Unbeknownst to myself, once I had achieved my “goal” my motivation dwindled rapidly, and it took very little to knock me off my pedestal. As long as my eyes were on the prize I was “in the zone”, but once I had the prize firmly in my grip, I let myself slide into the inevitable weight gain. At the same time, circumstances changed. I moved from being a lady of leisure to someone holding down a job, and therefore less at liberty to visit the gym and cook up nutritious meals on a whim. Life as a 9-5 working mother with a shift working husband can make it a challenge to make time for yourself, but I must admit that I slumped too quickly into despondency and my lifestyle was simply another excuse for my reluctance to get back on the wagon.

I did try several times to regain the enthusiasm for weight loss that I had once had. I joined and re-joined various slimming groups, I had one to ones with nutritionists and nurses. But nothing lasted very long. I told myself that the reason I wasn’t as successful was that I was not involved in the same circumstances that inspired the five-stone shift. This may be partly true, however I now think that, every time I tried to re-embark on a weight loss journey, a little voice in my head whispered away “Yes – you succeeded briefly – but then you failed. And failure hurts. It hurts more than anything else. If you try, you will fail, so why bother? Save yourself the pain.”

Furthermore, I started to feel that those who had praised me, encouraged me, supported me and were even inspired by me were now as deeply disappointed in me as I was in myself. And I felt judged. Unable to accept this disappointment in myself, I turned to anger and defiance. I became irrationally furious at the expectations that I falsely believed were held of me. I became a vicious campaigner and the champion of the “take me as I am” cause and vehemently vocal in this issue. The irony is that this probably wasn’t even the case, I was highly likely to be yesterday’s news and looking back it was very arrogant of me to believe that my weight loss journey mattered to anyone else but myself. And what’s more, like the worst of politicians, deep down I didn’t honestly believe in my own propaganda anyway, I just constantly smoke screened  to distract from the real issue.

I was raised in a highly dysfunctional and, what I have now come to understand as,  Narcissistic family environment. The ‘image’ and projection of the ideal was all that mattered and those, including myself, who did not fit this ideal were berated severely. It did not matter what happened behind closed doors, as long as the outside world saw the perfection we conjured up. From a very early age I had learned to place more value on  what others perceived of me than what I felt about myself, which, at the time was very little.

Everyone competed against each other for a reward – love and acceptance- which, unbeknownst to us, was not possible of being fulfilled. But it did not stop me striving for the impossible, unaware that I was neglecting and destroying the strength within me that would have surpassed the need for others’ approval.

Many years on, despite now living in a wonderful nurturing family that I have helped create for myself, with the amazing support of good friends a that I surround myself with and with irrefutable evidence that I have survived many great issues that would have floored less resilient individuals, the little voice inside me still tries to tell me that I am not good enough. And food has silenced it, even if only temporarily.

Now I actually have a fear of the attention any weight loss will gain me. I have swung the other way. Somehow I need to find a rote in the middle, so that I can be free to choose the right path.

So  here I am now, the Big Fat Failure, wondering if it is worth giving it one more shot. The problem is, I know that I can climb slowly down the cliff, and I may just reach the water. The problem is, sometimes you can find yourself stranded halfway down, and you are too exhausted to keep going. So you just sit on the ledge and eventually convince yourself that it is safer to crawl back up to the top. If you tell somebody that you have decided that you are going to take a running jump then there will always be someone around to tell you how unwise it is to do so. These are either the folk who, like you, have convinced themselves that they don’t want to splash in the ocean, or those who love to abseil carefully and will get down eventually ignoring any distractions and enjoying the view as they go. Good for them. I wish I had the strength and resolve to do that, but I’m terrified of heights and dangling on a string all the way down will only prolong the terror for me.  So, I am at a turning point right now. And I think I want to jump. I have heard all the horror stories, I have had the warnings. But deep down I know that this is the only way for me. I may well be dashed against the rocks, but the chances are minimal. I need to have faith that I can push myself hard and fast enough over that precipice so that I sail over the top and meet the crystal waters on the other side. No half measures will do. A light jog towards toward the edge will only propel me so far. I need to take a massive run up and go for it. Extreme actions get extreme results, and that is why I am going to choose this path. Am I scared, hell yeah? But any adrenalin junkie will tell you that’s part of the rush. Talking of junkies, I think, too, that I am addicted to food, to bad food specifically, Any expert in this field will tell you that the only route out of addiction is abstinence. To go “cold turkey”. And this, technically is what I plan to do. Anyone who has watched the horrific scene in “Trainspotting” may have a sense just how horrendous the process of weaning oneself off a substance that they have become dependent on can be. But “this too shall pass”. It doesn’t last forever and life on the other side is far preferable. I will be utterly bricking myself during those brief few seconds when you I am airborne and defying gravity, but I hope and pray it will be worth it when I landed in previously uncharted waters.

I want a freedom from food, I want it to be sustenance alone, I want to not care what it does, albeit temporarily, to my heart and soul. I want to stop hiding behind it and hiding behind the fat that gives me the excuse to stay as I am.

But Iam scared that the tides of emotion that I will unleash will overwhelm and drown me. So, I must not think about where I will go when I land with a splash, I will only be praying that the tide will carry me favourably, and that a little boat isn’t too far away when I get tired. Maybe I will eventually reach a whole new coastline and a land where I can live a new and fulfilling life. Still being me, just a better me. In the meantime, maybe I should just adopt the philosophy of my favourite character from Finding Nemo – Dory, who simply says “Just Keep Swimming”… I am writing these words to inspire no one but myself, as I type I am hoping that these thoughts will stick. And on bad days I can look back and find the strength to carry on. Wish me luck….