The Plunge.

My friend and coworker, Jalene, facilitated a workshop for our staff at my home on Tuesday. This workshop was entitled, "The Plunge," a play-on-words bridging the pool party theme with the diving into inner awareness she was hoping we would engage in throughout the workshop. Her encouragement to us was to make this year the best year of our lives, and she did so by sharing her own enthusiasm about her commitment to making this year the best year of her life. She spoke with passion and excitement about what it means to plunge into your life, to say, "This is the year that I'm actually going to do it!" She encouraged us to sketch out what our life will smell like, sound like and taste like, to really flesh out the feelings and sights and sensations that we want to be experiencing. She has us write down the colors and the aromas and the feelings of this future vision, this someday experience that we can see ourselves having.

And I saw it. I saw myself living vibrantly, in full, authentic expression. I saw myself unafraid; in full acceptance of who I am and the choices I have made. I saw myself proud and inspired, awed and humbled at the beauty of Life. I saw myself dancing out of a spontaneous desire to feel my body move and to celebrate the fantastic-ness of the moment. I saw myself totally present, totally aware of my own Divinity and to the Divinity in others. I saw myself radiating this love and receiving it back. I felt the inexplicable joy that arises out of authentic awareness and the complete calm and peace that comes from trusting that Life really wants what is best for us. I saw things just working out for me because I am in congruence with Life, not resisting it, not needing it to change.

But then I got scared. I realized that if I were to live this brilliantly, this fully, this expressively then I would no longer be anonymous. I would no longer blend in and be safe. I would be seen. I would no longer able to control how I was being perceived. It would be balls-out, full blown visibility.

And then it occurred to me: I am using my weight to stay hidden. I am using my weight to, literally, weigh me down and keep me from having the energy to be seen. It's as if the weight has served me by keeping me small and limiting my expression to certain expressions. Its prevented me from taking risks and stepping up into the fullness of who I really am. It's created a fog, a sludge, through which I can stay hidden.

The quote by Marianne Williamson comes to me, again.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

I have created the weight as a means of resisting being fully present in my life. It slows me down. It makes me tired. It tells me that I can't do this or that or this. It is my excuse for why I can't step up to my potential and live it now. "I'm to heavy," I say to myself. "Maybe when I'm thin and wiry then I can be energetic with Life." Who wants to see a fat girl in love with life, anyways?

But the weight is going away. I've lost 14 pounds since August 4th as a result of this new fuel I'm giving my body. And while I'm excited about that, I'm also scared. This means I'm really doing it. I'm stepping forward. I'm taking the Plunge. Am I ready to be seen? Am I ready?

Update on the diet...

Alright, so I really thought I'd be posting a lot more during this whole diet experiment. And I thought the posts would look like

SONOFABITCH, I hate this fucking diet. I hate everything. I'm so damn hungry! I need icecream, NOW! Why did I agree to do this? My insides hurt. I want to go eat the entire Taco Bell menu. Fuck Marla. Fuck this diet. Fuck the dead people who told me to do this. I want a Frosty.

But, instead, I've only had minor bouts of frustration and angst. I didn't have any serious cravings until recently, when I was home sick with a 102 degree fever. I wanted a quesadilla like you couldn't believe. And when I told myself no, myself argued back, "Okay, how about some icecream." And when I said no again, she said, "SHIT, then how about some nachos?!" I said no again and she said, "I hate you and I hate your ass face!"

It's a new idea to take care of my body. I've always taken pride in NOT caring about my body. It's like I didn't want to be like all of the other depressed, insecure, body-loathing girls who obsess every day about the number on the scale. So, I spent my life rebelling against this idea of caring about one's body. Instead, I shunned anything that looked like body care: gyms, health food, diets, counting calories or carbs or pounds. And (I admit it, shamefully), I looked down on those around me who DID care and who were cutting out carbs and not eating after 8pm. Look at them, I thought, all obsessed about their bodies. Tisk, tisk.

So I'm relearning what it means to take care of my body. To care about my body. To care FOR my body. It's new and I kind of like it. In fact, I'm thinking about taking a nutrition class so I can understand what my body does for me and what I can do for it. Who knows. Maybe by the end of this thing, my Body and I will be friends again.

I'm Coming Out!

So, I just outed myself at work. Up until now, everyone here thought I was your average single mom therapist whose only interesting or alarming features are her love for karaoke and weakness for cigarettes. They don't know that I'm a closeted woo-woo. But today, at our potluck lunch after treatment team, they all noticed that I had forgone the carnitas tostadas and rice for my own tupperware container of brocolli and edamame.

"Are you on a diet, Amber?" one of my coworkers asks.

"Well, yes," I say, reluctantly. I really don't want anyone to think I'm dieting. I've never been on a diet before because I hate diets. I hate people who diet. I have so much resistance around dieting because I watched my mom struggle with diets my entire life and I swore I would never be caught up in that energy. I watched her loathe herself as she ate out of the tiny plastic trays and I felt her shame as she swallowed the Fen Fen. I felt her judgment of herself with every Slimfast and every weight watcher point she consumed. I was witness to her silent but bloody battle with the Diet and I have resisted anything that looks like that war ever since.

In the end, I have just as unhealthy relationship with food as she does. She is restrictive with food, I am indulgent with food. Food is her enemy while food is my comforter. However, we're both food-obsessed women. And our similarities don't end there. We are both anxiety prone and avoid conflict like it is the plague. We underestimate how loveable we are and esteem ourselves lowly. While we're both fantastic at a party or in groups, we both fear rejection and mask it with humor and charm.

But its in how we deal with these feelings of not-good-enoughness that brings forward yet another difference. I go straight for the deep healing, submerging myself in childhood memories and exhuming the ghosts of my past. I try to erradicate my conditioning and give my inner child new messages about herself. I write and meditate and cry and feel it all, believing that once I remove the source of the deep, inner pain I will be free. My mom, on the other hand, resists inner work as if she's allergic to it. She'll often say to me, "I'm just not that deep of a thinker, Amber." She goes for the physical level of reality. Feel anxious? Take an anxiolytic med. Gaining weight and feel bad about it? Go on a diet.

I'm beginning to see that we both have something to learn from one another about healing. She could get over her resistance to inner work, I could get over my resistance to getting on the treadmill. In our mutual attempt to bypass what we percieve as challenging or too hard, we have stayed stuck. So it is true: What we resist, persists!

But back to what just happened.

"Oh, which diet? Is it weight watchers?"

"No!" I say, with a little too much disdain in my voice.

"Are you just trying to lose weight?" another coworker asks.

"No, not really." They all give me confused looks.

"Oh, then what is it?"

"It's just this thing I'm doing." Yes, I really said that.

"It's a medical thing?"

"No, it's not medical. It's kind of a weird thing I'm doing." Yes, I said that, too.

My coworkers looked at me, not used to this lack of self disclosure coming from me.

"Alright, it's kind of a spiritual thing," I say, scanning their faces for reaction. "My spiritual teacher (yes! I called her that!) told me that I need to eat from a restricted diet for four weeks. She says that the way I have been fueling my body is keeping me stuck in negative patterns in consciousness. So, I'm dieting."

"Oh, cool," one woman says and they all turn back to their food. They are totally satistfied with this answer. This was not a shock to them, at all. The conversation moves on and I feel strangely liberated.

I see you craving icecream in your future...

So I just returned from seeing Marla, my psychic medium friend. "You have a psychic medium friend, Amber?" you may ask. Yes, yes, I do. Come on, are you really surprised?

To say that she's my friend might be a misnomer. It's actually like she's the person I pay to talk to dead people I know and to give me messages from Spirit. My friend, Pam, turned me on to her while I was pregnant with Jack and- mostly to get Pam to shut up about me going- I dragged my sister-in-law with me and had my first psychic reading. What happened in that first session was truly one of the most amazing and life-changing experiences I have ever had and I have been dragging groups of my friends to go see Marla ever since.

Last weekend, I dragged one such group up the winding road to Marla's home in the hills of Los Angeles. I'd been told before that I should set an intention for the session prior to it, inviting those in spirit I'd like to communicate with to bring messages and to answer any questions that I may have. In other words, you have an audience with God. Show up prepared.

As I sat with what I wanted to chat with God about, a few things came to mind. I wanted to know about my next steps as far as living in community are concerned. I wanted to know how I was doing as a parent and if God had seen that orange-throwing incident or if he was busy in Iraq that day. But mostly, I wanted to know about a spiritual teacher. In the past month or so, I've been visualizing myself as a gigantic magnet, pulling my spiritual teacher to me. I'm not sure where this idea came from, getting myself a teacher, but it's been a strong, clear, energizing visualization that I've been doing several times a day now for several weeks. (I know that I may have lost some of you already, what with the psychic talk and now the spiritual teacher stuff, but it's time I just come out of the closet and say it: I'm a woo-woo, new-agey, stuff-that-Frank-Peretti-warned-us-about-in-Piercing-the-Darkness-kind of person.) (And if you get that reference, HIGH FIVE!)

I've been somehow aware that I am about to enter into a new place of learning in my life. It's as if I graduated from Self Awareness High School a few years ago and now it's time to go to college. Will my next step be moving to a spiritual community somewhere, like Esalen in Big Sur or Kashi in Atlanta? Or will it be in living my life here, in San Diego, with the assistance of a spiritual teacher who help me break free from the limiting chatter of my mind and the distractions of my ego.

It turns out that my next steps involve... a diet. Wha...?

Okay, so let's get back to last weekend when I went to go see Marla with my buddies Donavon, Billy, Don, and Lynette. Don's childhood friend, Steve- who had passed away many years ago- came through immediately with stories and images and messages for Don. Billy's parents came through after that, telling us that he was "such a joy, such a joy, such a joy to raise." Lynette's grandmother came next, along with an ascended light being who told her that she is much more capable than she allows herself to think that she is. I was next. My heart beat loudly in my chest and I breathed in, saying, "I am open to the message you have for me, Spirit." Marla looked at me and said, "You don't feel very good about yourself, do you?"

Blink. Blink.

"But you put up a good front."

Ouch.

"You need to break this dynamic. The only things you can control is what goes into your mouth and what goes into your head." OUCH. "Your head is noisy. And you need to STOP it."

I feel tears of shame and anger burning behind my eyes and I want to scratch her face off.

"You have a large pain body and you are arrested in your development. You've been wounded and you're stuck in your woundedness and you like being stuck there. You are like a fourteen year old in how you feel about yourself and how you are hormonally. You have to make a choice about what is going to source you. You have to get a handle on this."

I feel like screaming, "What the fuck do you think I've been doing for the past 25 years of my life? I've been in therapy and in workshops and dedicated my life to Jesus and then rededicated my life to Jesus. I went to USM and have two masters degrees and, at one point in my life, basically lived in the self-help section at my Barnes and Noble. My entire LIFE has been about finding inner peace and feeling connected to Spirit. Don't you fucking sit here and tell me to get a handle on this."

"You have to be mindful in your choices, Amber. This is what they're telling me. You must live a conscious life and consume things that are good for your soul. No more tabloids about Britney Spears so you can feel better about yourself. No more junk food and no more junk for your mind. You have to make a CHOICE. You have to control what goes into your head and into your mouth."

"Well, I obviously have a problem with controlling what goes into my mouth," I blurted with a good helping of sass. Marla didn't miss a beat. "You have resources, Amber. You need to get unhooked. It's up to you. It's time to grow up."

I stare at my hands, feeling exposed and incensed. I wanted Marla to be impressed with me, to look at me awestruck and say something like, "You've done a lot of evolving since I last saw you. Your chakras are really open and your aura is shimmering. And I see you changing the world with your brilliance!" Instead, I like the Emperor who has been exposed by the little boy in the crowd who shouts out, "You're NAKED! You have no golden robe. You FOOL!"

"I want to work with this with you later, one on one. I want you to come back and we'll work on this. We need to grow you up. Okay?"

Fast forward one week and here I am, sitting at my computer, wanting to write down what just happened an hour ago. I want to write it down because I believe that what I'm embarking on is the start of a powerful journey of healing and ascension and I love reading stories like that. I've never written one, but I've always wanted to. So maybe this is my Traveling Mercies. Or my Road to Daybreak. Hopefully more Traveling Mercies and Road to Daybreak than Bridget Jones' Diary. Although, that did get optioned.

I knock on her door and she invites me into her home after introducing me to her husband. He leaves and I sit down in the chair she leads me to, a comfortable leather chair that sits facing hers. "They were talking to me about you while I was grocery shopping today," she says while finding a box of Kleenex and turning off a kitchen light.

"Oh, it's nice to know someone was talking about me today," I say, lamely. I'm nervous, afraid of another rough scrubbing like I got last time. I'm aware that I feel a little like I'm standing in front of a firing squad and the gunmen are making small talk with me.

"Yes, I was walking up and down the aisles and they showed me this cycle. This crazy-making cycle that you're in." She sits down and places the kleenex box in front of me. "They tell me that you need to get out of that cycle." Her eyes glint with what looks like mischievousness.

"So, it's like this." She picks up a pen and starts drawing a circular spiral. "It starts out with you. Then," she draws an arrow along the spiral, "it goes to you looking at your life and having all of these expectations of what your life should look like right now. House, education, yard, dog, marriage, kids, career... and you don't meet the expectations. Right?" Right. She draws another arrow. "Then, it goes to your family, who support this notion of you not meeting the expectations. Right?" Tears. Right. She hands me the kleenex. "And then it goes to food, which is what you use to manage the bad feelings. And so you stuff yourself with food, and then you feel even worse, and then you go to Jack to try to make yourself feel better. But then," she draws more arrows, "the old bad feelings about your life choices come up again and you're in it all over again. It's crazy making, right?"

Right.

"So, you need to find a way to stop this crazy-making cycle. If you could ask any question to God right now, any question at all about anything, what would you want to know?"

"I would want to know how to make the Eckhart Tolle book make sense to me," I answer. "I would ask God to give me the experience of no longer identifying with the ego but with my true Self. There are times when I feel like this is happening but is scares me because I feel like I am disappearing."

"Well, yes, but would it really be a bad thing, or a scary thing if the ego disappears? And you are no longer bought into the image of you? The image that you are your job, you are your body, you are a mother, you are your feelings, you are a...?" And instead you were able to say, 'I am not this image, I'm just.... I'm just.' It is time for you to dis-identify with the image of you, Amber, that you are a thirty-something woman who lives here who has made these choices..."

Choices. Every time she says that word, shame and self loathing wash over me. "I have a lot of judgment about the choices I've made," I say.

"Yes, you do." She goes on to tell me about a client of hers who makes unconscious choices out of her woundedness and doesn't stop herself and say, What is it that I really need right now? "When we're unconscious, we get ourselves into trouble. Look at America! America is desperate for fathers and so we make ourselves sick so we can go to the doctor and get some nurturing. It's crazy, Amber. So, you have to make a choice to live consciously, to see yourself going round and round in this deadly pattern you're in and get the hell out. But you don't. So, what's the pay off? What is this giving you? What are you getting out of living this way?"

Tears burn in my eyes. I picture myself making good choices for myself. I picture myself choosing fruit instead of a bowl of icecream. I pictures myself declining a cigarette. I picture myself balancing my checkbook and overwhelming fear comes over me. "This way, I can stay victimized. I can stay wounded. I don't have to feel responsible for my life and I don't have to take care of myself. Because I feel too small to take care of myself."

"Okay, that's honest. But here's what's going to happen. Spirit is going to have to drop a huge brick on your head, like cancer or diabetes, to get you to stop all of this nonsense and then you'll be flat on your back in the hospital. "

"I know that," I say to her. "And sometimes I think I want that Spirit to throw that brick at me so I'll be forced to stop."

Marla looked at me. "I know you do. And this scares me. Because that brick could be deadly. That brick could be debilitating. That brick could leave you unable to care for that beautiful baby of yours and leave him totally devastated that his mother is gone. Seems to me that it would be smarter to simply choose to leave this deadly pattern than to have to end up in the hospital." She went on. "What do I have to say to you today to get you to realize that I am the brick. Do I have to slap you? Spirit is saying, 'STOP!' Spirit is saying, 'I will stop you if you don't.'"

I felt the resistance to begin to lose it's grip. I realized that I was being given an opportunity here to step fully into life. Which, quite frankly, scares the shit out of me. Marianne Williamson understood this fear when she wrote:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

So, I'm on a diet. It's The Perricone Weight-Loss Diet, although Marla swears this isn't about the weight. She even made me take the cover off of the book she lent me so that I won't be focused on the weight part. Four weeks, I've committed to. Four weeks of no sugar and no corn and no rice and no bread. Four weeks of no icecream, among other things. Marla believes that this process will be lifechanging for me, and she's offered her help. She and I will talk over the phone throughout the next four weeks and she'll guide me as I detox my body and learn how to take care of myself in a whole new way.

I can't help but wonder if she's the spiritual teacher that I've been drawing to me. I can't help but think that she is, if only for the next four weeks. But I feel her commitment to me and to my healing and it makes me want to be just as committed to me as I am. I realize that I have been given an opportunity here and I am not going to snub my nose at Spirit and miss the boat. I am going to drop everything and take advantage of this big gift.

Toward the end of our session, Marla said something that I believe. It scares me to admit it that I believe her, but I do. She said, "Amber, this is not from me, this is from Spirit." Pausing, she closes her eyes, and listens for a moment. "Whoa," she says, opening her eyes and looking intently into mine. "This is why you are here. You have to do this because you are going to help millions of people. This is why you chose the family you chose, this is why you went to USM, this is why you came to me. Everything has led you to this. You are going to help millions of people heal, Amber."

It's like Three Posts in One!

It seems that, most days, something occurs that prompts me to think, "I have to write a post on this!" There's just a lot going on these days. Good stuff, shitty stuff, painful stuff, laugh-out-loud stuff. I like having this space where I can document my what I'm all about in a given moment of time, like a snapshot into my consciousness that I can share and remember. So, for posterity's sake, I thought I'd show you my photo album of the most recent experiences, ideas, interests, and moods I've had in the past few weeks:

Conversations with Bod, part II
Remember how I said I was going to take me and my body into couples counseling? Because we had turned into a nasty, bitter, abusive old couple who doesn't remember how to say nice things to one another? Well, I did. For the past 10 weeks, I've been attending a process group called Conscious Eating. The philosophy (and one I whole-heartedly agree with) holds that women (and men, for that matter) will often use food to nurture, take care of, and soothe themselves when they are experiencing some kind of distress or disturbance. These disturbances are usually unconscious (we aren't aware that we're feeling scared, worried, angry, overwhelmed, whatever) but our body takes over and says, "Feed me! I need to be soothed! I'm freaking out over here!" So, we end up experiencing HUNGER when we really aren't hungry for food, but comfort.

Friends, family, readers: Whoa. Now, this may not seem like the neuroscience to you, but to me it is fucking shocking and AWESOME. In my work in this group, I am actually learning to distinguish between real hunger and anxiety. I am able to stop myself, mid-stride to the fridge, and say, "Wait a minute, I'm not even hungry! I'm feeling overwhelmed and overstimulated right now! It's not food I want- it's solitude!" And, even better, I'm starting to give myself this stuff that I need. Like, today, I came home from my day job and laid down on my bed for 15 minutes and gave myself a little moment of rest and breath. Normally, I would have come home and stuffed my face with nachos in order to calm myself down. And yesterday, I closed my door at work, sat on the floor of my office, and listened to Cold Play on my Ipod for awhile instead of hitting Jack in the Box for an Oreo Shake.

There's this whole notion in Conscious Eating that we're overeating in an attempt to feed the other hungers in our lives. Like the hunger for meaningful friendships. Or creative expression. Or to feel passionately about anything, like our work or our husband or our hobbies. Me? I hunger solitude. And down time. Leisure is a thing of my past, a treasure I took for granted before Jack, before single parenthood, before two jobs. I am never alone and I crave it like a junkie.

But what really shocks me is this: I have been living with anxiety for as long as I can remember. But I didn't know it! I didn't know that the nagging, jittery, frantic and unsoothed energy in my abdomen that has been there forever was anxiety. I just..., well, it's just always been there. And people, that feels like hunger sometimes. Or, I interpreted it as hunger because food is soothing and numbing, like a hard shot of whiskey, and it quiets down that nervous energy.

Nerpal
About a year ago, my tortoise, Nerpal, who has lived with me since he was just a baby, ran away from home. Well, not ran, but you get the idea. I was super bummed out since he's lived with me for about 10 years now and I always anticipated that he'd be this 137 year old tortoise living with my kids' kids some day. He's an odd little guy because he's barely grown in the ten years I've had him, leaving tortoise experts puzzled and saying only, "Maybe he's a dwarf tortoise." Seriously. And even using the pronoun "he" is a bit of a misnomer since his size makes it impossible to determine if he really is even a he. Anywho, he ran away.

A few weeks ago, I was at one of the tenants apartments doing some move-out paperwork with them. The wife casually mentions that they're almost totally finished moving out except they can't figure out what to do with their turtle. The one they found in the parking lot. A year ago.

So, Nerpal and I have been reunited. I was so excited that I called everyone I knew who knew Nerpal that night, even though it was late. Jack nearly shit a brick the first time he saw him; I hadn't really considered how a two-year old would conceptualize the crawling-rock-with-eyes coming toward him in his back yard.

Join My Radish Commune
I'm becoming a communist. Or, I want to. There's so much to say about this that maybe I should save it for another entry. Let's just say that I'm over this notion of living separated and disjointed from one another, from the earth, from our children, and from ourselves. I am longing for community, a sense of togetherness and support and common purpose. I think we are all dying from disconnection; everywhere I turn I see overwhelmed, unsupported, unknown people who have no one to reach out to. No place to plug in. No place to feel useful or wanted or meaningful. I see this especially in children who feel herded from one place to another, from school to the after-school day care to the TV at home. We are outsourcing the parenting and soul-development of our children to others. I'm guilty, too, but not for long. It's my intention to live differently, in intentional community.

Jack

Which leads me to Jack, who colors my world and my walls and without whom my life would be so much easier. But who wants easy when they can have this:(mascara)

Why did I EAT that?

Alright. I just ate an entire bag of Cheetos. Followed by (oh god, this is embarrassing) frozen Cool Whip with chocolate flavored Magic Shell. And I wasn't even hungry. WHY?!

I'm on the verge of something new, but altogether familiar. I'm calling it conscious consumption. Of food, of things, of information, of environment... I'm beginning to notice that I consume stuff entirely too unconsciously, barely awake, reacting to a mood or a fly-by thought. I eat because I'm anxious, waiting for a boy to call. I go shopping because I want to avoid being at home. I buy stuff to feel important, lovable, okay. I know that we all do; I know I'm not hitting on some new concept here. However, I do believe that I'm seeing a way out of it that I have never seen before: through consciousness.

Conscious consuming, to me, looks like asking the question, "Do I really need this right now?" If I had asked myself that question prior to eating the Cool Whip, the answer would have definitely been no. So then I can ask myself, "What is the Cool Whip doing for you?" To which I could answer, "It's providing a distraction." "From what?" I would ask myself. From what?

From feelings of aimlessness, dread, unworthiness. From a sense of isolation. From the incredibly overwhelming feeling of responsibility in taking care of myself and of Jack. From despair. From the nagging voice of my mother who is always telling me that I'm not doing enough.

There are a lot of things that we all do to avoid feeling this stuff and letting it wash over us. We watch TV, smoke cigarettes, drink a few beers, call a friend, shop, eat, check up on the latest Britney news, check our friend's blogs... I know I'm afraid of stillness. I think I'm afraid that all of those feelings are real and that they will overwhelm me. and that I might not ever recover from it. So I eat Cheetos.

At least, this is what I have done up until now. I'm setting an intention to be still. I'm setting the intention to ask myself the questions: Do I need it, What is it doing for me... Most importantly, I intend to ask myself, "What do I really need right now?" Most likely it's not Cheetos or something from the dollar spot at Target or another VH1 countdown. What I could use is my own company, my own presence with myself as I feel whatever sadness or depression or anxiety that I may be feeling at the moment. What I need is to be able to listen to myself fully, completely, as my best friend would, and then say with the utmost confidence, "You know what? This will pass. It always does." I need to give myself permission to fall apart, to throw a tantrum, to be in a bad mood. I need to trust that I won't get stuck in it as I go through it.

I have been exceedingly lucky to have people in my life who, through their loving friendship with me, have shown me what it looks like to treat me with compassion, grace, and unconditional love and support. It's as if Carrie and Billy and Melissa and Donovan and Lynette and Craig and Mirna and Lisa have been my guides and teachers, demonstrating to me how to be more loving with myself. I am truly grateful for having been shown the way.

And now I want to share with you what spurred on this whole shift. My friend, Kate, sent this to me a few weeks ago and I avoided it for a while because I knew it shake the ignorance out of me. Given my penchant for extremes and black and white thinking, I kept all of my radical reactions in check and have not, so far, decided to sell all of my belongings and live with Jack on a commune raising Alpaca. I did, however, rent some of the suggested books listed on the website from the library. This is just an excerpt from the actual, 20 minute video that you can see in it's entirety here.*** I highly recommend it.

The Story of Stuff


***update: The story of stuff website (http://www.storyofstuff.com/) appears to be out of commission, which sucks because there are great links to resources and easy ideas on how to get out of this cycle. I think Big Buisness had something to do with offing the website, if you know what I mean. You can see all seven chapters here. Mahalo!

Conversations With Bod

I loved being pregnant. I loved it! I loved it so much that I think that the only reason I want more children is so that I can be pregnant again. In fact, if you know anyone who needs a surrogate, call me. Seriously.

There were plenty of things about my pregnancy that turn women off to the whole process forever. I was very sick during the first trimester, throwing up daily and often. My feet swelled up to the size of small cantaloupes, making wearing shoes impossible. My arms were constantly falling asleep, I gained weight EVERYWHERE, and I am still convinced that Jack had a twin sister that was growing in my newly developed double chin.

But, glory of all glories, I didn't have to suck in my belly anymore. Sweet God and Oprah. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Peter, Paul and Mary. Ashley and Mary Kate, I didn't have to suck in my damn belly anymore. I have been sucking it in for as long as I can remember. Do you understand how wonderful this is, people? Do you really comprehend the marvelousness of no longer sucking it in? Can you grasp the splendor? If so, you are probably like me and have been wearing tight, binding undergarments designed to smooth out the bumpy, lumpiness that has accumulated at your midsection. I, for one, have had a hate-hate relationship with my tummy my entire life. There has been no love present between us ever. In fact, I had come to believe that all of the bad things in my life were, in fact, caused by it. "Because of you," I would say to my tummy, "I am unloveable." I am less than. I am an untouchable. My life just made more sense as a pregnant woman. The amount of food I consume normally is justifiable when I am pregnant. People would watch me reach for a second helping of ice cream, would nod in approval and exclaim, "You're eating for two now, so go for it!," And speaking of food, cravings are totally cool, too. It's perfectly acceptable to drive to Taco Bell at 2:00am when you're pregnant. Not so much when you're not. And you know what else is fabulous about being pregnant? Maternity clothes! Oh, God, maternity clothes. How I love maternity clothes. My body just fits in maternity clothes, and I mean my non-pregnant body. So, as soon as I found out I was pregnant I had made my way into Pea in the Pod and Motherhood as if I were traveling to Mecca, my shopping utopia. I look good in maternity clothes. They are designed to show off a swelling belly and I was happy to oblige them. I put on the paneled pants (Oh, God, to wear paneled pants again...) and the blousy, empire-wasted shirt and suddenly I was transformed from an overweight, apple shaped woman trying to stuff herself into her clothes to a glowing, radiant mother-to-be. The transformation was instant. I was now allowed to have a belly. Oh, man, how I embraced this. I would sit with my hands crossed over my round stomach, as pregnant women do, and feel the freedom of being able to draw attention to this part of my body that I have loathed and hidden and hated for so long. I would rub the surface of it, feel such tenderness for it, for what it held inside. And while so many expectant women hate it when people reach out and touch their belly, I found this to be, by far, the best part about being pregnant. I absolutely loved it. Or maybe I should say my tummy loved it, for it was the first time in her life that she ever experienced such gentle, loving touch. She was the center of attention, in a good way for once. People were drawn to her, longed to be close to her, to touch her and draw from her the goodness that she held within her. Bright, happy faces would surround her and tell her that she was beautiful, that she was loved, that she was a miracle. I know that I should be able to tell her- or myself- all of this when I am not pregnant, but I just don't buy it. I don't believe it. Instead, I tell her- my tummy- that she is disgusting and horrible and the reason for all of my pain. I tell her that I wish she didn't exist, that I would like to have her removed from my life, and that without her I would be happy. Who wants to hear that? I have heard it, from past lovers and brothers and strangers, even. And it sucks to hear it. It's actually quite devastating. And yet, I say it to myself every day, over and over and over again. So I've decided to take my tummy and me to therapy, as if we were some old, married couple who have lived a lifetime together in misery, to see if we can learn how to love one another again. I plan to write about it here, but it scares me to do so, as if I am forcing myself to get undressed in front of the classroom. But I feel compelled to share my journey, my conversation with my body, no matter how ugly and lumpy and awkward it may be. And maybe as I do so I will look around and find bright, happy faces telling me that I am a miracle.