Baring It All

"Just as there exists in writing a literal truth and a poetic truth, there also exists in a human being a literal anatomy and a poetic anatomy. One, you can see; one, you cannot. One is made of bones and teeth and flesh; the other is made of energy and memory and faith. But they are both equally true." in Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Old spiritual friends of mine would joke about the metaphorical brick-on-the-head response the Universe would give us when we failed to get a message about a change we need to make in our lives. We try to hide from our shadows but eventually they track us down and kick our ass if we don't honor them.

Tonight, Bill's Nigredo post inspired me to write this post and share the piece below I wrote a couple of years ago. I think I am also going through a nigredo phase, facing the darkness in order to purify and come out integrated and healed.

Every single emotional frustration and health issue in my life right now (outside of work) points in one direction: I have PCOS and it is only managed best by diet and exercise. My weight is exacerbating my illness. My illness is exacerbating my weight. It's a vicious cycle and I've been allowing myself to drown in it.

I've recently learned that not only is PCOS the cause of my imbalanced hormones (which cause some emotional issues), lack of sex drive, and pms problems, but also that it causes anxiety and depression. I've been wondering of late how I became so anxious the last few years. I didn't used to be this way, even in my worst depressions and obsessions. I was shy but did not suffer the social anxiety issues that I do now. I've also recently realized that I live in a state of constant anxiety. Even though we have a new car, there are little things about it that make me worried we bought a lemon (something I did once when I was young). There are other things that keep me constantly anxious as well and it takes a lot of internal dialogue to let them go.

Now I have to wonder, is my IBS the result of the PCOS causing anxiety? My IBS started at the same time my women's health issues hit a crisis level. Did the anxiety and PCOS symptoms bring about the IBS? If I lose weight and follow the natural health plan to manage and heal my PCOS, will every health issue and most of my emotional issues--mood swings, anxiety, mild depression, etc--be healed as well? Am I on the brink of major life improvement and the actual absence of physical suffering if I finally become serious about diet and exercise? How's that for a brick to the head? : )

It's time. I knew it was coming. Two years ago I wrote the piece below through which I finally looked my eating addiction in the eye. Now I know it isn't just my addiction that has created all the physical and emotional issues I've been suffering. I am not the failure I often imagine myself to be. I have biological issues that need healing just as much as the emotional ones. And it's time to address them.

I think I'm sharing this now because it's a way of making myself accountable to the truth I am facing right now, but may be tempted to deny again tomorrow (or even later tonight as various things in the kitchen entice me for my usual late night snack). I can't put off my health any longer. I can't resist the desire my soul has for me to heal both heart and body. It's time to stop making excuses and convincing myself I have a little more time to just enjoy life and the foods I crave or that I need to do more internal work first. I can't keep trying to be half-assed in my approach, taking supplements and eating a lot of the right foods at meals, but neglecting to exercise or fight the desire to binge when it looms. It's time to be committed, for both myself and my family. It's time to know my real feelings. It's time for my ex-husband and I to know for sure whether I want to be in a relationship with him or not. It's time I stop letting anxiety and mild depression prevent me from engaging life more and blaming my lack of participation on my health problems (although getting involved with and honoring my commitment to Pride is a really good step in the right direction).  

I've focused so much on my emotional and spiritual health at the cost of my physical health. I cannot be integrated until I bring as much consciousness to my body as I do the rest of my life.

I really, really miss parts of the old me. The good parts. My soulful parts that I thought disappeared because of my mismatched marriage but now seem to be at least as much caused by my biological dis-ease. I miss the emotional adventurer who had unusual and amazing life experiences by being open to the Universe and the fantastic human beings in her proximity. I miss the woman who wrote poetry and creative non-fiction like the piece below, really getting into the juiciness of life through language and touching lives with my story and my vulnerability (now I often hide from writing because I know it will draw out truths I don't want to face). As lovely as the Conspiracy Of Blessings is as an art project, it's also incredibly safe considering the content of previous art projects. I'm hiding. I'm fearful. It's time to love myself to wholeness, body and soul.

I end the piece below by saying I know I wasn't ready to make the changes at that moment. But now I believe I am. Or perhaps it's more truthful to say that I'm deciding I am ready. And I want to keep deciding in every moment that my health is more important than a short term carbohydrate high or a rebellion against discipline through exercise. It's time.



*

Eating
 
Ariel Gore in  Atlas of the Human Heart writes, "Located in the middle of the chest, behind the breastbone and between the lungs, the heart rests in the pericardial cavity.  This moistened chamber is encaged by the ribs.  The diaphragm, a thick layer of muscle, lies below.  The heart, therefore, is well protected."       

I eat late at night, when I'm too tired to fill my heart's hunger with the healthy sustenance of words written on a page. I eat when I'm bored and the interaction of husband and wife or mother and child fails to keep me stimulated. I eat when I feel too weak to seek the nourishment of friendship, too insecure to pick up the phone or pay a visit.  

I eat to numb feelings of being commonplace. Non-conformist and adventurous tendencies flow through me.  I see other futures where I live in an artists' commune in San Francisco or travel to Europe and Africa with my sister. I have dreams of art installations at city galleries and publishing poetry chapbooks. I have dreams of mystical adventures where Spirit encompasses my being in a community of practitioners. I cannot help but question whether I have chosen what is most important to me or what my family and my community expect.

I eat to protect myself from feeling vulnerable. I lose friends and lovers when I am vulnerable. I lose people's interest when I am authentic to my inner voices.  I eat to avoid the feeling that I am alone and that no one wants to listen to or participate in the real story of my life. If I am busy putting food into my mouth, chewing, swallowing, over and over again, I don't have to worry about rejection of what might come out of my mouth instead. The real me.  The loud me.  The philosophical me. The awkward me.  The well intentioned me. The evolving me.  The loving me.  The me inside this thick shell of fat.

I am a crab who inhabits a permanent shell to protect my heart because ribs and diaphragm don't feel like enough.  I have constructed a shell so thick that there is no more coming out, no more emerging now and then.  This shell is all encompassing and restrains every inch of my being.  This shell is becoming too heavy and makes attempts at movement painful.

***

 I just wiped the crumbs of the third single serving bag of potato chips from my shirt.  I clean the gooey remains of red pepper cream cheese from my teeth with my tongue.  I wash all of this down with the sweetness of my third glass of pineapple juice.  

Yet as I write these words I imagine that I do not have a problem with food and vulnerability.  I want to believe my only problem is with a lack of willpower.  I guilt myself into believing I am merely weak and unable to say no to my cravings.  I wasn't really hungry.  Not in my belly or my body.  But my heart starves for so much more than this life I am living.

Chocolate Croissant
Ham and Swiss Croissant
Pretzels
Pringles and SoBe Green Tea
Banana
Pork Roast Stew and French Bread
Seconds of Stew and Bread
A few more bites of Pork Roast secretly snuck directly from the pan
A Hot Fudge Sundae
A bag of single serving Cheetoes
Two single serving bags of Lay's Potato Chips dipped in Red Pepper Cream Cheese
Three large glasses of Pineapple Juice

This is what I fed myself today to keep my real feelings away. With each bite I swallow the sadness, stuff myself behind the fat, try to fill the emptiness where I should be.

I am also giving myself the illusion of joy. Carbohydrate addiction keeps seratonin flowing in my brain and prevents the responsibility of creating my own happiness.  It's much easier to reach for a bag of Doritos than to go for a walk.  Ice cream brings instant gratification, unlike the life changes necessary to become friends with my body.  Hours spent cooking are less threatening than self reflection.

Where do I even begin to look for myself?  Am I hidden in my thighs where they rub together when I walk so that I wear out the inner seams of my pants or cause a rash if I forget to wear tights or shorts under skirts?  Do I look around my hips with the wide stretch marks, leaving little flesh smooth and uncorrupted?  Can I pull away the folds of my belly that prevent me from comfortably touching my toes?  Is the self I have forgotten sitting inside the bulge of my double chin or the wrinkle of fat on the middle of my back? Or have I wrapped myself around the flab of my upper arms? Maybe I am crouching in the shadows of my sagging breasts? There's so much extra flesh, I don't know where to start looking.

I am cramped between the demands of family and survival in a capitalistic culture that doesn't value my art as much as it values my productive office skill. I am exhausted in the evenings, often unable to sustain the energy necessary for exercise or quality writing or spontaneous creative projects.  I chose a partner who prefers the comfort and quiet of home to gathering with friends, and video games to hikes in the local forest.  I have become complacent.  My husband and I have both gained forty pounds since we've been together.  He likes to say that we're fat and happy.  I am definitely not happy.  I have settled for comfortable instead of following my passion. I have traded my creativity for security.  I am a stereotype of lower middle-class America. I am a statistic for obesity.  I am not the feminist role model for my daughter I aspire to be.

***

I recently came upon this anonymous piece of wisdom, "To deprive yourself of your symptom before it is time, is to deprive yourself of your learning before it is complete." I will not wake up tomorrow ready to hike my way to health.  I will not immediately resolve to ignore my cravings for carbohydrate highs.  The current fad diets will not quickly lure me into trying to lose weight.  The immensity of my eating problem is just beginning to reveal itself to me. 

One of the misconceptions about over-weight people is the belief that only willpower is required to overcome the problem.  If only we could be strong enough to say no to our cravings and to get ourselves walking.  If we fail to wield our willpower, then we are merely fat losers.  Our culture doesn't seem to realize that most weight problems are not solved by Atkins or Slim Fast alone.  Food addiction, like all addiction, is rooted in heartache.

I have more to learn before I can treat the symptom of over-eating. My first lesson is in forgiveness.  I must forgive myself.  I am one hundred pounds overweight because I have not learned how to grieve for and grow out of my own heartaches through self love, instead of food and fat.  This is a thick wall I have constructed. It will require time and compassion to tear it down without hurting myself.  I need to be able to look in the mirror and see my self as beautiful, even though the world around me tells me that I'm frumpy or hideous.  I need to trust my own process of healing and know that I am not a failure because I eat a pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream or fail to walk every single morning.  I will not heal if I am not kind to myself during dark nights crying in front of the refrigerator or sleeping on cookie crumbs.  Recovery requires more than self control.  It requires a willingness to dig beneath the fat and find the lovable woman within.