onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the tag “feelings”

15 Dec 2012
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It’s always an eating disorder blog because I always have eating disorders

I wrote a post earlier today, but I don’t think I want to share it. Not today. Not yet. It’s about my anger. My hate. My distrust. I have a lot of it. I am overflowing with it. And it’s ugly.
I am not afraid to show you my ugly. But it would not do any good right now. It would not serve me. Or you. There would be nothing for either of us to learn from it. Except that I am human. And that I have ugly feelings. Which I already knew. And you probably did too.

I am doing my best not to be ashamed of my ugly feelings. I am doing my best to remember that denying them doesn’t stop them from existing. And that the closest thing there is to making them disappear is to eat them. which is not an option. And I would like to say that I know that there is nothing virtuous in turning my hate in on myself instead of hating the people who have hurt me. But I have always used self-abuse and martyrdom as a kind of substitute for virtue. And I can forget when my rage scares me enough.

So for today, I will spare you my ugly feelings.

A friend said recently that my blog is as much, and maybe more, about quitting smoking lately than it is about compulsive eating. I think that may be true. And I told him that I made a decision a while ago to let it be what it is. That both the experience of getting control of my eating and that of quitting smoking are similar for me. I’m actually pretty sure that in time, my eating disorders will return to the forefront. I just happen to be going through a particularly difficult time with regards to quitting smoking. I am having a hard time with the feelings and the weight gain. I am having a hard time finding my footing after making a significant choice about who I want to be in the world. And who I want to be in the world is even more awake and aware and alive. I want to be not numb.
But there is something that I know, that you might not. In my mind, every day, always, I think of myself as a woman with eating disorders. I am a compulsive eater and bulimic with body dismorphia. A woman with a sugar addiction. And more specifically, woman who painstakingly takes care of her life with food so that she can be sane and stable. That is my primary identity. (I know…sounds super sexy, right?)

I have given up many things as a compliment to that identity. Smoking is one of them. Along with alcohol, and smoking pot, sugarless gum, diet soda and excessive caffeine. And behaviors like making rash decisions, and acting out in anger. But first, last, and always comes the food. Food was my first drug. It was my first numb. And getting control of my eating and letting go of getting high on sugar led me to realize that I actually wanted to be alive. That I don’t actually like numb. And that one step at a time, I want to come back to life fully.

I am in excruciating pain at the moment. I am more angry and hurt and scared and tormented than you can possibly imagine. I am burning with rage. I am overwhelmed with grief. I wake up puffy and swollen and encrusted with dry tears. My throat is sore from how tight I clench it. I am more miserable than I can remember being in the past (almost) 7 years.

But I do not eat to numb it! I would rather be here in honest, living, livid pain than be numb. Than be dead. Because eating compulsively is death to me. Numbness and death.

Yes, I have been talking a lot about smoking. And I’m ok with that. But my life, all of my life and every fiber of my being, is about being free from the food. I was able to quit smoking because I have my food under control. Because I learned how to feel pain when I let go of sugar and put boundaries around my eating. And if I thought that my eating boundaries were in danger, I would certainly go back to smoking. Or caffeine. Or chewing gum. Or whatever. Because the food will kill me quickest and make me hate myself the most.

So I hope you’re ok with my smoking talk. That you can somehow see that quitting sugar and quitting cigarettes are connected. Or if you can’t, that you still think I’m brilliant whatever I write! Or that you’ll humor me…

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08 Dec 2012

Is it just as judgy to judge people for judging?

I’m a little less body-miserable these past few days. Maybe it’s because, with weigh day behind me for the rest of the month, I put my body hatred it in its compartment. Maybe it’s because I have hope that by next weigh day, my metabolism will have started regulating itself again, and I will start losing this weight I have gained. Or maybe it’s starting to seep in that I am not, in fact, grotesquely fat in this body, and that I can have some peace if I can surrender to it being what it is. (That last one’s a stretch, but I believe in miracles.)

My big issue this week is how aware I am of people giving me unsolicited opinions and advice. And how offensive I find it. And how aggressive it makes me feel. (Not act…Ok, maybe a little. But I have managed to keep my clever and cruel remarks to myself.)

There is a saying I love. “If you want what I have, do what I do.”

I keep hearing from people who do not have what I want.

For example, I do not want health and lifestyle advice from a morbidly obese girl more than 10 years my junior.

I do not want to be told that my quitting smoking is “really for the best” by a woman I never see smile. And who looks something between bored and disgusted. Always.

I am glad that I quit smoking. For all of the pain that has come with it, there has been a new clarity and a deeper level of self-love, self-awareness, and self-confidence. I love that, even though it has not been an easy six months. But I don’t want other people telling me what is best for me. I like to decide that for myself.

And today, I can. When I got control of my food, I stopped doubting myself. I could trust my eyes and ears. I could trust my thoughts. I could trust my assessment of situations. I stopped wondering if I had it all wrong and was doing it all wrong.

And another thing I lost when I got control of the food, was the need to get it all right. (Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. There are still things that I get very angry at myself for getting wrong.) But every day that I don’t eat compulsively, I have a lot more room for my humanity. And for everybody else’s.

And even one more thing is that I stopped feeling the need to give other people advice. I stopped needing to show that I had all the answers. That I was so smart. I started to understand the value of minding my own business! Who knew!?!? (By the way, I had zero answers when I was eating all the time. I sure hope nobody was actually taking the advice I kept forcing on people…Oh well. Too late now…)

So why am I so upset with people giving me their unsolicited opinions and advice? Why can’t I have room for their judgment? Why can’t I let it roll off my back?

I think because cigarettes were how I numbed the feeling that other people didn’t like me. Didn’t approve of me. Didn’t think I was doing it right or well. Didn’t think I was good enough. Being judged hurt. And cigarettes made that pain go away. It was a kind of manufactured indifference.

But now I have to acquire a new coping mechanism. And I don’t think I want it to include indifference. But I don’t want to own someone else’s judgment of me either. I need to figure out what that’s going to look like. Because I don’t know.

What I do know is that I don’t want to judge those who judge me for judging. I want to acknowledge their right to have thoughts and opinions about me and my actions. And know that those thoughts and opinions are none of my business. Even if they insist on telling me. I want to have room for their humanity, whether their words come from love or spite. I want to be protected by my confidence and personal sense of security. I want to learn to love my fellow human beings. Not because they deserve it. Because I do.

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01 Dec 2012

I may *be* insane, but I’ll manage to not *act* insane. Good enough?

I have been an unholy wreck this week. Crying and anxiety. I’m restless. I want to claw my skin off. And the bulimic girl who lives in my head is disturbingly loud lately.

I weighed myself this morning. I always weigh myself on the first of the month. And only the first. The kinds of eating and body image disorders I have can make me obsess about the number on the scale. So in order to keep it in perspective, there is only one day that I step on the scale. And since my quit-smoking-weight-gain started, the week before weigh day has been overwhelming.

I gained another pound and a half this month. I weigh 157 lbs. That is 24 lbs heavier than I was on June 1st. I have been eating less and less and have still gained weight every month. (A friend said that sounded like its own special circle of hell. I’m pretty sure it is.) And I am so angry. And I feel so punished. And I am absolutely positive that I am going to be alone my whole life.

I don’t know how clearly I understood it myself, but looking back I can see that I quit smoking because I wanted to have a shot at love. I wanted to be able to be intimate with a man, which is hard when you have a fiery torch in your mouth and are exhaling a toxic smoke screen. But I wasn’t prepared to gain this much weight. And I am a former fat girl. The size of my body matters to me. I have spent years rigorously maintaining strict boundaries around my eating. Every day. No matter what. And that was supposed to keep me thin. It did keep me thin until six months ago. And I do not know how to love my body this size. And I don’t know what man would be interested in me this big. Because I think I am so ugly right now.

I’m telling you I hate my body. (I am writing this thinking You can’t post this, Kate! You’re supposed to be uplifting. Don’t tell them you hate your body! Don’t tell them anything is wrong. Just write something charming and spiritual. But obviously I am telling you. Because it’s honest and it’s my story.) And it occurred to me the other day that this emotional rough patch I have been going through is all about hating my body. And that the week before weigh day, how much I hate my body is all I can think about. And the other three weeks of the month I put it in a compartment and wonder why I am so sad and when I am going to feel better.

I have been making a lot of empty threats to God this week. And then sometimes just begging. Please make this stop. I am doing everything right. I’m doing everything I am supposed to do. I can’t take it any more. If it doesn’t stop I’m gonna…I’m gonna… something.

And boy does my bulimic girl want me to something. Laxatives, castor oil, throw up, starve. SOMETHING!

But the truth is I’m not gonna something. For some reason I realized when I put down sugar and stopped eating compulsively, that I had to stop hurting myself to spite difficult circumstances and situations. That circumstances and situations don’t care. That God isn’t an indulgent or exhausted parent who will give in if I throw a scary enough tantrum. And thankfully my boundaries aren’t just about not over eating. I may not under eat either. I may not purge or abuse laxatives. I may not honor my bulimic girl at all. I have boundaries around acting sane, even if I feel crazy. And God, I sure do feel crazy.

So maybe there’s an uplifting message after all. I have a commitment not to hurt my body, even if I hate it right now. I have a promise to keep my food boundaries, even if they are not keeping me as thin as I would like. (I mean, I hate having gained 24 lbs in six months, but I’m a 300 lb girl in a rented body. I pay rent on this body by keeping my food boundaries. If I were eating compulsively, I could have easily gained 24 lbs in two weeks. )

This is my prayer: Dear God. Please let me love myself and my body exactly as I am. Please let me know that I am beautiful as long as I am taking care of myself.

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04 Nov 2012

It would be nice if you were honored. But really, I didn’t do it for you.

Since Sandy hit, I have been stranded in my neighborhood. So I have been doing projects. Mostly, I have been crocheting. The other night, when I looked at the scarf I had been making for 2 days, I realized that the whole day’s work was lop-sided. I have a rule that when I don’t know what to do, I don’t do anything. So I went to bed.  And in the morning, I looked at it and I thought about it, and I ripped out row after row of stitches. Many hours of work. Gone in seconds.
I don’t know if I would have done that a month ago. I may have tried to see if I could finesse it. Hide it. Or maybe just labored on and let it be lop-sided. I mean this scarf is not for anything. Except to escape boredom. And it was a lot of work.  But today it doesn’t matter how much work I put in. It doesn’t matter how much I have invested. It doesn’t matter how much of myself and my love I have offered. If the result isn’t satisfying, I can let the whole thing go. Without regret. Or resentment. Without being tormented. Without feeling like the work or the time were a waste.

It turns out I have had a shift in the way I understand value. Recently. This week. I have had no way to get to work. No way to get almost anywhere. And a monotonous hobby. Crocheting is meditative. It puts me in a sort of trance. It let me think a lot about what I want, and what I have done to get what I got. What is my part and my responsibility. And what I can change. To get what I want.

I recently sent a breakup letter to the guy I wasn’t dating. (No. That’s not a typo.) It was as bold and honest as I could be. I said everything I had held back for fear of being rejected. I was embarrassingly authentic. I took a big giant scary risk.

And what I got back was a (kind of mean-spirited) rejection. It was maybe worse than I had expected. Which is saying something because I have a history of being rather gloom and doom when it comes to men…But I kinda can’t blame him. Kinda. I probably should have anticipated that breaking up with someone you are not actually dating can make them a little irritable.

Needless to say, I was shamed. It was explained to me that my love wasn’t wanted. And that I really shouldn’t feel that way. And there was even a smattering of a who-do-you-think-you-are kind of arrogance. Which is hard for me because it pokes at a lot of sensitive childhood wounds. (Or at least that was my experience. Which, admittedly could be clouded by my sensitive childhood wounds…Just sayin’.)

But also, I didn’t die. And I didn’t smoke a cigarette. And I didn’t eat a chocolate cake. And really, it wasn’t so terribly horrible. It is not even as terribly humiliating as I thought it would be.

And here is what I have decided. 1) I got a lot out of loving him. I learned a lot about myself. It made we want to grow up. Be better. And I am a better person than I was. I like me even more now. So it was all worth it in the end. 2) Whether he wants my love or not doesn’t have to have any bearing on whether or not I love him. I am allowed to love whomever I choose. I don’t have to give him power that doesn’t belong to him. I have decided that nobody gets a say in the validity of my feelings. I can’t shut my heart down anymore. And 3) I want to be the woman who does whatever it takes. To have the kind of love she wants. Not whatever it takes to make myself what I think someone wants. But whatever it takes to find the one who loves me back. To be honest when it’s scary. To be bold when it’s risky. To be authentic when it means I could be shamed or belittled or mocked.

I do whatever it takes to keep my food boundaries. To have a relationship with food that honors my soul. Every day. Every time. No matter what. I want to do that with love now too.

I hope you are well and safe. And I hope somebody loves you. Even if you don’t know, don’t care, or don’t love them back.

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28 Oct 2012

What do you get when you cross an oven with a mountain?

I started out writing this post a couple of days ago, but since then, I have become aware of something that has changed everything. I was given some insight into how I operate and how it affects my life. I’m having a hard time processing it. So I wrote this rather mixed up post with two analogies that don’t go together. The kind of thing only Shakespeare can get away with. And it turns out he’s dead. But bear with me. It’s at least short and ends with an interesting point…
On Friday, I started out writing about how I deal with relationships by trying to “do it right”. I used cute cooking analogies. I explained that how you cook something affects the result you get. If you cook at a high temperature for a short time, you get a different result than if you cook at a low temperature for a long time. Pan searing versus slow roasting. But that I had come to the realization that I was wrong thinking I could “do it right” when it came to relationships. That unlike food, people are autonomous. And that, as a good friend reminds me, I am only 50% of any relationship. So I was about to declare to you that I was going to give up trying to do it right in relationships. That I was going to start living like I couldn’t do it wrong.
Ok. Now that I have a little more clarity about my MO, let me give you a better analogy about the way I have been viewing relationships. I have been living like sad loneliness is all around, everywhere. And love is the very peak of a colossal mountain with dangerous terrain. That in order to love and be loved I am going to have to scale this mountain. I’ll have to be at the top of my game, in perfect physical and emotional shape, and even then, one false move and I could lose my footing, lose everything, and end up right back at the foot of the mountain. Or I could climb and climb forever and never reach the peak. There is only the peak, or sad loneliness. The journey will be treacherous. There is no room for error or a lack of focus. And my success, as well as my ability to succeed is doubtful.
So here is what a friend pointed out to me. That all of this caution, all of this tentativeness and focus and “doing it right” is doing it wrong. Because it’s dishonest. It’s inauthentic. It’s a manipulation. Because I am doing my best to be what I think I should be in order to be loved by this one, instead of just being who I am and finding the one who wants to love me. Because I’m so worried about not getting rejected, that I fail to notice that I’m not actually getting loved.
So let’s go back to my cooking analogy. I’m going to say that I was wrong about being wrong about doing it right. (No, it’s ok. Feel free to take a minute to diagram that sentence if you need to…I’ll wait.) I have been wanting something to come out slow roasted. But I have been unwilling to stand in the heat of an uncomfortable kitchen. So I’ve been pan searing it. And I have been pain-staking about pan searing it exactly right. But in the end, it still comes out pan seared. And that’s not what I want. So it’s time to turn off the stove top, turn on the oven and heat up the house.
I’m trying to remember that it might not come out right at first. That it might take a few tries before I get the dish I want. But at least I’m on the right track now…
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13 Oct 2012
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Love, hold the onions

I wrote my first entry for what would become this blog on January 2nd of this year. I didn’t know at the time that it would become “Onceafatgirl.” (Or maybe I did somewhere in my heart.) But it was the 6th Anniversary of having my eating under control. And I was still thinking and living as if I were walking around in a 300 lb body. Growing up with food issues can mess with your head. Once a fat girl, always a fat girl. No matter what you look like on the outside. And I knew that it was time to let go of thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that had become obsolete.

And so far, this has been a year of healing and spiritual growth. Writing this blog has been a gift to me. What I wanted most was to be willing to take risks with my heart. I had always kept my life small. Been highly risk averse. Unwilling to risk rejection. Or humiliation. Especially in romance. And that kept me lonely. So here I am. For 10 months I have been telling you my dark secrets and painful truths. I keep my self-censorship to a minimum. I keep it honest. I make it intimate.

And when it comes to men and romance, I did, indeed, take a few risks. I am proud of myself. But instead of getting bolder and more sure of myself, instead of letting each risk be a reference to the fact that I survived it, I started out bold and got more and more timid. I started to get scared. I started to doubt.

And then BOOM! All of a sudden I find myself back where I was in January. Feeling small. Feeling my life constrict around me. Feeling lonely and ashamed. Unlovable. Unworthy. Burdensome. Broken.

And this has come up again now because I had to give up some food. And some serious fat girl issues got unearthed. Yes, even though I have maintained strict boundaries around food and my eating for over six and a half years.

See, what occurs to me is maybe a giant plate of deep-fried onions once or twice a week made it ok that I was lonely. And when that got taken away suddenly I was still lonely but I didn’t have the onions anymore to make it ok. So of course I just wanted my onions back. But maybe if I think about it, I don’t want them back. Maybe I should stop wanting things that make it ok that I’m lonely. And maybe I should stop finding ways to be ok with being lonely. Maybe I don’t want onions. Maybe I want love.

What I’m saying might not make sense to you. Maybe you have spent your life knowing that you deserve love. And maybe you have never put something between you and your fellow human beings. But food was my best friend and my lover for the first 28 years of my life. And then even in the past 6+ years, with strict boundaries around my food, I allowed it to be my comfort. And as soon as my comfort food was taken away, I felt vulnerable. Shamed. Punished. Growing up, food was how I convinced myself that I could survive without love. But it was also the reason I felt like I would never be loved.

There is something I am noted for in my work life. “Quality information.” I can be counted on to give it, and I am always grateful to receive it. But that is not true of me with men. With romance I always want to avoid information. Or at least keep the information I seek irrelevant. I never want to look at the truth. It’s too scary! Because I am absolutely positive that no man will ever be interested in me. That has been something I have “known” for as long as I can remember. So I don’t seek quality information. I don’t ask the relevant questions. I just answer the questions myself. Always with the answer that I am most afraid of. Always telling myself that no man is interested in me. You would think I would just ask them! When I answer for them, I never stand a chance.

It’s almost like when I was fat and I would make a fat joke about myself before someone else would do it. I’m rejecting myself on every man’s behalf first. I won’t give them the satisfaction.

Which just goes to show how warped I am. I’m not interested in jerks. I don’t like arrogant or obnoxious human beings at all. And certainly not to date. If I like a man, it’s safe to say that rejecting me would not bring him satisfaction.

I know that fear of humiliation is part of being human. It doesn’t make me different or special. And when I am paralysed with fear of rejection, it’s because I’m thinking that I have something to lose. Maybe I do. But I need to stop aching. And crying. So let’s try this again. I want to take risks with my heart. This time without giant plates of deep-fried onions.

I call a do-over. Starting…now.

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08 Sep 2012
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She’s not hungry, she’s my fat girl

As a person with eating disorders, I don’t really know what hunger is. That evolutionary trigger that says “you need fuel or you will die” does not function properly for me. So when I’m “hungry”, I can’t always judge if that feeling is a physical feeling or an emotional upset. And when I was eating compulsively, I promise, it was never a physical feeling. If you can imagine how much and how often a person has to eat in order to maintain a morbidly obese body, then you can imagine that at no point was my body in danger of starvation.

Knowing this about myself is important. Because I have eliminated “hunger” from my reasons to eat. There is actually only one reason for me to eat now. Because it is time to eat. That is part of my food boundaries. There’s a time to eat. Not just one. Three of them every day, in fact. Big, beautiful, abundant meals. And then that’s it. If I have eaten lunch and I am “hungry” I just “be hungry” until dinner. Being hungry for a few hours is not the most horrible thing in the world. Especially for someone as well fed as I am. So far, I have not died from it.

A few weeks ago I may have actually been hungry. When I quit smoking, my metabolism changed. Is still changing. And I was not feeling satisfied after my meals. So when it was time to eat, I made some different choices about what I ate. Giant cantaloupes. Less salad, more vegetables cooked in butter. And that hungry feeling went away and my body started feeling full and fed and content again. So it could be that that was real hunger. The truth is, I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. Real hunger, emotional cravings. As long as my eating is within my boundaries, it’s basically none of my business. I don’t have to care. I don’t even have to wonder. (it’s very freeing, frankly.)

But this week, I have been feeling “hungry” and it is definitely not a physical hunger. I have been feeling this “hunger” even though my meals have been incredibly decadent and filling. Even when I have just finished a huge, gorgeous meal, and my body is stuffed, I have been “hungry”.

Even knowing that I am stuffed is something that only came to me after I had my eating under control for a while. When I was eating compulsively, I was basically disconnected from my body. Not only did my thoughts tell me that I was “hungry”, but they kept me from ever feeling the sensation of “full”. All of those feelings that lived in my mind and my thinking that occurred to me as hunger trumped any actual physical sensation. I didn’t (still don’t?) have that thing that regular people have that tells them they have had enough. All of the discomfort and shame and pain (and joy – any intense feeling is hard for me to deal with) registered as hunger. And I fed them.

But now, because I have boundaries, and therefore some clarity (not to mention sanity) I can look at feelings of “hunger”. And I have a shot at distinguishing what they really are. And I think I understand what this week’s “hunger” is about.

Right now, there are some areas of my life that are up in the air. There are some things that are not settled. And it’s not time for them to be settled. I don’t know what is going to happen. And I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next. I don’t know when I’ll know what the next right action is. I don’t even know what the next right action is supposed to lead to. So I have to wait. And be still. And I have been getting impatient. I don’t want to wait. I want to know. I don’t want to be still. I want to move. Now! And the not knowing and the not moving are making me uncomfortable. And that discomfort registers as a kind of emptiness. Like there’s something missing. Like there is a hole in my life. And the fat girl who lives in my head wants to fill that hole with food.

Here’s what I already know: There is not enough food in the whole world to fill that void.
I am grateful that I don’t have to eat compulsively today. The clarity that I have has not only let me see that impatience is the real feeling behind the illusory hunger I’ve been feeling this week, but it lets me see that it really isn’t time for me to act yet. And then it will also allow me to be alert and know when it is time to move. And to know what to do when that time finally comes. Not a rash decision and a drastic action. Rational. Honorable. Honest. Maybe not perfect, but definitely not shameful. All that for being “hungry” for a few hours every once in a while. Yeah, not a bad deal…
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25 Aug 2012

Losing battles, my heart and a blunt instrument, and a first attempt at a new humility

When I stopped eating sugar six and a half years ago, I admitted that I have no power over it. That if sugar and I ever end up in a battle again, sugar will win. I will lose. It’s that simple. And that’s ok. I don’t battle with sugar anymore. There is no need. It is the reigning victor.

In other words, do I want to be right, or do I want to be happy? Do I want to prove that I have willpower and nothing can beat me, or do I want to live in peace? I choose happiness and peace. I choose to acknowledge my weakness and my humanity. Not just acknowledge them. Honor them. Give them their proper place and their due. Have some humility.

Because I understand that I am going to have to submit in some way. I cannot have it “my way”. My way does not actually exist. I cannot eat a little bit and stop. Which is not actually “my way” either. “My way” would be to eat and eat and eat and not be fat. Or obsessed to the point that I am careless of others. My way would be to eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, with no consequences. Anybody know the secret to that? (Even if you said yes, I wouldn’t believe you.) So I can submit to the acceptance of my weakness and forfeit sugar as an option. Or I can try to control sugar. And control myself around sugar. But I have a lifetime of experience that assures me that I will just end up having to submit to sugar in the end. And be its slave. So I give sugar its rightful throne. And stay the hell out of its kingdom.

But the longer I have my food under control, the more I learn that I have no power over other things too. So many things. More and more things than I ever imagined. And it turns out that I have no control over my heart. I cannot control my feelings.

Let me make some distinctions. I am not talking about my thinking. I absolutely get to choose what I think. And what kinds of thoughts I think. I can stop thoughts. I can redirect my focus. This is important. It is an excellent skill to have. I cultivate it. If I have a thought about how great chocolate cake is, I stop thinking that thought. I cannot afford to romance thoughts about foods I don’t eat anymore. Foods that will kill me. Foods that will torture me first, and then kill me. If I am feeling like life is unfair, and I am throwing myself a pity party, I can list the things I have to be grateful for. I do have power over my thoughts.

The other distinction I want to make is about shutting my heart down. I can do that too. It is a skill of sorts. It was very useful in my early life. It saved me as a child. I had a pain that was too big for a little girl to deal with. Fear that was too dark and scary. But this is not what I’m talking about either. Because shutting my heart down is not like using an exact tool for performing detailed work. It is a blunt instrument. It is all or nothing. My heart is either on, or it’s off. If it’s off, there is numb. If it’s on, there is whatever there is. And that’s what I’m talking about. When it’s on, I have no power over what comes out of it.

I have this agreement with God that I will not “take my toys and go home”. I originally made this promise about men. That I will not run away as soon as I think I might get hurt. That I will not stop caring to avoid pain. That I will follow every relationship to its natural conclusion. That I will be available for whatever a relationship has to offer. And if it’s pain and getting hurt, that I’ll stick around to get hurt. (Oh yeah. Huge fan of this agreement with God…) But what is starting to dawn on me is that I choose shutting down with all sorts of situations. I have spent my entire life trying to control my feelings. So I don’t feel disappointed. Or hurt. Or frustrated. Or angry.

And I have been thinking of this shutting down as a kind of power. That I have power over my feelings. But I do not. If my heart is open, I’m feeling whatever I’m feeling. If I let my heart be open.

So I’ve just come to the conclusion that on is better than off. All the time. That there is no such thing as a bad feeling. Even if the feeling is jealousy or greed or anger. Even if it’s something that I’ve been told to think of as shameful or wrong.

This is new for me. And I’m going to tell you I’m scared. Because I don’t really know what it will mean to stop fighting my feelings. I don’t know what that looks like when practiced and applied. And because I want so much to be a good person. And I’m so afraid of my dark side. And that it is just another log on the fire of my unlovableness. But if I am going to be honest, I have to admit that I am powerless over my heart. And the more I resist it, the more exhausted I am.

When I stopped eating compulsively, I gave up fighting with food. And now I want to give up fighting with feelings. Because the longer I am sober from sugar (and cigarettes) the more clarity I get, and the more I understand that I have spent my life fighting battles I can’t possibly win. So I guess I’ll just have to do my best and let you know how it goes…
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