The Language of Letting Go: July 16th

Insisting on the Best

We deserve the best life and love has to offer, but we are each faced with the challenge of learning to identify what that means in our life. We must each come to grips with our own understanding of what we believe we deserve, what we want, and whether we are receiving it.

There is only one place to start, and that is right where we are, in our current circumstances. The place we begin is with us.

What hurts? What makes us angry? What are we whining and complaining about? Are we discounting how much a particular behavior is hurting us? Are we making excuses for the other person, telling ourselves we're "too demanding"?

Are we reluctant, for a variety of reasons, especially fear, to tackle the issues in our relationships that may be hurting us? Do we know what's hurting us and do we know that we have a right to stop our pain, if we want to do that?

We can begin the journey from deprived to deserving. We can start it today. We can also be patient and gentle with ourselves as we travel in important increments from believing we deserve second best, to knowing in our hearts that we deserve the best, and taking responsibility for that.

Today, I will pay attention to how I allow people to treat me, and how I feel about that. I will also watch how I treat others. I will not overreact by taking their issues too personally and too seriously; I will not under react by denying that certain behaviors are inappropriate and not acceptable to me. 

From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.

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The Struggle For "Normal" My blog, 7/16/13

I spoke with my mother yesterday and, as usual, the talk turned to food.  She told me how Dad had ordered a delicious dessert at their apartment building restaurant the night before, but she didn’t.  Dessert is Too Fattening, is what she said. Mom is of the opinion that she can pig out on Kentucky Fried Chicken, Red Robin smothered burgers & fries, and Jimmy John’s foot-long sandwiches but she needs to summon up every ounce of her WILLPOWER to say NO to fattening dessert.  Had she said No, instead, to the thousands of calories of junk food she’d consumed in non-desserts, she could easily have eaten the friggin dessert instead of white-knuckling it.  At 86 years old, and with a huge food obsession in full force, I ain’t gonna be able to teach my mother anything, sadly enough. Nor do I care to.  If I never hear another word about weight again, as long as I live, it will be a day too soon.

The only time I remember my childhood is when I speak to my mother & hear her using words like ‘fattening’ and ‘willpower’ and talking about how FAT she is and how she’s GOT to start watching what she eats immediately.  It’s during those times that I recall the misery of growing up in a house where food was the Be All & End All of Life.  I remember going to Catholic grade school every morning, lugging a brown grocery store bag with my lunch in it.  Not a brown paper lunch bag……..a brown paper GROCERY bag, mind you.  I was mortified to drag that sucker out & empty the contents of it out in front of me.  Everything but the refrigerator itself was packed in that bag, and if Mom could have FIT the fridge, IT would have been in there too.  While the other kids were picking on PB&J sandwiches with the crusts cut off, I’d be opening Tupperware containers of spaghetti & meatballs.  I wondered what it felt like to be ‘normal’ and not obsessed with eating. 

On Wednesdays at school, a boy came around with a laundry basket filled with soft pretzels.  He’d sell them for a dime apiece but of course, I didn’t get an allowance………but I DID have two dimes tucked inside the slots of my penny loafers. Those dimes were to be used for EMERGENCY phone calls ONLY, back in the day when there were pay phones that cost a dime.  Once in a while, I’d pry a dime out of my loafer & buy one of those soft, delicious pretzels for myself. I’d feel normal during those times, and not like some outsider looking in on all the other kids having fun.  The joy was short-lived, however, because I’d have to figure out how to explain the missing dime in my shoe when I got home.  My life was uber micro-managed, and I had not ONE ounce of freedom ANYWHERE in my life.  Even the bathroom door had to be left open while using the toilet……that’s how close an eye was kept on me.

When Mom saw that I was getting chubby, thanks to all the over-eating she’d insisted on, she started hiding food from me.  She’d put cookies or other forbidden foods up in a high cabinet, and they’d all be counted out.  She’d KNOW if one was missing that way, and since I was the only kid in the house, unless Grandma ‘stole’ it, she’d know who to blame.  Me. Being as ‘abnormal’ as I was, I wasn’t entitled to eat cookies like the rest of the world.

Weight Watchers came next, at 12 years old.  I was the only child in a room full of fat women, and of course, my thin Mother who sat next to me, making sure she could learn all about the various recipes she’d need to cook for me so I could get thin.  Chicken breasts baked with soy sauce and lemon I distinctly remember, and to this day, not something I am fond of.  And liver.  Wednesday night was liver night for me, and I hate liver even more than soft-boiled eggs, which I was forced to eat every morning of my life for 13 years. At 13, I said NO MORE. Beat me, kill me, torture me, but I WILL NOT eat ONE more soft-boiled egg, EVER, for the rest of my life, Amen. And I haven’t, so there!

I remember Mom having a fit one day whilst cooking homemade chicken chow mein in a big old pot on the stove.  The chow mein was for the rest of the family, the normal weight people who could eat whatever they wanted. Me? I had to eat LIVER, because I was FAT, and FAT was BAD.  Fat meant you couldn’t eat whatever you wanted, and you had to be treated differently.  I remember complaining about having to eat the hated liver dinner, and then Mom dumped the entire pot of chicken chow mein onto the linoleum floor and started screaming bloody murder.  Alrighty then………liver it IS. Even smothered with mustard, liver just sucks.  And it’s another food I avoid like the plague, now that I’m growed up and away, for the most part, from my mother’s suffocating ‘love’.

To this day, dinner at Mom’s is a hairy ordeal.  Last time we were there, guess what she made? Chicken breasts baked in soy sauce & lemon.  It’s not FATTENING, you know! Thank God it wasn’t liver.

I was trained from a young age that I was SUPPOSED to be dieting at ALL times.  Fat was bad, and I was fat, so dieting was my penance to pay for my crime. Weight Watchers was only the beginning.  Lots & lots & LOTS of crazy diet schemes were to follow.  My dieting career began at 12 and it’s pretty much STILL going on at 56. 

Maybe when I die they can have a nice message chiseled into my tombstone.  Perhaps it will say, Here lies Chris, not buried in a piano case for being too Fat, but in a regular NORMAL sized casket.  Or perhaps I WILL be buried in a piano case, who knows?

What I DO know is this: raising our children to believe their ONLY value lies in their body size is a big, gigantic, miserable mistake. 

We are NOT our bodies. We are our souls. Our spirits. Our personalities and our compassion. Our love & our ability to nuture & to show kindness.  Our body is just a temporary housing unit………the REAL value lies inside of that house. Did you know that?  For many, many years, I did not. I was SO focused on having a normal sized body, that I’d forgotten all I was taught in Catholic school. 

When you see a little girl who’s obviously shy & casting her eyes downward because of the shame of her weight, go give her a great big old bear hug.  Tell her how beautiful she is, period. Don’t tell her what a pretty FACE she has, which sounds like you’re saying “but too bad about that BODY.”  Smooth her hair with the palm of your hand and maybe, just maybe, you will help her to feel normal that day, to feel Good Enough.   Because, chances are, that little girl is feeling trapped inside of a body that she doesn’t like, confusing IT with who she IS. 

My mother shows love in the only way she knows how: by pushing food. Let's remember that food has nothing to DO with love, and that we can show our children love in lots of healthier ways. Spending quality time together is what really counts. You can share healthy habits and fresh air instead of pizzas and cupcakes. And I guarantee you will enjoy the results.  So will your kids!