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!
