Curiosity and coaching

We had an awesome podcasting session today, there were so many things that I wanted to add as I was listening to it while I was walking....  but as frequently happens, listening to the podcast settles the comments I have and so I forget them.  lol..... oh boy.

We discussed curiosity as it relates to changing your life and quitting dieting.  We gave you some ideas for turning your mind to another way of thinking instead of the usual weigh/restrict/workout way that we as adults generally do.  What will your day look like?  What can your day look like? 

Maybe you are like me and you had no idea what the answers to those questions were- because you have never lived in your adult body trusting yourself.  Never thinking that you were good enough because everyone around you is also doubting themselves and turning their bodies over to what ever pseudo-health professional was the hot ticket at the time.  Whatever "amazing" diet was popular at the time.  Anything except letting yourself and your body do what it wanted to do.

We talked about those trigger foods or those forbidden foods that you just couldn't let yourself have.  People really just don't understand that you indeed will not eat those foods exclusively for the rest of your life! But if you proclaim that you can't trust yourself around pizza, or cookies, or chips then you will indeed want them more than you have ever wanted anything before because you "can't handle them".  Such nonsense.  As unintuitive as it sounds, letting yourself actually eat any food will result in normalized eating.  It is in the denying of the food that the problems occur.

You know of kids (I had one of them) who only ate a few foods and no amount of threatening or cajoling or bribing a 2 year old can make them eat something they don't want.  And they grow up just fine.  That kid of mine is 6 ft tall and it took a long time but he now eats a variety of foods that is more than mac and cheese and hot dogs.  So think about that- kids really have fine instincts about what they eat until we start meddling in it.  They will get a nice variety of food in over a period of time with not a lot of help from us.  When we start withholding the desserts and making them have specialness or moral value- that is where those eating issues begin.  So give your inner child dessert if they want it, who really cares??  There is no food police.  You are a grownup- eat what you like.  Aren't you wondering what that would be like?

It is interesting that I began my search for a way out of dieting on almost the same day as I hit my "goal weight" on that weight loss app.  I was doing my usual freakout and someone sent me a post about smashing your scale.  My introduction to the idea of not letting your scale rule your life and your day.  I of course scoffed at such a notion, I wanted to stay the exact same weight as I was then but then not think about what I ate.  The weight loss app people implied it was just as easy as upping your calories when you hit that magic weight, keep up the exercise and of course keep recording your food.  You know, obsess over it and buy all those fancy things and invest in better shoes and keep living a life that was ruled by extraneous rules that really had nothing to do with you.

The blog post that I read was actually by an exercise person who was restricting the hell out of herself, though she claimed that she didn't, but it was a beginning.  One thing lead to another and I eventually found the world of podcasts which really allowed me to find a new way.

On the podcast today Anne-Sophie and I talked a little about the Body Love Writing Circles.  It was a program that totally changed my life.  The 6 months of work made a big dent in the 50 plus years of me not believing I was ever good enough.  It was the way I made huge strides in changing my thoughts and beliefs and that process still continues.  It was what has lead me to where I am today- a much happier person who has so many facets of her life.  I can not begin to imagine my life without having gone through it.  I'm so grateful for what it began in me.

Invest in yourself, find a program, get a coach (I know of a really good one!!!  :)  ) you are so totally worth it.

Clothes, makeup and all the things

Our last podcast explored style- how we found our style, how it has changed, makeup or lack of makeup, why black clothes are really not serving you and many other things.

I listened to this episode and had so many things come up in my mind.  Interesting, or maybe not so interesting, asides and digressions popped up as we were traveling down the diverse roads the three of us are taking.

I discussed my disco days briefly, one of the most trendy and in-style parts of my life, weirdly until recently.  It seems that youth goes hand in hand with trendy, but some of us circle back to a little bit of trendy when we get old and gain all the confidence that we were missing when we were young.  It is an interesting journey, let me tell you. Anyway, I remember LOVING the shiny dark patterned shirts and the pants that went with them and the incredibly high platform shoes from the late 70's.  And to think I danced in those things.  Oh wow I loved those clothes.  They represented freedom to me.  I acquired them when I was in college, when I escaped from my fairly restrictive parents (sorry mom) and seriously cut loose in SO many ways.  I danced, I drank, I did some fairly risky things....  it is a wonder we survived.  But I did and found a husband who is incredibly along the lines of what my family was. Conservative, reserved, funny and lively all at the same time.  So, after moving to the north, I was again landed in a situation that restricted my movement, my freedom and in many ways the pleasures that I had found and reveled in.  Debi was reined in for a while.

I am not saying at all that I regret the life I have- you can't remain 21 forever and your priorities change.  But the fact remains that through geographical reasons, I was trapped in a  very small world.  My parents were 5 hours away, my friends at least as far, then I had kids and as life goes, you have to live with what is given to you.  This particular post has already veered wildly from my original intention, so apparently it needs to be said!

As I implied, I didn't have a lot of style, or even clothes for that matter.  Not compared to what I have now.  I didn't actually need them, I didn't go far and we didn't do a lot.  Mostly we needed WARM clothes because it is damn cold up here.  And the kids and the hubby got the most clothes.  He had a job, the kids grow....  you know the drill.  I didn't have a full time job for a number of years after I got married, so the wardrobe didn't matter in my case.  I remember feeling so excited to pick up some things to wear when I did get my teaching job.  To buy more than 2 or 3 things was just exhilarating.  But I didn't go over board, and I would not call myself stylish at that point.  My "style" was in all the crazy socks I wore- I was strictly utilitarian.  I remember looking at beautiful items of clothing in stores and being so sad that I didn't feel I could wear them.  i told myself it was because I taught art.  Or that they wouldn't fit me....  or that they wouldn't look good.  In reality I didn't think I was good enough to.

Fortunately, as I have mentioned before, when I turned 50 something clicked inside me.  I took back my life.  I had been traveling more by myself, I started doing things I wanted, and generally became more independent.  And during this time I began finding myself - at first by restricting myself until I almost disappeared- and then I found the authentic me somewhere in between.  With a little help from my coach!

In our makeup discussion, Anne-Sophie talked about how no one ever showed her how to put on makeup and so she feels strange when she wears it.  Like it doesn't quite seem right.  My first encounter with makeup was when I was about to enter 6th grade.  My cousin who is a few years older than me had indoctrinated me into the idea that makeup was something that I should have and I should wear.... and when I was up at my Grandma's on vacation ( I think she was there too) I bought some mascara.  It was the old fashioned kind where there was a separate brush thing and the actual product was a cake- sort of like eye shadow.  Anyway- my mom yelled at me and took it away. She and my aunt, and probably my extra conservative Grandma were so disappointed and distraught that I bought that mascara. I guess because I was so young.   I found it a few month later and used it!  Lol.  I wore all sorts of make up in high school, and college, so I am no novice.  I don't usually leave the house with out mascara on (LMAO) but I don't bother with a lot of other stuff.  My skin has changed and I don't want to deal with it.

I use a style service now, I actually began filling out the form for stitch-fix on a whim.  It was almost like my brain had planned it and I was doing it before I even understood what was happening.  And when you fill out the style form, then you have to finish the whole thing because- well, just because.  I have to say that I love the clothes that I have gotten through this company.  I think that they are a little off base on some of their cuts, the arms of their non-stretch clothing is pretty small.  Certainly I am not the only person in the world who has triceps??  I have sent back two kick ass jackets in the last year and a couple other things because of that.  Notice that I don't blame myself??  I happen to know enough about clothing construction to understand that it is the pattern makers fault, not mine.  Just sayin'!!  And you can try it on at home and have a few days to think about your purchase. Stitch fix has been instrumental in figuring out what I look good in now.  Because I have changed, just like we all change all the time. And that is what happens and it is good.  If you don't change, you remain stagnant.

So what is the take away from this podcast episode and I guess from this post....  beyond my usual random neuron firings.....?
Know that you are worthy of attention... you are worthy of spending some money and time to make yourself feel good.  You might be a full makeup face person or not.  You might be a dress and skirt girl, or maybe pants are better.  You might love to wear jewelry of all sorts, or you might break out from it all.  However you are, please don't hide yourself.  You don't have to wear baggy black clothes.  You should be able to feel comfortable and stylish.  Beautiful and at ease.  We have some pretty good choices these days, not perfect but it is getting better.  Don't forget that you are here to live your life, you are not here to please others.  You literally can wear what you like.

Oh yeah, that Karl Lagerfeld thing?  You know that the high fashion houses only make like 2 sizes because the are trying to remain exclusive.  By making themselves seem "ultra special" they are making themselves an ultra amount of money.  It is a way of the wealthy keeping themselves apart from others.  It is exclusion at its worst.  It is oppression in an insidious form.  Don't even get me started.

So start small and try something a little different.  You just never know how something will look unless you try it on.  Leila's advice and discussion about taking it home because dressing rooms are not safe places.  Life is hard enough without dressing room traumas.  You know that saying fake it u until you make it?  For all three of us, the confidence came second.  We basically worked our way to inner confidence by pretending at least some of the time. Because it works.  And we are more than good enough to deserve that confidence in our life.

In one weekend....

Hey there everyone- I haven't written much lately- but my routine is back- i.e.: I am back at school and so all my summer meandering is done.  sigh.

I listen to our podcasts when I am walking and I heard myself say something a few times now and I want to clarify something.  I talk about quitting dieting- and weighing myself as well- in one weekend.

Let me talk about that for a few minutes.......  it is sort of misleading.

I realize that it sounds like I got up one morning and just quit dieting without any effort.  Or at least that is what I perceived some folks might think, and by contrast might consider themselves unable to quit dieting or what have you.

The reality is that it took me several months to come to this decision.  This truly began when I hit my "goal weight" on the weight loss app that I had used.  That DAY, after the accolades died off, I began to already feel unsettled.  Where was the magic of being my dreamed of weight?  Why did I not feel light and free and without cares?  How in the HELL was I going to maintain that weight when the diet app said I could EAT all this food again???  This was crazy.

It took about 2 weeks to begin to gain weight, and then I fell down the rabbit hole of lowering my goal weight.  I could get the cheers and support again and I could follow that diet religion.  But I felt horrible.  I hated having to think about food all the time.  I apparently was obsessive, as I actually had a friend send me a link to smashing my scale!

I began to worry I would LOSE all my friends who I had found from the social aspect of the weight loss app, not to mention not being that "amazing role model" to all the people around me.  What good would I be if I went back to where I was before.  I sort of didn't realize I was never going to be the same person again.  I didn't know that weight really doesn't make or break friendships, or at least not the ones worth having.

Insert many weeks of thinking and reading and looking for something that could help me live without CONSTANTLY thinking about food.  There were blogs found and read, podcasts listened to,  and all the surfing of the web for ideas about this.  When I was feeling like I had no other way to go but forward down a totally different path- that is the weekend I put it all into place.  That was the time frame that found me floundering around trying to figure out what food I could eat- because nothing was off limits any more.  It took me a long time to eat Doritos again, because that food rule stayed with me.  I still don't drink much soda, but I don't like it any more.  I do eat cookies and chocolate and cake and pie when I want and sometimes I don't want because heartburn bothers me.  But I know I can have some later or tomorrow or next week.

That weekend was weird, it was summer I know, but I remember standing in front of the refrigerator and closing my eyes and feeling in my stomach and in my mind what would taste good.  Figuring out what my body actually wanted.  It was such an odd experience.  I hadn't trusted myself to choose my food in years.  not without guilt or altering it in some way.  Editing.  I edited my food choices constantly.  It was really hard to do, but I went with it.  I knew I "could" go back to dieting but I knew I would not.  Because it was just so wrong.  And the journey continues....

The real healing began when I found my life coach.  It sounds like a privileged thing to say, and it most likely is- but getting coaching, or in some cases people may need a therapist, was the best thing I ever did.  I found a way to initially get small group coaching that was modestly priced.  Right place at the right time.  I know now that every penny I spent and will continue to spend is well worth it. If I knew then what I knew now, I would have chosen to spend the money faster.....  We are definitely worth the time, energy, work and money to allow us to make a difference in this world with a rich life.  We are worth it!

Transitions

I have not written a lot here lately; I thought it was because I was too busy/not inspired/nothing worth talking about.  Turns out that I was changing.  Turns out that I was stressing out over things that I hadn't identified, actually things that hadn't yet happened and things that happened a lot time ago and affected me in ways that I didn't realize.

I experienced a couple of really intense coaching sessions in the last few weeks that allowed me to understand the transition that I am experiencing.  Without going into it specifically, I needed to talk about something that I absolutely did not want to discuss.  I had to talk about it when I was screaming inside that I want to hide and  not go there and pretend it isn't occurring.  I accidentally blurted it out to a friend of mine while I was doing a heart to heart exchange of crap going on in our lives.  And I felt the lift in my spirits immediately.

I had gone through an experience which prepped me for this, but I identified it as an off limits topic.  I grudgingly answered the questions on my coaching session last week- and it allowed a tiny little leak in my wall that was holding an ocean of troubles in.

The thing is that this experience that I am referring to was a total not fair/blind-side me situation that had me reeling for days.  I mean days and days of feeling in a funk and not feeling worthy and feeling like I must have done something wrong, even though I am only guilty of being an imperfect human who meant no harm.  It was one of those situations that when you tell a couple (2 to be exact) friends about it, they are totally supportive, but somewhere deep inside you don't believe it.  You relive a situation over and over and beat the crap out of yourself for reacting like you instead of like a different person.  You know deep inside that you are not worthy of love and respect and decency.

Anyway, I am one to look for something good to come out of every situation, no matter how unfair and obnoxious, but I can see it today.  Today I can see that I needed to face my fears and worries, that I was no longer the same person I was and I am transitioning.  Not into a new me or anything, just transitioning into a new phase of life.  The situation, as horrible as it was, released those little leaks in the wall and the flow has begun.  I am beginning to flow into another stage of my life.

I realize this moment that I have truly begun to divest myself of the residual effects of a lifetime of dieting.  I have quit using my exercise app, I never count calories or track my food.  I am understanding the lingering thought blockages from restriction and am reliving some of the ways I felt before I lost weight.  I have days when I feel horrible in my body, but I now understand that there is some emotional thing that I need to deal with to make that feeling go away. Though I don't consider dieting- I sometimes feel my brain want to grasp onto the safety of restriction and overexercising. Safety that came from diverting my attention to what was really bothering me to obsessing about how I looked.  And I did that for so many many years.  It is never too late.

After a really brutal coaching session yesterday, Anne-Sophie said to me- do  you realize that you are not dealing with all these feelings with food at all?  I got the biggest smile on my face.  It is true.  I just don't.  Wow, that is huge.  No hiding food from people, no arguing with myself over what and when to eat, no spending massive amounts of money on things to eat or items to use to exercise with. No supplements that seriously do nothing for you anyway.  This was a happy moment.

The flow that began during these latest coaching sessions has continued today.  I have identified two more HUGE memories of people that have abandoned/turned on me for a reason that is still not known.  And I may never know why these things happened, and the thing is that it doesn't matter anymore.  Now that I know that these things drive some very deep seated fears of mine, it is much easier to examine these painful memories.  It also makes it easier to see how I sometimes distance myself from people that young Debi sees as a danger.  A danger that they will leave me somehow and I won't have the pleasure of their friendship anymore.  That I am not worthy of them keeping in touch with me.  That I will be abandoned.

I am saying these things because I know that there are a lot of people who might read this  are at the beginning of their journey and you NEED to know that it is possible to change.  I had completed the first "successful" diet of my life 5 years ago, and felt just as horrible about myself as I had before.  I got to my goal weight and kept lowering it.  I got to my goal weight and all I could think of was I didn't want to do this all my life.  I just didn't want to DO this all the time.  And then I started looking around for some sort of guidance and Isabelle Foxen Duke said on a podcast with Anne-Sophie (first time I ever heard of my sweet coach A-SR) that she didn't want to think about food every god damn minute of her life.....  I grabbed that phrase and have held it tight because it spoke a basic truth that I knew was valid.

It is simple but it is not easy.  It isn't difficult, it is different.  And it is worth every penny, every tear, every page in a journal and meditation time and facing of fears and realizing how you can live an authentic life - a life that is large as you want....  a life where you don't have to shrink to meet the needs of someone else.

And we are all more than good enough for that.

Good enough

An interesting side effect of stopping restrictions, over-exercising and generally escaping the diet prison mentality is the fact that your mind is open to a whole lot more things.  Many of these things are positive, but sometimes what happens is your other insecurities pop up!

This is not exactly a pleasant experience, but it is a place from which personal growth can flourish.  I, like every other person in the world, am haunted by feelings of inadequacy.  Of course in an area that I get the most artistic and personal satisfaction, but yet I never feel like I can measure up to those I admire.  I imagine it is because I want to be "GOOD" at my personal passion of photography.

My issue is my perceptions of others.  I perceive that they have the way of thinking that is technical and mechanical and computer literate and they have extreme attention to detail and unlimited patience, knowledge, money and time- in other words: the ability to be a way better photographer than I am.  Lol.  I am exaggerating, but seriously, this is the path that I lead myself on when I look at the work of the people I admire the most.  It never occurs to my hyper-critical mind that perhaps they go through the same processes and struggles that I do.  Or the fact they all focus on one or two types of photography and don't do the same things I do.  And seriously how nice they are and how helpful they always seem to be if you ask for advice.

I doubt that these people would agree with my perceptions of them, and indeed I hamper my growth sometimes by getting distracted by all the stuff I like to do in addition to photography.  The saying goes- a jack of all trades, master of none.

As an art teacher, I definitely am a jackie of all trades- I can draw, paint, do clay, print making, etc, and I can hold the hand (figuratively) of my students as I go, helping them feel successful and teaching them about life and relationships and work ethic and creativity and perseverance.  They think I can do everything.  And if I can't, I can figure out how to fix it.

When I get out into the adult world, things are a little less full of admiration.  And I occasionally take this fact as rejection of any skills I actually do have....  oy.

Ok, so this isn't really all about photography, it is about the things I reflected on when this came up in my most recent coaching session.  I need to step back and think about things more realistically, less full of the feelings of inadequacy and insecurity.  I went through these feeling about my art teaching a few years ago, and I have worked through that fairly satisfactorily.  

The good thing about not being in Diet Prison is that you have so many other things that you can do with your life other than plan, execute and regret the things that you eat.  Fun activities that you can participate in besides figuring out how to burn the most calories in the most efficient way.  Ways to keep yourself occupied that does not involve research on the latest food fads, exercise trends, and fitness apps and apparatus.

But we have, lying in wait, the real issues that bother us.  These issues are ready to pop up when we are not paying attention.  They make us doubt ourselves and our go to response is to turn inward and blame ourselves for things we never learned or interests that never served us.  We are face to face with a job we still hate, a relationship that is toxic for our mental health, or being overwhelmed with people taking advantage of our unwillingness to disappoint someone and therefore we end up doing things that we smile and say we are fine with, but underneath we are seething and resentful.  The true issues that are still there and bubble into our consciousness.

It seems that these thing like to happen when you are innocently washing dishes, driving your car or when someone makes comments to you that alarm you.  You don't have the distraction of hating your body, but that might still be the go to reaction.  I find I have STILL times when I get unhappy with the way I freaking look in reaction to a great amount of stress in some aspect of my personal life.  We must deal with the underlying things that really, REALLY are there and causing us pain.  (Photography isn't a real painful topic, but it is important enough to me, and deeply personal, that it makes a good example)

SO, self care:   self coaching..... paid coaching....  meditation.... deep breathing..... journaling.....
this is my arsenal of tools that help me get ahold of myself.  So I can get back to feeling light and easy again.  So I can take another step down the path of true healing.  If you are in this place, know that it is normal.  Know that you can do this, you can face your life without the shield of dieting.  You can deal with your problems past and present and not blame your body for them.  You don't have to restrict your food and make yourself smaller to please those around you.   You, like me- we are more than good enough to take up our space.

Feeding our real hungers

I have had a really hard few weeks here, and fortunately for me I have tools that I can use to get me through those times.  I have really good friends that I can talk to,  I have self care practices that I know will make me feel better and thank heaven I have coaching that will help me when I know that I need more support than usual.

Self care comes in many forms

Fortunately for me, I am able to "go there"when I am asked to speak- as part of a recovery technique- as a different part of me.  Not from my brain, but from a body part or something that lives inside of me, or the younger me or the scared me, etc.  You get the picture- I am totally able to immerse myself in another reality to get at thoughts or feelings or perceptions that are holding me back or making me, frankly, feel really bad about myself.

Today I had a very effective coaching session- I know they are effective when I feel drained and exhausted, though peaceful afterwards- that helped me identify what my stressors are at this point in time.  Funny thing, when you no longer use food and dieting to sublimate your internal problems, they like to bubble up to the surface like lava from a volcano.  Sometimes maybe not that dramatic, but sometimes it is.

And it really is that way- I have no diet to keep my mind occupied, no calorie counting to be preoccupied with, hours of exercise that would be distracting me from the issues at hand.  I may also be less adept at rolling with the crap that life throws at me (ahem, we will just pretend that age has nothing to do with it) for one reason or another.   It could be I am overwhelmed- see the next post that will be coming out soon- or it could be that I am not honoring my hungers.

I am definitely not talking about my food hunger, because seriously, I don't mess with that anymore.  If I am hungry I figure out what I want and have it.  I am talking about my other hungers....  My needs for creativity, for rest, for purposefully meeting my own needs.  And that has been neglected a bit lately.

I have become overwhelmed with feelings of literally running just ahead of a beast that wants to envelop me in its grasp.  At work I zoom from one task to another, from one student to another, from one building to another- all the while feeling like I am not serving any of them to my ability.  I never feel like I am doing enough. After work I go to the stage and do play things, and again, I never feel like we are getting enough done.   At home, I sit in paralysis.  Literally I, some nights, plop on the couch and barely get up.

I have been really feeling the need to do art- I can picture things that I want to create in my head. I am absolutely itching to oil paint again, I need to get my hands into subject matter and media that I want to do, not what I want my kids at school to do.  When you are an art teacher you rarely do your own work because you just don't have the time when you are teaching and you do not have the will when you are home.  But the feeling is there- I need to honor my need for creativity soon.  I need to purposefully and intentionally walk outside for a little while every day for my own sanity.  I need to let myself rest when I feel I need it.  And I really need to find a way to be in the moment, in my body and not in my head through out the day.

These things are my self care, my genuine modes of providing myself with the things I need to be able to be my best self.  I know I need them to do my best at my life's work.  I have bought myself daffodils, I had a pedicure, I made some brownies- all of which make me happy and brighten my day, but they are not the soul satisfying things that I need to be better.  Creativity energizes me, walking calms me and rest restores my mind.  I will be honoring my true needs- I know that I need to satisfy these hungers as much as I need to satisfy my students', friend's and family's needs. Or more.

Controlling my body's size and shape will not help fill these needs.  Restricting or bingeing on food will not truly make me feel like a whole person again.... Honoring my true needs is the most authentic thing I can do- I am more than worth it.  And so are you.