Photo by Pigpogm via Flickr
For those of you wondering about my health situation, I did have some tests. They came back normal. This leaves me wondering, a) WTF is wrong with me? and b) why do I feel the need to believe I’m sick?
I’ve been reading Full-Filled, The 6-Week Weight-Loss Plan for Changing Your Relationship with Food-and Your Life-from the Inside Out (aff), which is the book version of the Inside Out Weight Loss podcasts I’ve talked about before and have been listening to for well over a year. I highly recommend both the book and the podcasts, because they really make you examine your motivations, your relationship with food and with yourself, and why you do what you do.
Reading this book, even though the podcasts say basically the same thing, has prompted a lot of thinking on my part. A lot. So much so that I feel physically afraid to read the next chapter, that I have a visceral reaction to doing the exercises.
This book, this work, is showing me my resistance.
Also in the past few days, I’ve read The Flinch (technically an aff link, but it’s Free!), which, again, is pointing out those moments of resistance in my life.
What I’m coming to realize is that the vast majority of what I do or don’t do is based on avoiding something, some change, some action, something different than the status quo.
It’s strange, because I have always thought of myself as adaptable, and today everywhere I look all I see is signs of my resistance, of me not wanting to adapt to anything new.
For example, today was the day I was supposed to go to roller derby practice. Did I go? No. Why not? I tell myself it’s because I can’t afford it, which I can’t, and that I don’t have the time, which I don’t, and that it would be hard on my sore knees and ankle, which it would. All of that = EXCUSE. Regardless of the validity of the argument, that is me talking myself out of doing something different, even though it’s something I’ve claimed I wanted to do for a long time. If I wanted it, I would make it work regardless of the money and the time and the joints.
What did I do instead? I did take some time for myself: I went shopping. Now, every fat girl knows that shopping, although it seems like fun, really isn’t. Especially when you don’t have any money to spend. Oh, and let’s not forget it’s lunchtime, so I’ll have to grab something to eat.
What I did instead of roller derby was make myself feel bad about being overweight and broke, then console myself by wasting money and calories on unhealthy food. How is that reasonable? I have an uncanny ability to talk myself out of the good-for-me things and into the bad ones.
Okay, I’m just going to assume you’re all with me up to this point. If you read this blog, you probably have an idea of what it’s like to put off a dream, to make a bad decision, and to feel guilty for doing something bad instead of something good. Let me show you another side, a deeper, more seditious side to resistance.
What if my belief that I am ill despite evidence to the contrary is psychological resistance? What if I want to be sick so I have an excuse not to have another kid, not to lose weight, not to organize my house or finish a novel or meet any other big goal I have? Am I so afraid of life and change that I actually want to be physically ill, that I am literally making myself sick?
How’s that for a scary thought?
On the upside, the fact that I’m recognizing this resistance is good. I can’t overcome it if I’m not even aware that it’s happening. This resistance I’m feeling is a big, flashing arrow pointing right at the areas I need to work on, which unfortunately seems to be all of the areas right now.
So what do I do with that? Well, I keep reading, for one thing, keep working through the exercises. The point of Full-Filled is getting your whole self into alignment, and I am obviously not aligned.
The only solution is to do the work, to push straight into that resistance and face it, to deal with it, to show it that I can come out on the other side, still living, still breathing, stronger and more capable than I was before.
The only way out is through.
