"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." ~Marcel ProustAs you might know, my husband is an incredible athletic and coach. When I meet his women triathlon friends and trainees, they seem surprised that Mr. Excessive Athlete is not married to an extremely fit and toned woman. Sometimes I let this get the best of me. But sometimes I understand their confusion about why we don't seem to match up to the ubiquitous Barbie and Ken pattern that many this world promotes as the result of so much success: a successful person = a fit person; a fit/successful person = a fit/successful spouse. They don't see an equation of perfection, IronMan and IronWife, when they look at us as a couple.
Our eyes supposedly tell us the truth. Because of the pervasiveness of the perfect female body, initially we might not see any other options than what we are taught to see. We unconsciously size people up: "Wait, why is he with her?" or we credit the man for being so loving: "Wow, look how great he is because he loves her (short, overweight, and obviously loving those doughnuts her)!" But then we settle our external judgments down and press on to the internal comparison mode: "Ok, I'm safe. I am way better looking than her. No competitiveness here. I win hands down! I don't have to worry she is better than me and again reaffirm how unworthy I am." Then, those women and I usually have a fake conversation about how great he is and then on to the next person for me to meet.
It may seem a bit harsh to reduce these interactions between women to this pithy analysis, but unfortunately, I am guilty of this pathology too. I notice I do it myself and to myself. Most of us do. We have this horrible self-loathing relationship with ourselves. We beat ourselves up for not working out, not getting on that treadmill. Our egos (our self-esteem) fight with our superegos (our critics) all day. You think to yourself about how great that year was when you amazingly worked out daily, watched what you ate, and you felt an overwhelming sense of calm because you managed to control all the variables and achieve skinniness. You actually compete with your past self!
In reality, didn't you applaud yourself for the self-control, self-will, self-discipline you suddenly found, that is, how successful you were at obtaining a "deprivation mentality"? And now, a year latter, you hate yourself for giving in to the hour of extra sleep in the AM and the french fries at lunch. Your self-esteem has intangibly been connected to your ability to be good at controlling food intake.
But is this all there is for women? The forever diet of deficiency?
Perhaps, our ways of analyzing ourselves, and thus our ways of measuring ourselves, do not align with our highest goals. Why do we think being tough instead of loving will get us there?
I know. Some of you Machiavellists are thinking fear/emotional punishment is the only true motivator. Or we might think we have to put in the "hard work" in order to see the results. Well, I know you have been hard on yourself this past year and every time you look in that mirror. Has that motivated you to get back on the treadmill? No. There - do you see - fear, anger, or disgust does not motivate or rehabilitate us.
With the "spiritual awakening" I have been forging through these last few months, my rules of engagement with food and exercise needed to change. The relationship was not working. It has only shifted once I saw the way I had been treating myself.
Marcel Proust, a french novelist, reminds us, "The real voyage of discovery consists not in having new landscapes but having new eyes." Instead of trying to find new diets to tackle, retrain your eyes to see your loving self. We need to get our mind back in shape before our body will. This begins with self-compassion and loving-kindness. Let me be clear - this does not mean you tell yourself you are worthy of love while shoving a gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream down. This hurts your body. You know it does because you have done it before and your stomach screams at you. But I understand - listening to those screams give you a break from those emotional voices that yell you're not good enough because you haven't been on the treadmill for a while. And thus the cycle continues: emotional pain, misuse of food, guilt and anger - all these constantly at war three (or more) times a day.
How does struggling all day make you a better person? How does being skinny make you a better person? Don't buy into the myth your eyes tell you is truth. Relax into self-compassion.
I know this cycle all too well. I was feeling great, eating healthily, and had a great workout schedule. Then, my husband's racing season was over and he was ready to eat and drink, making up for all the denial over the last few months. Undoubtedly, I was ready to support him in those efforts! I got off track and got lost in our daily moments of freedom. It was then that remembered how good it felt unencumbered with weights and measures.
I looked back at the time in my life when I was the most "fit," but I never realized it was also because I was mentally secure. I started my first teaching job, I was my own best friend, and ultimately, I was living an inspired life - painting, writing, singing karaoke weekly. I was free from the concerns of comparing myself with others. I was not "skinny" then. It was only living life this way for almost a year did I wake up one day realizing I was a 2/4 from an 8. (I hate putting those numbers out there because it is tempting to remind ourselves yet again of evaluations/appraisals based on these numbers.) Because I loved my life, I wanted to take care of the body that allowed me to live. Thinking back on it now, it was this type of thinking that got me running more.
However, I got married and moved, and in the process lost track of myself, my needs, my desires, and my will to get on that treadmill. I was confused and lacked will-power I thought. Yet once I read Janet Surrey's article (a psychologist from The Stone Center at Wellesley College), I finally understood what happened:
Pleasing others or giving to others may become more important than learning to listen to oneself. The push toward rigid and controlled dieting, as well as meeting culturally defined standards, may be an important factor in this critical loss of self...Being "good" means staying on the diet. Being "bad" means violating the diet. Thus, in a more general sense, self-esteem becomes bound up in controlling one's appetites, instincts, and needs. A sense of effectiveness or agency becomes related to control over one's eating, which then becomes an important index of overall self-esteem...Effectiveness comes to represent the ability to control oneself rather than EXPRESS oneself... When there is no emphasis on balancing this control with the expression of needs, however, the situation becomes tilted in an unhealthy direction...In this model, the whole arena for the development of a healthy awareness and expression of one's own needs becomes DIMINISHED AND DISSOCIATED, leading to unrealistic and confusing self-images and an inability to express one's needs openly and clearly.Indeed, in today's world, our agency can get lost amidst those loud voices telling us we are only good if we can manage to be in control all the time. Where are these voices coming from? How many times are we reminded to control our kitchens from bacteria or control our bodies with a new diet or control our sadness with prescription drugs? While there may be level of autonomy offered as in you can choose which cleaning product to buy or what level of food program you will participate in or which particular drug might be work the best for you, we are always stuck people pleasing (or pleasing that critical voice in your head), playing it safe, or trying to eat or buy our way out of this confusion. How many times are we caught with indecision between what we think we want and what we should do? Add pressure (buy now before the germs invade, do this and you'll be skinny tomorrow, take a pill to make it all go away immediately) to that mix, and we have no idea what our true selves really want. Are we inadvertently adopting this type of thinking in our relationships with food/exercise? Where does our voice fit in? No wonder we are confused!
What if we stepped out of this duality of self-control=self-esteem/freedom=self-loathing and worked within the paradigm of self-compassion?
Today, after two weeks of trying to (in reality more like two years), I got up, did my morning journaling, and got on the treadmill before I did or took care of anyone else. I've been wanting to make these two events part of my morning routine forever. Every day leading up to today instead of berating myself for not doing it, I noticed all the little things that were part of building up this habit, such as waking up earlier, learning how different stretches made my body feel, emotionally telling myself the dogs can wait another hour before going outside so, mentally, I was telling myself it was ok to have needs too. I encouraged myself just to do what I could and not anything more. Each one of those days leading up to today, I might not have set foot on the treadmill, but I was getting one step closer to doing it. I wrote about all these feelings too. By doing that, I got in touch with parts of my soul that I hadn't been in touch with in a very long time, especially how I unknowingly adopted a self-hate tape that runs on repeat.
I didn't demand perfection. I just did what I could. I didn't demand I run for an hour. I just did what I could. I didn't demand my body be skinnier. I am just doing what I can. It is only when we love ourselves do we allow our true self to emerge and our sense of power springs forth naturally.
I found out that once I tried to take the pressure off and have some self-compassion, it was those negative controls - those mean voices, the judgments, the guilt- that block us from our happiness and, consequently, our success. My motivation to run is no longer such a battle.
Take care of the body that allows you to live this powerful life. Be grateful of your happy self. Make your soul blossom. Your body will follow. Only weeds bloom from all those words of hate, disgust, anger, deficiency we tell ourselves.
It's not, "If I jog, I will be a better person"; it's, "I am a beautiful person who loves my body so much that I want to take care of it."
